HD 4870 CrossFire Review!

[romulus47plus1]

GTX280x2... LOL

 

[Oh Snap]

So when are you buying these G280s?

Once I see 2 4870x2's in CF. I don't care about the best bang for my buck, I want the best bang for my PCIe slot

How's your business going? All this heat must be driving up lemonade sales

 

[romulus47plus1]

The 280 SLI already smokes it.LOL

For the price of how many 4870???

 

[sisley_111]

hey ronka when you leave the lights on in your room, maybe about 100-150 watts from bulb and halogen lamp, does the temps rise?

You're so dumb about temp. The card consume the same as a bulb, do you really think it's going to raise your room's temp as high?

To Oh Snap:
Yes I prefer ATI, but by the last year, I have no choice but to recommend nVidia for gamers, depending of people's budget. Right now, ATI is the way to go. And stupid nVidia fanboy cannot just take it. That's why this kind of post pisses me off.

 

[Ycon]

Since the R600 launch, AMDs one and only answer to EVERYTHING has been "Well release a new driver"...
And did anything happen even once? No.

Face it fanpois, the 4000 series failed to attack nVidias leadership. Not only did it fail, but in some points it makes the 280 even look darn good (temps, noise, power).
Thank god that AMD knew that their cards wouldnt cut it and positioned them as solid midrange products, a concept that does hold true for the 4850, but not for the 4870.

 

[Oh Snap]

For the price of how many 4870???

If you can fit 5+ 4870's into a case, let me know, because this argument runs thin when you've only realistically got 2 or 3 slots to work with.
Consider upgrading in the future. With a GTX280, as outrageously priced as it may be, you've got the option go to 2 or 3x SLI in the future when prices come down, which would last for a very, very long time. You pop a couple 4870's in there, sure you could crossfire them with a 4870x2, but then you've really got 1 and a half cards. Just seems kinda mickey mouse to me. Just IMO.

 

[romulus47plus1]

And stupid nVidia fanboy cannot just take it. That's why this kind of post pisses me off.

Well no need to put the word stupid, but I hate this post too, too much fanboyism.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Its also a shame that nVidia is getting such poor yields. And implementing their UMAP has had disastrous effects on their AIB partners. I find it ironic that ATIs partners let out their parts too soon, and yet I find this http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?shownews=20575&catid=2 and see they dont want to sell nVidia exclusively anymore, thus nVidia loses a partner. And with this http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-physx-ati,5764.html they dont have evclusivity using physics in Vantage anymore. nVidia is in a world of hurt right now

 

[romulus47plus1]

If you can fit 5+ 4870's into a case, let me know, because this argument runs thin when you've only realistically got 2 or 3 slots to work with.
Consider upgrading in the future. With a GTX280, as outrageously priced as it may be, you've got the option go to 2 or 3x SLI in the future when prices come down, which would last for a very, very long time. You pop a couple 4870's in there, sure you could crossfire them with a 4870x2, but then you've really got 1 and a half cards. Just seems kinda mickey mouse to me. Just IMO.

I know. I mean, it's like, you can buy 2 4870, for somewhere like $600, then the remaining? Just use it for something else. A dinner for 2 perhaps?

 

[Oh Snap]

Right now, ATI is the way to go.

For what? ATI is the way to go if you want the "best bang for your buck." Want to be able to scale/upgrade and still have top performance 6 months from now? Want to be able to run Crysis very high all at 2560? Top performance is still Nvidia. ATI is the way to go if you want a midrange or budget build computer, and I won't argue with that, but I wouldn't recommend ATI as of right now to someone who wanted to build a high performance machine. I'm hoping that's a different story by the time the 4870x2 comes out.

 

[romulus47plus1]

Fingers crossed for the 4870x2.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

And here we see ATIs low end coming within 10% of the G280 http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14967/7 Of course, then theres TWIMTBP program, which is getting hammered as well http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/252101-33-games-comig-soon#t1833577 with ATI picking up several studios, and DX10.1 is coming to a games near you soon, which nVidia just cant seem to do right now

 

[Oh Snap]

Fingers crossed for the 4870x2.

Yeah, I'm really hoping that they got their **** sorted out with the 2 GPUs. Everything I've read so far has pointed to that, so if they can figure out what they're doing with Crossfire as well, 2 of those babies might just hand 3 way GTX280's their ass on a plate. Once ATI starts ruining Nvidia's day at the high end is the day we see the awesome benefits from competition

 

[rachotilko]

I don't get your complains about the temps, guys. My trivial understanding of the physics involved tells me that the amount of heat is proportional to the power consumption. Let's take 4850 : it does consume roughly the same amount of energy as 9800GTX+. That means, they produce the same amount of thermal energy per time unit. The high core temperatures of 4850 point to the poor performance of the card's cooler. However, the amount of thermal energy spilled into to the room per second is THE SAME for 4850 and 9800GTX+.

 

[copasetic]

I don't get your complains about the temps, guys. My trivial understanding of the physics involved tells me that the amount of heat is proportional to the power consumption. Let's take 4850 : it does consume roughly the same amount of energy as 9800GTX+. That means, they produce the same amount of thermal energy per time unit. The high core temperatures of 4850 point to the poor performance of the card's cooler. However, the amount of thermal energy spilled into to the room per second is THE SAME for 4850 and 9800GTX+.

Exactly right. Both generate the same amount of heat, the 9800 is just more efficient at exhausting it away from the card.

Hence my reply.

 

[gridener]

And here we see ATIs low end coming within 10% of the G280 http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14967/7 Of course, then theres TWIMTBP program, which is getting hammered as well http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/252101-33-games-comig-soon#t1833577 with ATI picking up several studios, and DX10.1 is coming to a games near you soon, which nVidia just cant seem to do right now

Nvidia CAN do it right now they just choose not to waste their time on it.

 

[Oh Snap]

And here we see ATIs low end coming within 10% of the G280 http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14967/7 Of course, then theres TWIMTBP program, which is getting hammered as well http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/252101-33-games-comig-soon#t1833577 with ATI picking up several studios, and DX10.1 is coming to a games near you soon, which nVidia just cant seem to do right now

Which is funny considering we've seen the low end ATI actually outperform their higher end card. Certainly instills a lot of confidence

Like I said, let's push these cards to the limit. Benches on CF 4870x2 vs. 3 way GTX280 on 4xAA 2560x1600 Very High All please

 

[romulus47plus1]

Yeah, I'm really hoping that they got their **** sorted out with the 2 GPUs. Everything I've read so far has pointed to that, so if they can figure out what they're doing with Crossfire as well, 2 of those babies might just hand 3 way GTX280's their ass on a plate. Once ATI starts ruining Nvidia's day at the high end is the day we see the awesome benefits from competition

At least they, ATI are starting to win the mass market, the sub 300 market, with their 4800s. Yup, if they can beat the high end that's when most benefits come in.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Its just not releasing it from the core as efficiently. Like was said earlier, a driver update will settle all that

 

[romulus47plus1]

SLI of those beating the CF.
For what Price Monsta?

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Which is funny considering we've seen the low end ATI actually outperform their higher end card. Certainly instills a lot of confidence

Like I said, let's push these cards to the limit. Benches on CF 4870x2 vs. 3 way GTX280 on 4xAA 2560x1600 Very High All please

In single card? And if not, whats that telling you?

 

[gamecrazychris]

Thank you for having a REAL post unlike those assholes that lie just to laugh when you click on it.

 

[eded333]

Nice, FLAME FLAME FLAME MAUAJAJAJAJAJA.
Nice review. I'm also getting impressed with the new ati cards, seem veeeeery nice for what they cost. Only if nvidia cards came down in price... something not too common for the high end nvidia
I wouldn't get worried about the crossfire performance as it will increase and even so two 4870 = 280 if not better.
Also there are two 8.7 catalyst drivers the "alpha" and the "beta" with 7.14.10.0598 is the direct3d software version number, which one did they use ?
I wouldn't get worried about the heat issues, lol just reapplying the stock heat sink with AS5 gets the temps down by 20ºC and applying an after market like the S1 gets the temps to 40ºc UNDER LOAD.... so..... bad work ati with the thermal paste... and heat sinks.
Although I'll maybe purchase one for myself replacing my old 1600XT.
Didn't find the review i read of the s1 but with this one shows the same....
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/8162-palit-radeon-hd4870-512mb-graphics-card-review-21.html
Also the new ati cards haven't implemented well the clock speed in idle which dosn't go as low as it should, probably with a bios flash or next final driver some of this issues will get solved.
The only real issues I see with ati's new generation are power consumption in idle which will get lower and the heat sink or thermal paste used, not the real heat that the chip produces as it dosnt produce that much, just that it dosn't get well dissipated ( surely ill get flamed for this).
Although nvidia's new generation isn't bad at all, just too overpriced.

 

[copasetic]

No driver will cool the cards

Drivers run things like the fan and PowerPlay, both of which aren't working properly. So yes, a driver will cool the card.

 

[romulus47plus1]

No driver will cool the cards

JDJ, lol.....
The driver can make the fan work better, thus lowering the temps of the card.