How do CF 4850s stand today?

[VirtualLarry]

Just wondering. How do CF 4850s compare to modern cards, for 1920x1200 gaming? My cards are 512MB, so that might limit them a bit.

I don't really care for DX11 at this point.

 

[toyota]

its your system so cant you make that determination for yourself? that being said 512mb certainly doesnt cut it in several games at 1920 for the settings that a 4850 crossfire setup is capable of using.

 

[v8envy]

What toyota said. It'll benchmark very well, right up there with a 5850. But texture swapping will cause it to stutter in situations where you need that much GPU firepower, and some games simply won't let you enable the higher settings.

It's massive overkill for games which don't require a CF solution, but not enough for games that do.

 

[VirtualLarry]

So it's a poor choice? I never actually got my CF rig put together, that's why I'm asking. I have one opened 4850 that's in one of my dual-cores, and I have three more, still new in their boxes.

Unfortunately, I paid $150+tax on each one. (Bought them at BestBuy on sale when they first came out. At that time, it was a deal, because MSRP was $200.)

 

[toyota]

So it's a poor choice? I never actually got my CF rig put together, that's why I'm asking. I have one opened 4850 that's in one of my dual-cores, and I have three more, still new in their boxes.

Unfortunately, I paid $150+tax on each one. (Bought them at BestBuy on sale when they first came out. At that time, it was a deal, because MSRP was $200.)

thats why you dont usually buy pc parts until you are ready to use them. so either you can sell them and lose some money or use them and not get a very good experience in many games at the settings you would like to use. personally I would just sell them and then go from there.

 

[v8envy]

Worse yet, what if the cards are DOA? Warranty should be up or nearly up on them by now.

It's certainly not a bad way to fly, but definitely not something to prefer over an e.g. 5850 or possibly even a 1g 4890 today. Up until the 58xx that was the best bang/buck setup possible. Too bad they're not the 1G variety though, that would still be kicking major butt.

 

[Schmide]

its your system so cant you make that determination for yourself? that being said 512mb certainly doesnt cut it in several games at 1920 for the settings that a 4850 crossfire setup is capable of using.

Actually the 512mb has less effect at 1920x1200 in crossfire than it would as a single card, to say it doesn't cut it is well not exactly accurate. I don't know if this is because ATI crossfire uses Top/bottom half screen rendering or whatever? If you think about it, if this is the case, it's actually rendering at 1920x600 which has the memory requirements of 1280x900. Check out the 4870 512mb performance here.


(clickable)


I run 2 4870s and I've never really seen much slowdown even with aa and ms on.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Worse yet, what if the cards are DOA? Warranty should be up or nearly up on them by now.

VisionTek, lifetime warranty.

Edit: Nice graph. Judging by that, I think I just might keep the CF 4850 for now. I don't really have the money to upgrade anyways, and it looks like CF 4850 is better than a single 4890, although 512MBx2 versus 1GB is probably still a (minor?) issue.

 

[zerocool84]

VisionTek, lifetime warranty.

Life of the company? Life of the product? Most lifetime warranties are usually not truly lifetime.

 

[v8envy]

The 4850x2 was a '2 gigabyte' memory product, which is to say two 4850 1GB. Since the 4850 CF outperforms it I'm guessing either that title is not memory constrained, or the 4850 in that chart is also a 1GB version.

ATI does SFR in Crysis? How interesting. Last I saw both ATI and NV did AFR, which would not cut down on memory requirements at all.

After checking video card prices (which are UP UP UP and away) I can say without a doubt that using 4850x2 in CF, even the 512 meg versions, is about as good a bang/buck as it gets. The few games with settings requiring 1GB can be deferred until Future.

 

[toyota]

The 4850x2 was a '2 gigabyte' memory product, which is to say two 4850 1GB. Since the 4850 CF outperforms it I'm guessing either that title is not memory constrained, or the 4850 in that chart is also a 1GB version.

ATI does SFR in Crysis? How interesting. Last I saw both ATI and NV did AFR, which would not cut down on memory requirements at all.

After checking video card prices (which are UP UP UP and away) I can say without a doubt that using 4850x2 in CF, even the 512 meg versions, is about as good a bang/buck as it gets. The few games with settings requiring 1GB can be deferred until Future.

maybe I am misunderstanding you but there was a 4850x2 1gb card too. at 1920, 512mb is certainly not enough for plenty of newer games.

 

[drew726]

I mean, are we talking about max settings or what? I play 1920x1200 with 4830x2 on medium settings in BC2 Beta. It's not unplayable. I don't know how there can be any game right now that is unplayable with two 4850's. When you say something "simply isn't good enough" do you mean under 50 fps?

 

[Schmide]

maybe I am misunderstanding you but there was a 4850x2 1gb card too. at 1920, 512mb is certainly not enough for plenty of newer games.

What games are you talking about? I have 2 512mb 4870s and I haven't found a game that slows them down (1920x1200). At the very worst with one 512mb card will get you a few FPS lower than the 1gig card. If you're going to make such a broad statement, it would help to give a bit more information.

 

[Rhoxed]

hmm... my 3x 4850's (512MB) run everything under the sun at 1920x1080 (or atleast every game i have tried) most you can also max out AA/AF (exceptions being crysis etc.)

check out these 512MB benches (from single 4850 512 to triple 4850 512)

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=322653&highlight=triple+crossfire+scaling

 

[Dribble]

Biggest problem is going to be driver support. After the 4 series came out xfire support for the 3 series went to pot. As much as ati has improved it's drivers from the bad old days, when it comes to previous generation xfire support it sucks.

 

[soccerballtux]

Biggest problem is going to be driver support. After the 4 series came out xfire support for the 3 series went to pot. As much as ati has improved it's drivers from the bad old days, when it comes to previous generation xfire support it sucks.

nobody bought a 3 series anyways...8800GT was a solidly better deal.

 

[Dribble]

nobody bought a 3 series anyways...8800GT was a solidly better deal.

/me knew 3 people with 3870's in xfire.

For the money they were a sound investment as long as xfire worked, which it did ok at first, but after the 4 series came out it went rapidly down hill. I almost bought 2*3850's, was very glad I didn't in the end. I too just got an 8800GT, which was a wise move cause it always just worked - not as fast as the xfire setup would have been some times, but imo a single card set-up with a very common card like that is supported better and hence more reliable.

 

[MarcVenice]

ATI doesn't use SFR in any game.

Two HD 4850's solidly outperform a GTX 285, and will sit between a GTX 285 and a HD 5850. SHould be fine for a while ...

 

[vj8usa]

What games are you talking about? I have 2 512mb 4870s and I haven't found a game that slows them down (1920x1200). At the very worst with one 512mb card will get you a few FPS lower than the 1gig card. If you're going to make such a broad statement, it would help to give a bit more information.

I've run into several games where my 4850 has enough horsepower to get high framerates, but its 512MB of VRAM causes stuttering. This is with a single 4850 at only 1680x1050. Crossfire + a higher resolution would make the problem worse (way more horsepower than VRAM for some games). Some examples off the top of my head are Crysis, HAWX, Mass Effect 1/2, Fallout 3, and Anno 1404 (aka Dawn of Discovery). Mass Effect only stutters in a few areas so I kept my settings (4xAA), but in other games (like Fallout 3, HAWX, and Anno 1404) the stuttering happened constantly until I turned AA off.

 

[bigsnyder]

Keep the AA settings lean and the 512MB vram shouldn't be much of a problem for 90% of the games out there. Since many of the newest PC games are consoles ports, the requirements to run the newest stuff have not been as stringent as it was in the past. Of course there are always exceptions.

 

[soccerballtux]

/me knew 3 people with 3870's in xfire.

For the money they were a sound investment as long as xfire worked, which it did ok at first, but after the 4 series came out it went rapidly down hill. I almost bought 2*3850's, was very glad I didn't in the end. I too just got an 8800GT, which was a wise move cause it always just worked - not as fast as the xfire setup would have been some times, but imo a single card set-up with a very common card like that is supported better and hence more reliable.

So does that mean Crossfire just doesn't work anymore?
3 people with 3870's is pretty good, I never saw anybody here that had them :/

 

[Rhoxed]

So does that mean Crossfire just doesn't work anymore?
3 people with 3870's is pretty good, I never saw anybody here that had them :/

<--- me haha


i have triple x-fire 3870 in my girlfriends computer 2nd in my sig (2x 3870 ATM, friend borrowing one while his card on RMA)

actually performs quite well still... around 4850 512mb x-fire, maybe a bit faster, and I RARELY have problems with games in x-fire.... 98&#37; of the time if it works on my 4850's it works on the 3870's

 

[soccerballtux]

So does that mean Crossfire just doesn't work anymore?
3 people with 3870's is pretty good, I never saw anybody here that had them :/

<--- me haha


i have triple x-fire 3870 in my girlfriends computer 2nd in my sig (2x 3870 ATM, friend borrowing one while his card on RMA)

actually performs quite well still... around 4850 512mb x-fire, maybe a bit faster, and I RARELY have problems with games in x-fire.... 98% of the time if it works on my 4850's it works on the 3870's

Cool, glad I went to my current rig (crossfire). I couldn't do x3 but I'll be able to do x2. If I get a 5870 or 6870 I'll be good for...ever....