Radeon HD 4830: High-Speed, Cheap CrossFire

[cleeve]

AMD recently launched its Radeon 4830 to take on Nvidia's GeForce 9800 GT. With PowerColor and Sapphire flavors in single- and CrossFire-configurations, we pitch the card against factory-overclocked 8800 GTs and see who is left standing.

Radeon HD 4830: High-Speed, Cheap CrossFire : Read more

 

[badge]

Great look into the 4830. Makes me want to buy a Xfire setup using these.

 

[Doltron]

If you couldn't get Tray Tools to work with the Sapphire card why not use another program? Instead of giving up and coming up with a lame conclusion.

Also 993*2 doesn't equal 1885 and the 4870 is clocked at 750 not 780.
Your sound and temp charts have FPS on their X axis.

 

[hannibal]

It's nice to see good cards from both companies, ATI and NVidia!
And the price is not bad at all. The competition is so good!

 

[neiroatopelcc]

The chart on page two sais 4850 runs at 625 - but stock is 600, and 4870 at 780 - which is 750 stock ... so is the 4830 speed correct?

 

[cangelini]

Numbers and charts are corrected.

 

[cangelini]

Actually stock clocks on the 4850 *are* 625.

 

[V3NOM]

I'm sure i saw that "4850 - smarter by design" article at anandtech first. or somewhere else... the name anyway not necessarily the article >.>

 

[giovanni86]

I knew that the 8800GT wasn't that fast, but those benchmarks ahve to be wrong... Sorry Nvidia fan boy here. Bye.

 

[V3NOM]

Um actually, the MSI runs at x16/x8 in SLI mode. If you instead got an evga 750i FTW motherboard, you would find it runs at x16/x16 in sli, thanks to its unlocked NF200 chip. the 750i FTW is not a reference nvidia board as the MSI is.

 

[V3NOM]

LOL at 1680x1050, the 4870X2 IMPROVES when 4xAA is added? i smell a rat...

 

[cangelini]

Which test are you talking about, Venom? is added? i smell a rat...[/citation]

 

[daskrabbe]

Far cry 2

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]daskrabbe[/nom]Far cry 2[/citation]

In Far Cry 2 there is a .8 frame difference, and shifting to 1920x1200 costs 2.1 frames at 4xAA. This is a processor bottleneck. In other words, performance is similar with and without anti-aliasing applied because the graphics card is nowhere near taxed at that resolution or the one above it.

 

[kelfen]

Nice article ATI has really been on the move in all price ranges in creating compitition I would think the next gen cards are going to be a die strink if you look at how they got 4xxx. 3xxx die shrink and 4xxx beef up in power for competitive cards/price.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]Actually stock clocks on the 4850 *are* 625.[/citation]
Oh my bad. I mixed up the numbers with some on g92 chips (just bought 28 9600gt's yesterday)

Anyhow - the 4870 is 750, not 780 - at least they were when I bought mine.


ps.
"On a side note, we will mention that GRID is one of those games that really does require AA for the best visuals. Happily, the game engine seems very easy on the video cards and even the single-card configurations were able to provide 4xAA with playable frame rates."
I want to add that this is only true for current generation cards. My dad's p4 with a 7600gs can only run it with grahpics at very low @ 800x600 - though he runs suppreme commander just fine at 1024 ...

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]Oh my bad. I mixed up the numbers with some on g92 chips (just bought 28 9600gt's yesterday)Anyhow - the 4870 is 750, not 780 - at least they were when I bought mine.[/citation]

Yup, you're right--the chart was originally incorrect, but I went back and corrected that spec, along with the memory frequency mentioned by Doltron.

Curious to hear how your dad's system runs SC no sweat at 1024. This is one of those ones that consistently drops test platforms to their knees. He actually gets playable frame rates on a P4?

 

[neiroatopelcc]

yes he does. Mind you it's not with aa on or anything set at max res. But he plays it just fine. He doesn't have the expansion though - doesn't play it all that much. Dunno if the expansion makes any difference.
His rig (2.4 northwood, 2gb pc3200, 7600gs on a cantherwood chipset) plays test drive, age of empires 3 and supreme commander at playable levels, but doesn't do grid playable. I suppose he'd have a chance at grid if we'd oc the cpu, but last time we ran 3,2 I ended up breaking their c:\windows\system32\config\system file ... and he didn't like that.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Would have loved to see this with the new Cat 8.12's, as theyre getting much better performance than the 8.10's.

 

[cleeve]

The [citation][nom]jaydeejohn[/nom]Would have loved to see this with the new Cat 8.12's, as theyre getting much better performance than the 8.10's.[/citation]

Yeah, unfortunately the 8.12s just came out and this article has been a long time in the making.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]Doltron[/nom]If you couldn't get Tray Tools to work with the Sapphire card why not use another program? Instead of giving up and coming up with a lame conclusion.[/citation]

Mostly because the card didn't seem to be able to get past 690 MHz core without problems in the Catalyst Control Center, so there didn't seem to be much point in persuing overclocking much further.

But for the sake of completeness I can give Rivatuner a shot this evening and see if anything changes. I'll let you know.

 

[Guest]

btw
4000 series cards all support internal ati crossfirex interconnect
meaning they dont need the crossfire cable
http://game.amd.com/us-en/content/images/crossfirex/CF_combo_chart_Nov08.jpg

 

[neiroatopelcc]

Does anyone know if there's a way to unlock the remaining shaders etc? ie. flashing with a 4850 bios or soldering something etc ...

 

[lamorpa]

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

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]madcownr[/nom]btw4000 series cards all support internal ati crossfirex interconnectmeaning they dont need the crossfire cablehttp://game.amd.com/us-en/content/ [...] _Nov08.jpg[/citation]

That's not true, check the chart a little closer: only the light orange cards don't require a connector: 4350 to 4650

The 4670 and 4800's *DO* require a connector.