4870x2 HardOCP Preview - taking the fluff out of reviewing t -.- t

[ovaltineplease]

Finally there is a review that will show what the r700 is capable of in a good light and a non cpu bottlenecked state.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUzMSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

I direct you specifically to the 24xCSAA with ADAA enabled to show you what this card is truly capable of:

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUzMSw4LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Age of Conan 2560*1600, 8xADAA - 4870x2 Crossfired:

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTIxNTk3NjMwNHdjT0psaWNvM3pfOF8xMF9sLnBuZw==

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Any X2 card, or sli cf setup with these latest cards will be cpu bottlenecked. I almost like [H] way of doing reviews, it is different, and brings a few insightful things

 

[royalcrown]

hey guys, I have a hardly used 8800 gts 512 with original box for only 500.00....it was only used on sundays by a little old man to play bingo !

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

LOL, trade ya straight up for a slightly used GTS320....PLUS Ill throw in a slightly used 1900xt512mb

 

[ovaltineplease]

i'd trade you my 9800 pro.. but i don't have another agp card for my athlonxp box >_>

 

[ausch30]

Nice performance and with pre-release drivers so it should be very interesting soon. I am running a single 8800GT @ 1920x1200 and I can play all my games maxed except Crysis and still neither of these setups even SLI and Crossfire can do that so I think I might have to wait for the next generation to upgrade.

 

[ovaltineplease]

I have doubts that release drivers are going to catapult it any further than it is, but the performance is good to say the least. A release driver might bump up Crysis performance though, seeing as they are communicating through an onboard XF bridge.

On most dual gpu setups with mature drivers (AMD or Nvidia), the scaling for Crysis is about 50% of the framerate of a single gpu; so I would say there will be some improvement there.

 

[mathiasschnell]

O.O

Wow... just... wow...

 

[ausch30]

I have doubts that release drivers are going to catapult it any further than it is, but the performance is good to say the least. A release driver might bump up Crysis performance though, seeing as they are communicating through an onboard XF bridge.

On most dual gpu setups with mature drivers (AMD or Nvidia), the scaling for Crysis is about 50% of the framerate of a single gpu; so I would say there will be some improvement there.

I don't think release drivers will make a night and day difference but they should certainly improve the scaling in Crysis where the performance of 2 cards was actually worse.

 

[ovaltineplease]

O.O

Wow... just... wow...

Yea, and you criticized me for calling a test on a 3.2 ghz cpu a fluff test

Now do you understand how much a higher clocked CPU can show the potential of a gpu?

Anyways..

 

[cah027]

Just think. All of these benchmarks will have to be re-ran when Nehalem is out.

 

[ovaltineplease]

Nah, by the time Nehalem is out we'll have a whole new suite of games to bench on...

Far Cry2 and Stalker : Clear Sky being the two most anticipated for next gen graphics.

 

[ausch30]

Yea, and you criticized me for calling a test on a 3.2 ghz cpu a fluff test

Now do you understand how much a higher clocked CPU can show the potential of a gpu?

Anyways..

It was only at 3.6 though, I bet you can spend half the money on a Q9550 and get the same performance.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

All the cpu "experts" criticised me for saying this a few months ago, that common cpus will bottleneck this gen of gfx cards, makes me wonder if they arent all caught up in a bunch of hype. Like more cores? Whats funny is, gpus are the parallel processors heheh

 

[ovaltineplease]

It was only at 3.6 though, I bet you can spend half the money on a Q9550 and get the same performance.

Or buy a C2D and clock it to 4.0ghz for even less for the same performance in these titles

But really, there is a pretty markable difference between 3.2 and 3.6 on a quad core as far as eliminating cpu issues goes, especially in titles like Crysis and AoC that will actually use the helper threads when possible~

 

[ausch30]

Or buy a C2D and clock it to 4.0ghz for even less for the same performance in these titles

That's why I decided to go with the E8400 when everyone was saying Q6600. I'm going to build a new system when Nehalem comes out though, I don't think I'll be able to resist.

 

[royalcrown]

Me either...posting to test my new sig !

nehalem unless propus is the sh^^...but i doubt it.

 

[ovaltineplease]

That's why I decided to go with the E8400 when everyone was saying Q6600. I'm going to build a new system when Nehalem comes out though, I don't think I'll be able to resist.

hehe, yea; I use an e8400 too, 4.05ghz

I think when Nehalem hits i'll drop in a last gen penryn quad core at that point, whatever is highest on the clock list with a locked multiplier; should be pretty cheap by then.

I think i'll wait to adopt Nehalem, prolly gonna be too expensive and I like to tweak for my dollar value

 

[royalcrown]

re-test ! stupid forum !

 

[cah027]

re-test ! stupid forum !

Who me?

 

[ausch30]

re-test ! stupid forum !

What I do is have 2 windows open, 1 with the configuration menu and 1 on a thread I've posted on and after you save your changes reload the other one and look at your post. When you change anything it changes on all the posts you've done not just from that point on.

 

[bdollar]

4870x2 is 2 put together so crossfire is really 4 right? but compared to the 280 in sli so only 2 of them? i assume this is a price thing? because can't you sli 3 of the 280's? but i guess if you can get 4870x2 in crossfire for the price of 2 280's then it is a valid comparison. for people who are trying to eek out every bit of performance it would be interesting to see a comparison of the best available. so max 280's vs max 4870's. just a thought.

 

[xsamitt]

Wondering Just how fast a processor we would need in order for the cpu not to be the bottle neck in demanding titles?

 

[spathotan]

Very nice performance with Age of Conan. My 4870 at 780/1065 gets about 55fps with all shadows on high, bloom, 8xMSAA, 16AF, all settings maxed on 1650 x 1080 in that same zone (Old Tarantia), 200+ indoors . I cant complain one bit. Although my Q6600 MIIIIIGHT be holding it back, its OC'ed to 3.0, Im gonna push it higher once I put my AC7 on it and ditch this faulty Xigmatek. Im idling at 50c right now...

The 4870 X2 was obviously built for max settings at extremely high resolutions, something nothing else on the market can do under $1000 basically. I say it wins despite the poor drivers, mass heat and ear drum blowing noise.

 

[ausch30]

4870x2 is 2 put together so crossfire is really 4 right? but compared to the 280 in sli so only 2 of them? i assume this is a price thing? because can't you sli 3 of the 280's? but i guess if you can get 4870x2 in crossfire for the price of 2 280's then it is a valid comparison. for people who are trying to eek out every bit of performance it would be interesting to see a comparison of the best available. so max 280's vs max 4870's. just a thought.

You are correct it is 2 GPU's against 4 GPU's which is part of the reason for the poor scaling. 1 4870 is about 10-15% behind a GTX280 and you see that the X2 which is 2 GPU's doesn't produce double the performance. As the number of GPU's increase the performance gained decreases so don't expect 3x GTX280 to give 3x the performance.