Official ATI 4870 X2 reviews thread.

[Hauk]

Originally posted by: mrmessyhair
Wow I'm definitely taking advantage of 25% off through ebay.

What is this deal you speak of??

nm, I found it. Ooh, I gotta try this..

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: SteelSix

Originally posted by: mrmessyhair
Wow I'm definitely taking advantage of 25% off through ebay.

What is this deal you speak of??

nm, I found it. Ooh, I gotta try this..

Can you hook me up with a link or something, please? PM?

 

[Hauk]

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: SteelSix

Originally posted by: mrmessyhair
Wow I'm definitely taking advantage of 25% off through ebay.

What is this deal you speak of??

nm, I found it. Ooh, I gotta try this..

Can you hook me up with a link or something, please? PM?

I can't get it to work, and their site just went down. Supposed to go to www.live.com, click on cashback, then search for your product.

 

[MegaWorks]

I sold one of my HD3870s now the question is should I keep the other 3870 or get this card? I game at 1680x1050 everything max!

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: MegaWorks
I sold one of my HD3870s now the question is should I keep the other 3870 or get this card? I game at 1680x1050 everything max!

Well 2 3870's are approximately one 4870....and this is better than two 4870's so....you do the math

 

[sourthings]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: SteelSix
Ah screw it, I'm gonna pick one up. Wouldn't be the first time I've paid >$500 for a graphics card.

I like your style.

I think I might grab one of these myself, but I'm going to wait a week or two before making my final decision. First, I want to see how people like theirs, and second maybe (just maybe) they'll drop in price a tad after the initial rush.

Good news is we should see 40+ of these based on that poll we had a while back. But then you'll actually have to filter the user feedback as well....chewing up Crysis Very High @ 1920 with 4xAA ya......at 17FPS?

Originally posted by: Hunt3rj2
I don't know anyone who wouldn't like to use AA on their games, especially at lower resolutions where aliasing is more likely to happen, so ATI wins there, Chizow. I don't know what you think, but 4870 CF on a single PCB works for people who have nvidia motherboards. I personally think the real problem with any CF/SLI/X2 setup is that the performance gains need drivers with game profiles to achieve that. It should appear as 1 card/GPU to the drivers, so ideally there needs to be a scheduling device to direct which frames each GPU should render, and the RAM needs to also be shared so that both GPUs can access it without needing to have 2 copies and the GPUs working on their own.

No doubt AA is great, but is it worth it for 8xAA instead of 4xAA or 16xQ? Or worth it for 2x the money for a bit more AA? Or worth it to deal with the potential problems with multi-GPU for a bit more AA?

yeah, I have to question sourthings postings when he claims to be "chewing up" crysis at 19x12, very high, and 4xAA...

I should qualify that statement, I had not changed my Crysis settings from previous. Which is Crysis in 64 bit under vista x64 in -DX9- with 4xaa and the very high mod configs. Getting a steady 35-40fps or so with these settings. Rest of my rig consists of a q6600 @ 3.8 and 4gb of ballistix @ 840, this is on a dq6 motherboard.

After I saw your post and realized that I was still set up that way, I also use the natural mod for Crysis btw, I went back and removed the -dx9 variable and ran it in true dx10 with 4xaa. Running the timedemo gives 20fps at those settings.

In Cod4 @ 1920x1200, everything up and 8xaa I get 100fps. Which makes me want a 30" since I am capped at 60. This card is really meant for a 30" monitor, it's just that powerful. I haven't had time to play some of the other demanding games I play other than Crysis, only had enough time to change drivers install the card and play a few games quickly.

I let my subscription to Age of Conan run out as the game is crap imo, or I'd run some benches on that. I think my girlfriends subscription is still active though, so I'll bench it later today.

Needless to say, this card is a monster. Apart from Crysis, there is nothing this card is not maxing with 8x, and usually 16xaa.

I managed to pick one up here in Toronto for $550, even with the exchange actually favoring the US dollar by about 6 cents lately.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: chizow
It performs pretty much as expected, 4870CF on a single card. What was interesting was how the X2 still seemed to trade wins with the 4870CF. I suppose it could be the shared x16 slot vs. 1GB buffer balancing each other out, but it seemed the differences were in favor of the X2 in situations where frame buffer caused performance to tank on the 512MB parts. It certainly would be the card to own at 2560, but for anything else it looks like we'll probably need more intensive games or faster CPUs before it justifies its price over slower solutions. In the meantime, you'll get a lot of "free AA", whether or not that's worth the premium is up to you.

i am not sure what to do. i "only" game at 19x12 , so another 4870 might be enough for me

BUT ,, IF i run a 2nd 4870, my P35's 4x [2nd] Slot is gonna hold back the performance like 20% if some reviews are to believed. So i would also need to by a x48 Intel MB [$250]

IF i get a 4870x2, it will not be held back much by the PCIe1.0 [x16 slot] BUT i will have an "extra" 4870/512MB to stick in the 4x slot .. for who knows what "extra" performance it will give

i am looking for suggestions. A CPU upgrade to Quad is in order after i try to find my e4300's Max OC [probably ~3.5Ghz]. Not sure what reasonably priced QC pretty routinely hits 4Ghz either



wait might be my best option

just keep the 1x4870 for now. get a crossfire mobo when bloomfield comes out.

That is what i thought ... wait=P

When is Bloomfield due [x48 MB?]? i could also pick up a 4870x2 to play with it now and upgrade my MB later
- that would give me a lot of comparisons of PCIe 1.0 vs 2.0 and the 2nd slot of 4xPCIe x4 vs PCIe x16.

is that ebay cash back going to last a while? There doesn't seem to be a great supply of 4870x2 like there was with 4870

 

[NullSubroutine]

I will be doing comparison with 4870X2 on the penalty of PCIe at x1,4,8,16 on 2.0 when I receive my parts on Friday should have it up either Saturday/Sunday.

 

[Hauk]

Best Buy's website is taking pre-orders for the VistionTek model, $549.00. Est ship time by 08/20/08. The kicker is sales tax.

In any case, a VisionTek model is on the way!

 

[VashHT]

I'm so tempted to blow my stimulus check on this card. Would it be worthwhile to move up to from a 8800gts 512? Is it really worth it to use this card for 1920x1080?

 

[Nathelion]

1920x1080? that's a resolution I haven't heard of before.

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: dennilfloss

Originally posted by: woolfe9999

Originally posted by: sourthings

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
After looking at all of the benchs, Toms, etc.....I am getting less and less impressed. I know this is AT and everyone has 42inch LCD's, but to the mere mortals in the rest of the world, im not sure it justifies $560.

Hell, my card on my monitor/rez is massive overkill as well, so I guess I cant blame people.

It's the best card in the world. It comes at a premium, the 8800gtx held that title for over a year and stayed at the $500-$600 price point the entire time. What's not to get ?

For people who want the very best, this is the card to buy.

Just installed mine and it's chewing up crysis at 1920x1200 very high with 4xaa. Granted the framerate I'm getting in CoD4 with it is making me wish I had a 30" monitor to really use it. Because at 1920x1200, I'm hard pressed to find any settings that are making the game unplayable. :beer:

It's worth mentioning that while you always pay a premium for the fastest performing card out there, this one is a bargain in price/performance compared to previous generation equivalents. For example, the 8800gts ultra cost $650 and was nowhere near the improvement over an 8800 gts 320 as the 4870x2 is over the 4870.

- woolfe

Yup. I paid $673 for my 1900XTX when it came out just two years ago.

lol people paid $750 for a 7800GTX 512MB in December of 2005 and was replaced with the 7900 series in early 2006.

7800 = late July
X1800 = December
7800GTX 512 = December
X1900 = late Jan
... ect

GPU warfare advancement makes the CPU kingdom look positively static :!

Now If AMD goes out of business and if ATI goes down with it... it will be sad day as the advancement of gpu will go into advancement of cpu cycle

 

[VashHT]

Originally posted by: Nathelion
1920x1080? that's a resolution I haven't heard of before.

I play on a 37" TV, 1920x1080 is the standard 1080p resolution.

 

[Hauk]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

..Now If AMD goes out of business and if ATI goes down with it... it will be sad day as the advancement of gpu will go into advancement of cpu cycle

A sad day for driver updates too I imagine!

I look at it long term because I resell on ebay. Call me paranoid, but this is a variable concerning me...

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: SteelSix

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

..Now If AMD goes out of business and if ATI goes down with it... it will be sad day as the advancement of gpu will go into advancement of cpu cycle

A sad day for driver updates too I imagine!

I look at it long term because I resell on ebay. Call me paranoid, but this is a variable concerning me...

Well the driver updating became more important as years went on because developer like 2TK Australia didn't bother to any real ATI testing... so when people play bioshock found a show stopper bug, a question came into gamer minds how did this game pass QA. Then with some investigation, the idiots never tested the game with ATI properly. Who had to clean up the mess... the ATI driver team.

Only few Top developer make sure the game runs on both :
Valve
Epic
ID software
Blizzard
Crytek
and few other...

Now i think game developer duty is to make sure that game is playable from start to end on both Nvidia and ATI offering at that time. They don't need to make sure if its running at full potential of gpu but just that user can play the game no matter if he got ATI or Nvidia.

ATI and Nvidia have both baby spooned so many developer.

 

[RobertR1]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
do any sites have comparisons of pci-e 1.0 vs. 1.1 vs. 2.0, or p35 vs. p45 vs. x38 vs. x48 for the 4870x2?

Good question and is also my concern. I have a q6600 running at 3.2 with 4gb of fast RAM. I do not want to swap mobo's and would like to know also if 1.1 (my P5K deluxe) will get the most out of this card.

 

[RobertR1]

Originally posted by: Nathelion
1920x1080? that's a resolution I haven't heard of before.

That's what 1080p is in TV land.

 

[Hauk]

I caved..

 

[KIAman]

Seems a little quirky to me that so few reviews actually benchmark with more than 4xAA, I wonder why...

 

[Kuzi]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
After looking at all of the benchs, Toms, etc.....I am getting less and less impressed. I know this is AT and everyone has 42inch LCD's, but to the mere mortals in the rest of the world, im not sure it justifies $560.

Hell, my card on my monitor/rez is massive overkill as well, so I guess I cant blame people.

So the 4870X2 @ $560 is not worth it, but your GTX280 that is much slower was worth the $650 price tag many of you guys payed for it a month ago?

The X2 is definitely better than two 4870 in CF, it can work on any motherboard, has twice as much GDDR5 memory, takes up one slot, and costs a bit less. It's a great card, nice to see ATI winning the crown back. But I'm sure NV won't be out for long, they never are.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Originally posted by: KIAman
Seems a little quirky to me that so few reviews actually benchmark with more than 4xAA, I wonder why...

I think we all know why

Besides, no card until now was really capable of doing full 8x AA with a small performance hit, so it will take a while for reviewers to get used to it

Because with this card in some games you could actually go up to 24x just for the hell of it, but no one tried that out, probably because the competition doesnt even have it

Originally posted by: Kuzi

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
After looking at all of the benchs, Toms, etc.....I am getting less and less impressed. I know this is AT and everyone has 42inch LCD's, but to the mere mortals in the rest of the world, im not sure it justifies $560.

Hell, my card on my monitor/rez is massive overkill as well, so I guess I cant blame people.

So the 4870X2 @ $560 is not worth it, but your GTX280 that is much slower was worth the $650 price tag many of you guys payed for it at release?

This is so tastefully ironic

Back when the GTX280 was announced, Ocguy was the very person using those same statements as a reason to buy the GTX

"But its the best card! You have to pay a premium!" and it was WAAAAY overpriced compared to the 4870 X2... Gotta love double standards

Though my opinion is that 550$ is too much, considering 2 4870s go for 500 right now

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986
lol people paid $750 for a 7800GTX 512MB in December of 2005 and was replaced with the 7900 series in early 2006.

7800 = late July
X1800 = December
7800GTX 512 = December
X1900 = late Jan
... ect

GPU warfare advancement makes the CPU kingdom look positively static :!

Now If AMD goes out of business and if ATI goes down with it... it will be sad day as the advancement of gpu will go into advancement of cpu cycle

Ugh. My XFX 512MB G92 8800GT won my personal "Fastest Depreciating Piece of Hardware I've Ever Owned" award. I picked it up in mid-December for $250 and felt LUCKY to be able to get $99 shipped for it a week ago. If you deduct the shipping , I ended up getting about $90 back. That's only 36% of what I originally paid for it seven months ago!

(*sigh*) Oh well, this happens sometimes.

I ended up replacing it with a 4850 as a stop-gap card until the 1GB 4870 and 4850X2 come out. Then the 4850 will go into an HTPC since it has that nice 7.1 audio/video HDMI output. Plus it should have enough muscle to run decent framerates on our 50" Samsung LED DLP. I've never tried gaming on a truly LARGE screen before, so it should be interesting.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: Kuzi

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
After looking at all of the benchs, Toms, etc.....I am getting less and less impressed. I know this is AT and everyone has 42inch LCD's, but to the mere mortals in the rest of the world, im not sure it justifies $560.

Hell, my card on my monitor/rez is massive overkill as well, so I guess I cant blame people.

So the 4870X2 @ $560 is not worth it, but your GTX280 that is much slower was worth the $650 price tag many of you guys payed for it a month ago?

I payed $449 for the SC version, and its worth every penny.


I think you mis-understood my point. I never said the X2 isnt the fastest card overall, I dont think anyone is saying that. But for someone like me who has a 22 inch monitor, the 280 isnt "much slower" than the X2. That is straight from benchmarks, not my opinion. It certainly wouldnt be worth another $110.

 

[KIAman]

Originally posted by: Creig
Ugh. My XFX 512MB G92 8800GT won my personal "Fastest Depreciating Piece of Hardware I've Ever Owned" award. I picked it up in mid-December for $250 and felt LUCKY to be able to get $99 shipped for it a week ago. If you deduct the shipping , I ended up getting about $90 back. That's only 36% of what I originally paid for it seven months ago!

My 8800GTX cost me 400 bux and I ended up selling it for 150 - shipping - 140 = 35% of original price and I only had the card 2 months!

 

[Tempered81]

Yah this card shines best on 24" - 30" monitors with 1920 and greater resolutions with 4x and greater AA levels & maximum filters. If you like to game in this category (and who doesn't) R700 is untouchable. One reviewer was playing crysis veryhigh at 2560 16xAA 16xAF at 35-40 fps. That is something I could get used to. Regarding R700 comparisons:

Let it run head to head against a 6800 Ultra in Quake2 at 640x480 and it could lose. Therefore the 6800 ultra is a better card, and I only paid $140 for it. So there.