Radeon HD 4830: High-Speed, Cheap CrossFire

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]lamorpa[/nom]How do you "recuperate a lot of these costs"? Do you put the 'costs' in bed and give them some aspirin and a cup of hot tea? Did you mean 'recoup' costs? recuperate: to bring back into use or currency recoup: to make up for[/citation]

Um... you do realize that 'recuperate' is the root word of 'recoup', right?

From dictionary.com:

"re⋅cu⋅per⋅ate   /rɪˈkupəˌreɪt, -ˈkyu-/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ri-koo-puh-reyt, -kyoo-]
1. to recover from sickness or exhaustion; regain health or strength.
2. to recover from financial loss.

 

[Pei-chen]

No power consumption chart? Sapphire seems to understand that people won’t want to waste electricity even if they bought AMD but I would really like to see how big of a difference it made.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]Pei-chen[/nom]No power consumption chart? Sapphire seems to understand that people won’t want to waste electricity even if they bought AMD but I would really like to see how big of a difference it made.[/citation]

My apologies for that, the power meter I ordered did not make it to my lab in time for this review. I will try to sneak in the power numbers in a future review, in this month's 'system builder marathon' I'll include them for refrence against the 4850 X2 card the mid-priced build will be using.

 

[area61]

Cleeve is very responsive.I have one question Cleeve.If you were to pick between the 8800gt and the 4830, which would you pick?

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]area61[/nom]Cleeve is very responsive.I have one question Cleeve.If you were to pick between the 8800gt and the 4830, which would you pick?[/citation]

Depends on the situation - such as:

For a new 'general use' system build, probably an Intel chipset paired with the 4830.

If I was a gamer who played a lot of a specific title I'd look to see which card performed better and choose that one. For Crysis, I'd probably be playing at 'high' detail and that means the 8800 GT would be my choice. For Supreme Commander, I'd probably pick the 4830. Admittedly I didn't test every game out there so there are strengths and weaknesses this review can't forsee.

If I was upgrading graphics performance on a Crossfire mobo I already had, the 4830 for sure.
Conversely, if I had an existing SLI motherboard, the 8800 GT would be the obvious choice.

If I was an HD Videophile who wanted audio out over HDMI, the 4830 would be the best choice.

Sorry if it's wishy-washy but that's my opinion, and that's why I couldn't make a clear call. The 4830 is better in the games I tested, but not so much better than the 8800 GT/8900 GT to automatically make them a bad choice.

 

[briandr]

i am dissapointed that in the final test that you did not try and overclock the 8800gt any further. i know that it was a factory overclocked version but it still had a bit of room to go on both the gpu and the mem.

 

[Onus]

Very nice article. I'm starting to feel that upgrade itch...

 

[Teruo]

Question:

It is obvious now that ATI is bang for the buck
but what about 4830CF vs single 4870 performance? their price is very close.

 

[philosofool]

Nice article. I've been wondering about 4830 CF since I saw the first 4830 benchmarks.

It would have been nice to have the HD 4870 thrown into this mix for comparison, since the 4870 comes in at right around the same price as two 4830s. How well do these CF and SLI rigs compare with a single card around the same price? While the comparison with the 4870 X2 is interesting, that card is about $300 more than two 4830s, so the comparison is more academic than practical.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]briandr[/nom]i am dissapointed that in the final test that you did not try and overclock the 8800gt any further. i know that it was a factory overclocked version but it still had a bit of room to go on both the gpu and the mem.[/citation]

Well, it wasn't an 8800 GT review, it was a 4830 review, so I didn't think it was appropriate. I'll keep it in mind next time tho.

For the record, 8800 GTs tend to overclock to a ceiling between 625 and 700 MHz in general. 700 MHz on the core might have given the 8800 GT a slight edge in Crysis at high details, but it wouldn't have given it the win on any other titles against the overclocked 4830s.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]Teruo[/nom]Question:It is obvious now that ATI is bang for the buckbut what about 4830CF vs single 4870 performance? their price is very close.[/citation]

I would have loved to but I didn't have a 4870 handy. Sorry dudes.

 

[Roland00]

As much as I think the 4830 is a great card (especially for people with lower resolution monitors) I wouldn't plan on buying two 4830s right now and Crossfire them to allow you to play at a higher res monitor (and crossfire doesn't see much benefits at lower res monitors).

This is because the 4870s have seen a recent drop in price (now that the 260s are more competitive with them due to the recent driver update).
You can now get a Sapphire 4870 512 for $199 with a 20 MIR, An Asus 4870 512 for $209 with a 30 MIR
or a Sapphire 4870 1gb for $239 with a 15 MIR or an Asus 4870 1gb for 249 with a 20 MIR.

Compare that to 2 ASUS 4830s which are $119 each with a 20 MIR for a total of $239 with a 40 MIR.

The 2 4830s will be 10% to 20% faster at 24 inch res and above if the game is dual gpu optimized. If the game is not dual gpu optimized the 4870s will cream the 4830s. The 4870 allows you to add a second gpu later when games get more demanding. Power consumptions, heat, and airflow is a lot better with 1 4870. Finally very few games require anything more than the 4870 currently.

 

[lamorpa]

Cleve:

You are correct that one of the definitions (the lesser used/known one) for 'recuperate' applies. Which is exactly why 'recoup' (which has a primary and unambiguous definition which applies) is the correct word. I'm just trying to remind the author to stick to modalities of usage irregardless of their apparent intellectuality.

 

[drysocks]

wow, what a sentence lamorpa
"irregardless" rofl !!!
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=irregardless
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregardless
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irregardless

 

[da bahstid]

Surprising that the 4830 had a subtle advantage despite NVidia's recent driver performance update. At least with the 260 versus 4870 comparison, the update makes the 260 appear stronger for the moment.

Also surprised that the SLI 8800GT didn't perform as well as CF in this round, as the 8800GT has been so popular and out for so long, the driver maturity has certainly helped it in some other tests. Course, maybe driver maturity explains the first observation.

 

[tpi2007]

Hi, nice article!

There is one mistake in the chart "Radeon 4830/GeForce 9800 GT comparison" - the 8800GT/9800GT has 112 stream processors, instead of 128 (that is the 8800 GTS 512MB and 9800GTX)

From a proud owner of the Gigabyte 8800GT Turboforce Edition you used for comparisson. But I have to admit competition is always welcome!

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]lamorpa[/nom]I'm just trying to remind the author to stick to modalities of usage irregardless of their apparent intellectuality.[/citation]

1. You know I'm the author, right?

2. 'Irregardless' isn't a word.

 

[Teruo]

Hi Cleeve,

I was looking at your benchmark on 4830x2 VS benchmark on 4870 single. It seems they have a pretty close performance and pretty close price range. (both around $260 CAD). What is the pros and con interms of those 2 video card? Because I am ready to buy one this christmas. Thanks! Great report!

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]Teruo[/nom]Hi Cleeve,I was looking at your benchmark on 4830x2 VS benchmark on 4870 single. It seems they have a pretty close performance and pretty close price range. (both around $260 CAD). What is the pros and con interms of those 2 video card? Because I am ready to buy one this christmas. Thanks! Great report![/citation]

Well, I'd wager two 4870's in crossfire will probably beat out a single 4870. If you look at our last system builder marathon, we overclocked an Intel Core 2 Duo to 4 GHz, and overclocked a Radeon 4850 to 700 MHz core - even though the 700 MHz core speed is less than the 4870, it should give us a general idea of how a 4870 would perform, especially since it's paired to a much faster processor.

In Crysis, Very High Detail, the 3.16 GHz Core 2 paired with 4830's in crossfire compared to the 4.0 GHz Core 2 Duo with an overclocked 4850 like this:

1280x1024:
4.00 GHz CPU & o/c 4850: 29 fps
3.16 GHz CPU & xfire 4830: 39 fps

1650x1080:
4.00 GHz CPU & o/c 4850: 23 fps
3.16 GHz CPU & xfire 4830: 32 fps

1920x1200:
4.00 GHz CPU & o/c 4850: 18 fps
3.16 GHz CPU & xfire 4830: 26 fps


and with 4xaa applied:

1280x1024:
4.00 GHz CPU & o/c 4850: 24 fps
3.16 GHz CPU & xfire 4830: 35 fps

1650x1080:
4.00 GHz CPU & o/c 4850: 18 fps
3.16 GHz CPU & xfire 4830: 27 fps

1920x1200:
4.00 GHz CPU & o/c 4850: 13 fps
3.16 GHz CPU & xfire 4830: 20 fps


Now I know that 4850 wasn't running quite at 4870 speeds, but the xfire 4830's really win by a wide margin. And don't forget, the overclocked 4850 rig was running with a CPU almost a GHz faster!

My money would be on the 4830 xfire setup for what's faster. As far as other issues, well, the 4870 won't require a crossfire motherboard. It also will probably require less power from your PSU.

But you know what? I'd very much like to test two 4830's in xfire vs. a 4870. Maybe add two 8800 GTs as well as a GeForce 260+... and this time, all tested on the same X58 motherboard...

 

[Teruo]

Thanks for your reply and very looking forward to that kind of comparison.

today's Saphire 4830 512mb with $10 MIR = $105 x 2 = $210 USD
saphire 4870 1Gb with $15 MIR = $225 USD

 

[JonnyDough]

Would it be too much to ask for you to retest using Oblivion's opening cave at 1680x1050 maxed out with 4xAA and 16xAF?

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]JonnyDough[/nom]Would it be too much to ask for you to retest using Oblivion's opening cave at 1680x1050 maxed out with 4xAA and 16xAF?[/citation]

That's an indoor scene, and I bet it'll be cpu limited at that size.

 

[Guest]

The Radeons are much more scaleable in crossfire than GF's in SLI, and they can only show thier true power on CF what we can see in this article one more time
Unfortunetely the holydays coming and the huge black hole in my budget comes with it, hehehe If I could have much money now . . . Who knows ... My GF8600GTS 512 is nothing more, just a rubish today Isn't it?
The future of graphics looks like coming with multi-card solutions.

 

[lamorpa]

Cleve:

1) I thought I read the author's name and it wasn't yours. My bad.

2) The last sentence of my last post (the one containing 'irregardless') was satirical. (Who uses the word 'intellectuality'?)

3) Thanks for a good article and tolerance for my nitpicks.

 

[cleeve]

Aha! I was hoping it was satire, but to be perfectly honest I didn't catch 'intellectuality'. Read it as 'intellectually'. The mind sees what it expects!

Kudos for flying that one over my head sir, you have my respect.