HD 4870 CrossFire Review!

[eded333]

Monsta read... its something good, you know... people answered questions like this before.

 

[jevon]

Anyone who buys the CF 4870 , should ask if it comes with marshmallows, I like toasted marshmallows

Don't you have to be at least 16 to sign up on these forums?!

 

[Lavacon]

I think people are missing the point with the New ati cards. They are not trying to compete with the 280... the 4870 was aimed at taking on the 9800gtx, the 4850 was aimed at the 8800gt area. Ati more then accomplished this. The problem with using a nvidia card is that if you wish to expand upon it(sli) you must run a Nvidia board. I personally am not a fan of Nvidia mother boards. They are too problematic for my taste and I feel they lag behind the x48's and p45s. If ones wishes to run multi gpu's on a non Nvidia board, besides the monolithic 9800x2 we have ati cards. I will be selling my 8800gts 640 to get my first 4870, and a little later on I will be getting a second one or perhaps a 4870x2 for some Tri Fire action.

 

[copasetic]

ATI has to work on their drivers. And anyone whos really looked at the 4xxx series, I mean really looked and knew anything about pcs and gpus know that a fan running at 18% isnt going to get the cooling job done, and getting a driver with better power and fan control will solve this problem.

Drivers not running at 100% isn't a new thing by any means, especially not for ATI. They've had problems in the past with drivers not being up to snuff at release, and I don't expect it's any different now. In fact that's the only disappointing thing about the 4800 line IMO, that they couldn't even get the fan control working properly for the launch. That's why I wish more places would do a second review of cards a month or two after release, to see how they really perform once the drivers are optimized.

Like the parallel instruction processing on the 4800's. Only one game takes advantage of this at all, and that's Bioshock. Look at the benchmark results for that game. While each stream processor in the 280 performs one instruction at a time, the 4800's can perform 5 at once. Developers are going to have to do some code tweaking to take full advantage of this feature, but if they do the 4870 can actually outperform the 280 (and also where the 1.3 vs 0.9 teraflops figures come from). I just don't know if they'll take the time to do that, guess we'll have to wait and see.

It all comes down to drivers and optimized game code, which is why I'm not a big fan of benchmarks to begin with. It's way too subjective and one driver update can change everything.

 

[eded333]

Bitter... no.... people are happy cause the can buy mainsteam cards with performance near or as high end, or highend cards with mainstream prices, and other people get bitter because these guys tend to compare them to high ends and ofcourse nvidiots cand afforde getting neared by a mainstream card

 

[eded333]

no... i meant one lol

 

[uguv]

The problem with using a nvidia card is that if you wish to expand upon it(sli) you must run a Nvidia board. I personally am not a fan of Nvidia mother boards. They are too problematic for my taste and I feel they lag behind the x48's and p45s.

I think they even lag behind the 965 boards.

 

[eded333]

ein drivers??? Who said anything about drivers.... o yes... i forgot.... read man, lol, reading will be good for you

 

[eded333]

yes. this topic is about crossfire not about eating marshmallows and singing etc, just responding to your bitter post. mmmmmm thinking u seem to be a llitle young to be talking about... anything donta ??

 

[eded333]

well... nvidia chipsets are famous for having low speeds on hardrive so they lag on data transfers, allthough not on gfx cards

 

[eded333]

again, man, stop talking, yaknow, too young to open your mouth. U see there is a proces before talking, firs thinking and then everything else... u seem to do it the other way

 

[uguv]

You THINK they lag?
The nForce 790i ultra hardy lags.LOL

No. If you had an IQ approaching the idle temp of those ATI cards you're bashing you would understand that the statement was that the nvidia chipsets lag behind the intel chipsets.

P.S. The 790i is a PoS.

 

[eded333]

that says a lot from ya monsta

 

[Lavacon]

Monsta, the 700series Nvidia motherboards are not on the same level as new intel chipsets. At least not in all around performance. Sure the Nvidia boards win a couple benches here and there, but the intel chipsets win more. Nvidia motherboards? Hah, can you say data corruption? Something they have yet to fix.

 

[gridener]

WOW!!! 100+ flaming post on this thread and counting! This was not meant to start a WAR here! GEEZE

 

[eded333]

well i dont own any.... but really like flames, and gess what, ur the flamer, so pick on the flamer

 

[eded333]

Good forya they should for what you pay

 

[uguv]

you own one to comment on it?
you cant afford it thats why your an ATI fanboi

No, I don't own a 790i because I don't want my raid arrays corrupted and I want to be able to overclock my CPU.

How am I an ATI fanboi when I'm running a 8800GTX in one rig and a 8800GTS (G92) in my 2nd machine?

 

[eded333]

nice

 

[eded333]

well.... its a fact ocurring to many people, as thats why the low transfer rates to hardrives, allthough they were working to fix it on the 790 dont know if they achieved it or u could have a nice cherry motherboard

 

[Lavacon]

I wounder if I'll be able to use my pc like an easy bake oven after I get my pair of 4870's? Mmmmm.... cake.....

 

[eded333]

Tortilla de patatas.... mmmmmmmmm sabor a silicio, i mean taste to silicon

 

[Guest]

it comes down to this...

4870 = best bang for buck card out there... in CF w/e...

GTX 280 = best performer....

its that simple

 

[Lavacon]

I am using a Thermaltake Armor + So I might have enough room for a rotisserie in there. Maybe not a thanksgiving turkey, but definitely room for a chicken.

 

[clay12340]

I've always found these price/performance arguments to be kind of stupid. Pick a resolution and a budget. The card that performs best in those two constraints is the one you should buy.

I think the 4850 is an impressive card. It performs well in mid level resolutions. It is reasonably priced. It doesn't run at 80C.

The GTX260 is a piece of crap. It doesn't perform very well, and costs more than cards of equal performance. I see no reason anyone would spend money on that card.

The GTX280 is the top performer. That in and of itself is impressive. If I only cared about high performance in high resolutions this is what I would buy.

The 4870 seems to have serious driver issues. It'll probably get fixed at some point, but until then I can't see any reason that I'd spend money on this. The card isn't as capable in the very high end as the GTX280s. The card isn't as favorably priced and cool as the 4850. I don't really see where this card is going to make a name for itself. It isn't a bad product, assuming that the drivers resolve the heat/fan issues, but I just don't see what the strategy behind it was.