Official ATI 4870 X2 reviews thread.

[sourthings]

Originally posted by: 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

I can't comment as to the reasons why only 4xaa is used in many of the reviews, but from personal experience with my x2. Unless you're playing Crysis, every game should be run with 8xaa and many with 16xaa. This card is a beast.

Unless you game at 1920x1200 or better though, you are better off getting a 4870.

 

[Tempered81]

dp

 

[KIAman]

I understand what they were "tying" to accomplish on this graph http://www.neoseeker.com/Artic...eviews/hd4870x2/8.html but wow, does this method of benchmarking suck.

 

[bryanW1995]

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

nvidia "recommends" only 4xAA, probably because their cards (esp g92) completely suck at 8xAA +.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: 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

no, that won't work. x48 is still lga 775, bloomfield is the all-new performance/enthusiast tri-channel ddr-3 only version for nehalem. wait until nehalem comes out, should be before xmas, and you won't have to worry about being cpu limited on a tri/quad xfire 4870 rig.

 

[thilanliyan]

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!

Lol too true...my current Palit 8800GT was bought in January for about $240 CAD with taxes...I doubt I can even get $100 for it now so I'm just gonna keep it for possible PhysX duties. Definitely the fastest depreciating card for me as well.

 

[dennilfloss]

Think that's bad? I can't find someone to buy my 1900XTX for $90 and the games that came with it are unused. Paid over $670 for it just two years ago.

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: dennilfloss
Think that's bad? I can't find someone to buy my 1900XTX for $90 and the games that came with it are unused. Paid over $670 for it just two years ago.

ammm ;( sorry man , i would buy it but i can get a ATI 3850 for $90 or $60 after MIR and it also comes with a 3rd party cooler. Company of heroes and Alone in the Dark too : )

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814121219

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: jaredpace

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.

nobody has ever played crysis on very high at 2560 at 35-40 fps with NO AA, much less 16xAA 16xAF.

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: 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

Well is not too much considering that you will get twice the amount of VRAM, and in a review which the reviewer disabled one GPU in the device manager to make it run as a single GPU, showed that the HD 4870 benefits greatly of the additional amount of VRAM (1GB of VRAM), it was able to keep up or outperfom the GTX 280 in many gaming scenarios, much closer that I though it could be, that would explain this; Why if a single HD 4870 cannot outperform a single GTX 280, then why an HD 4870X2 can outperform an GTX 280 in SLI? Feel free to state a different conclusion...

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: thilan29

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!

Lol too true...my current Palit 8800GT was bought in January for about $240 CAD with taxes...I doubt I can even get $100 for it now so I'm just gonna keep it for possible PhysX duties. Definitely the fastest depreciating card for me as well.

Same here, but I've got an EVGA version. The 8800GT was a breakthru piece of gear in it's time (as if it's that old!!!) but at 19x12 and up, it runs out of gas fairly quickly with eye candy turned on.

I'll be putting my 8800GT in my secondary box and maybe sell the 7900GTO that's in there now...but for the $40 I'd probably get for it, I might as well keep it.

BTW: I cracked and bought a 4870X2. Yeah, I know it'll be $100 less in a month, but I just couldn't resist. First time I've ever bought a top of the line card. I'm calling it a late birthday present to myself.

My wife will call it "busted into a million pieces over your head" if she finds out.

 

[Cookie Monster]

She will "think" you bought a integrated home heating system and thank you for it.

Til she finds the video card package that is.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
She will "think" you bought a integrated home heating system and thank you for it.

Til she finds the video card package that is.

Or the receipt.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

Originally posted by: 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

no, that won't work. x48 is still lga 775, bloomfield is the all-new performance/enthusiast tri-channel ddr-3 only version for nehalem. wait until nehalem comes out, should be before xmas, and you won't have to worry about being cpu limited on a tri/quad xfire 4870 rig.

Oh, Nehalem .. which means when translated .. "expensive as hell"

i want a Pre-xmas present

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: 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

Well I still think a benefit of the X2 is the 1GB of VRAM, which could come in handy even at 1920 with AA. There were some reports of performance tanking on the 512MB parts after some time, most likely to frame buffer problems. Could be fixed in a driver possibly, but more RAM would still be a better solution overall. Another option would be to side-step to a 1GB 4870 when they show up for a little bit more + the hassle of shipping/selling etc.

The cash back deal has been going on for a bit over 2 months now, not sure how long its going to continue as it has come back from the dead more than a few times. Its been pretty consistent at 25% though. Looks like people are starting to get paid as well after the initial 60 day wait period, I should get mine in a few days.

Originally posted by: Hunt3rj2
Are you retarded? Being able to have extremely high anti-aliasing and better image quality without sacrificing any performance is great. Even if crossfire doesn't scale at ALL in a game you still get GTX 260 performance, which is quite respectable. Crossfire is a bit more hit or miss with scaling but at least it scales very well. Even the 9800 GX2 doesn't scale consistently. Also about microstutter. You have to realize that it is NOT such a big issue, as now the timing of the frames has been significantly improved in the 48xx series. Even if the amount of microstutter was 100 percent and present in all frames, if the game was running at 60 FPS average it'd be seen at 30 FPS, which is already very smooth and enjoyable. Crysis does not count as a game and no one plays it for anything but graphics. Microstutter is always present in all games, because even the monitor can cause a bit of microstutter. Just make sure the game doesn't dip below 60 fps. Most people cannot even perceive microstutter, it only appears as a slower frame rate.

Yes, I'm retarded because I'm not going to pay more or deal with the hassles of multi-GPU for slightly better IQ if I'm getting playable framerates otherwise. Seems there's quite a few others who feel the same way. The issues you brought up only start to scratch the surface and while they may not exhibit themselves in an avg. FPS chart, they are most likely to pop up when you need performance the most.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: evolucion8
Well is not too much considering that you will get twice the amount of VRAM, and in a review which the reviewer disabled one GPU in the device manager to make it run as a single GPU, showed that the HD 4870 benefits greatly of the additional amount of VRAM (1GB of VRAM), it was able to keep up or outperfom the GTX 280 in many gaming scenarios, much closer that I though it could be, that would explain this; Why if a single HD 4870 cannot outperform a single GTX 280, then why an HD 4870X2 can outperform an GTX 280 in SLI? Feel free to state a different conclusion...

Do you have a link to that review? I'd be interested to see where a 1GB 4870 benefitted from additional RAM and was able to surpass the GTX 280.

As to why 4870X2 can outperform GTX 280 SLI, the explanation is simple, GT200 SLI does not currently scale as well as RV770 or even G80/G92. Why that's the case may be due to many factors like CPU bottlenecking, drivers, greater penalties with AA etc, but to come to the conclusion that a 4870 with 1GB outperforms a GTX 280 based on CF/SLI scaling is clearly a backward assumption.

 

[apoppin]

Drivers still seem to be an issue with 4870 and Crysis. There is a lot of weirdness going on while changing settings - so i doubt 512MB vRAM is much of a limitation at 19x12.

i am still "on hold" trying to decide what to do. i really do not want to wait for Nehelem and the new [expensive DDR3 only MBs].

- a 4870x2 would give me great performance and give me a chance to play with CrossfireX3 using my current 4870 in my bandwidth-limited 2nd 4x PCIe slot
- a CPU/MB upgrade would then give me much greater performance and i could then decide what to do with my 4870


a clear path is cloudy for me right now....

i cannot seem to find the 25% cash back working today. Only much lesser amounts =P

 

[Tempered81]

sell the 4870, apoppin. When you x3, you're limited to 512mb crossfire performance at about the same rates as two 4870 512's in x-fire. also you've got a 4x pci-e secondary

I almost think the r700 by itself would be faster than an X3 setup. Should have jumped yesterday, 25% was there for the last 2 days - $419 AR

 

[Creig]

25% MS Cashback is still showing for me.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: apoppin
Drivers still seem to be an issue with 4870 and Crysis. There is a lot of weirdness going on while changing settings - so i doubt 512MB vRAM is much of a limitation at 19x12.

i am still "on hold" trying to decide what to do. i really do not want to wait for Nehelem and the new [expensive DDR3 only MBs].

- a 4870x2 would give me great performance and give me a chance to play with CrossfireX3 using my current 4870 in my bandwidth-limited 2nd 4x PCIe slot
- a CPU/MB upgrade would then give me much greater performance and i could then decide what to do with my 4870


a clear path is cloudy for me right now....

i cannot seem to find the 25% cash back working today. Only much lesser amounts =P

Well I'd say if you were to make a move to an X2, now would be the time before the 1GB models hit. Once that happens there may be a lot of others trying to unload 512MB 4870s and dropping price/demand on them.

As others said, running a 4870 in that 4x slot is a bad idea. You will also be limited to that 512MB frame buffer. There's some reviews around with 4870X3 and even 4870X2+4850 but they do clearly show performance is limited to the weakest part.

The mobo/CPU situation is a bit tougher. P45 has been an awesome chipset for me and will probably be the epitome of LGA775 performance and stability. Its still limited to x8/x8 in CF but its PCIE 2.0. There's the X48 I know, but I've read more than a few reports the P45 is more stable. I personally hated having to spend more on this dead socket so close to Nehalem's release, but I'm glad I did as the increased performance and stability have been well worth it.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: apoppin
Drivers still seem to be an issue with 4870 and Crysis. There is a lot of weirdness going on while changing settings - so i doubt 512MB vRAM is much of a limitation at 19x12.

i am still "on hold" trying to decide what to do. i really do not want to wait for Nehelem and the new [expensive DDR3 only MBs].

- a 4870x2 would give me great performance and give me a chance to play with CrossfireX3 using my current 4870 in my bandwidth-limited 2nd 4x PCIe slot
- a CPU/MB upgrade would then give me much greater performance and i could then decide what to do with my 4870


a clear path is cloudy for me right now....

i cannot seem to find the 25% cash back working today. Only much lesser amounts =P

Well I'd say if you were to make a move to an X2, now would be the time before the 1GB models hit. Once that happens there may be a lot of others trying to unload 512MB 4870s and dropping price/demand on them.

As others said, running a 4870 in that 4x slot is a bad idea. You will also be limited to that 512MB frame buffer. There's some reviews around with 4870X3 and even 4870X2+4850 but they do clearly show performance is limited to the weakest part.

The mobo/CPU situation is a bit tougher. P45 has been an awesome chipset for me and will probably be the epitome of LGA775 performance and stability. Its still limited to x8/x8 in CF but its PCIE 2.0. There's the X48 I know, but I've read more than a few reports the P45 is more stable. I personally hated having to spend more on this dead socket so close to Nehalem's release, but I'm glad I did as the increased performance and stability have been well worth it.

When you speak of "performance is limited to the weakest part" - that is partly true. "Worst case" seems to be losing ~20% over a perfect 16x + 16x 2.0 PCIe setup; still a FPS *monster*

when you say "dead socket" for x48 - what i want, i think; i'd expect to still be "high end" for another year as Nehelem gets ITS own kinks worked out.

At any rate, IF i *could* find a cheap 4870x2, i think i'd jump on it NOW and "see" what i get, performance-wise. THEN i would have a very clear upgrade path

thanks for the thoughts and suggestions .. it is tough to decide right now

BtW, i am going to Nvision in 10 days .. i do know the way to San Jose
- and i have "reservations" ... i think i better rent a car, though.

 

[solofly]

I changed my mind about the 4870X2 and went with Tri HD4850 instead. With my future plans which involves Intel X58 chipset I may end with a faster setup after all. It's all up to ATI's driver team of course...

 

[MichaelD]

Speaking of drivers: By the time my X2 gets here, the 8.8 Cats should be out. Here's hoping they got it right! :beer:

 

[Hauk]

Add ZZF to the list of vendors that has them..

Palit in stock for $549

 

[Hauk]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
Speaking of drivers: By the time my X2 gets here, the 8.8 Cats should be out. Here's hoping they got it right! :beer:

Mine arrives today, 8.7 is gonna have to do. Oh well, at least I'll be able to do a comparison..