ATi 4xxx Series Review

[LightningRider]

Man, the 4870 is sounding better and better with all the great 4850 benchmarks being so great. The only thing that concerns me is heat... do these chips run hotter than the GT200's?

But more importantly, when are they expected to release? Specifically, the 1024MB flavors...? Because I'm salivating for them.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: shamus8888
Let's say the games I play ranges from WoW (I know it doesn't require much but sometimes I struggle to push over 25fps in crowded areas) to AoC (Age of Conan) and the likes of Need for Speed Pro Street etc. I also like a lot of RTS games like World in Conflict etc.

From what I understand, WoW is CPU-limited in high-pop areas. So a new video card will probably not help here.

 

[chewietobbacca]

They should run cooler, its just that the 4850 is single slot cooler which stinks. I expect the AIB partners to have non-referenced coolers soon though

 

[Hauk]

Originally posted by: LightningRider
Man, the 4870 is sounding better and better with all the great 4850 benchmarks being so great. The only thing that concerns me is heat... do these chips run hotter than the GT200's?

But more importantly, when are they expected to release? Specifically, the 1024MB flavors...? Because I'm salivating for them.

A dual slot cooler for the 4870 that I'm betting will provide ~10c lower idle and load temps than with 4850 single slot cooler. Even with higher clocks and power, 4870 will run cooler is my guess...

 

[LightningRider]

Good to know, because just my 9800GTX makes the whole room heat up on some nights if I've done enough gaming. I think I will invest in aftermarket cooling as well when it comes out.

But what about release dates. Is it officially June 25th for the HD4870? I've read mixed reports.

I'm hoping I can order one of these things next week if they beat the GTX260 hard enough.

 

[Hauk]

Originally posted by: Aberforth
Can't believe it scales 100% in CF, now I only hope 4870 destroys 260.

Two are on my shopping list..

 

[Hauk]

Originally posted by: Aberforth
Can't believe it scales 100% in CF, now I only hope 4870 destroys 260.

Two are on my shopping list..

 

[HOOfan 1]

It scaled 100% in Call of Duty 4...impressive

It didn't scale at all in other games. Hopefully drivers or a 4850X2 could solve that problem.

 

[Wreckem]

Wow, looks like I WILL be upgrading afterall.

Bought two EVGA 8800 GTs at $179.99 each. Its going to be might tempting if Nvidia forces all of its OEMs to drop the 9800GTXs to $199.

 

[Hauk]

Originally posted by: Rhino2

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
Board partners really need to put some 3rd party cooling on the HD4850. Even at 55nm, its one hot as card.

I'm sure they will as Asus/Powercolor/Sapphire and maybe others I'm missing have had 3rd party cooled 3870s for awhile now.

Covering DDR's and PWM's is usually handled by little stick on heatsinks. Some odd shaped heatsinks will be necessary for the PWM area on the card. Check the highlighted area, the light grey dudes are making contact with the stock heatsink, as well as the PWM's. They're different sizes and shapes.

What's bad, those ram sinks you get with aftermarket cooling kits usualy suck. I can see them sucking at providing a solution for this area...

 

[Hauk]

Originally posted by: LightningRider
Good to know, because just my 9800GTX makes the whole room heat up on some nights if I've done enough gaming. I think I will invest in aftermarket cooling as well when it comes out.

But what about release dates. Is it officially June 25th for the HD4870? I've read mixed reports.

I'm hoping I can order one of these things next week if they beat the GTX260 hard enough.

The cooler on the 9800 GTX is very good. Fanspeed is dynamically controlled better than most cards I've had. Spins up, spins down. It's not the quietest cooler, but it works well. I'd not bother with an aftermarket. The card will kick out the same heat regardless of cooler.

Anandtech 4850 review say July 8th on 4870 release date..

 

[NoStateofMind]

With the 4850 kicking butt at this price I am impressed. Even with nVidia's price drop on the 9800GTX the HD4850 is still the better buy. I can't wait for 4870, hopefully we will again be surprised.

 

[Piano Man]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: shamus8888
Let's say the games I play ranges from WoW (I know it doesn't require much but sometimes I struggle to push over 25fps in crowded areas) to AoC (Age of Conan) and the likes of Need for Speed Pro Street etc. I also like a lot of RTS games like World in Conflict etc.

From what I understand, WoW is CPU-limited in high-pop areas. So a new video card will probably not help here.

Correct on WoW. It is extremely CPU defendant. I remember going from my ATI 9500 Pro to the Nvidia 6800U and the FPS barely budged in crowded areas while on my PIV 2.4Ghz.

Then I upgraded to C2D 6750 and the FPS went up considerably under raid/shatt conditions.

 

[ddarko]

Originally posted by: SteelSixAnandtech 4850 review say July 8th on 4870 release date..

That date is listed on an ATI slide in the review. The slide also says the release date for the 4850 is June 25 and look how that turned out. So who knows, maybe the July 8 date will hold but just as well maybe not. We'll see. I'm just pleasantly surprised at the performance of the 4850. Prior to release, ppl were suggesting it would match the 8800GT and look at this, it instead matches the 9800GTX and even occasionally challenges the GTX260, which is supposed to be twice the cost and not even available yet. Pretty amazing. Under promise, over deliver. Quite a contrast to this week's over promise, under deliver.

 

[Harmattan]

Originally posted by: Quiksilver
Newegg Now Has 4850's in Stock:
Click

I looked at those long and hard and have decided to go with the one that's $199.99

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: HurleyBird
Here's a must read architectural write up on RV770:
http://www.extremetech.com/art.../0,2845,2320860,00.asp

That is an excellent read, as it gives a lot of insight into RV770s vastly improved AA resolve and CF performance. The diagrams and text show some of the improvements ATI made that seem to directly translate into big gains on RV770 Extremetech block diagrams. The memory/ROP/cache configuration changes and the communication "Hub" were particularly interesting.

AT also put up a much more balanced review of the 4850 and covers the huge gains as well as the potential pitfalls of a multi-GPU solution (no gain).

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: A554SS1N

Originally posted by: extra

Who the hell plays without AA?

I do, and so does my mate

This 4850 seems pretty sweet regardless though.

I do too.. in many games I find it actually makes things worse (makes them too fuzzy)... in some games it is a must (too many jugged edges).. But the vast mejority of times, I just choose to increase some other featureS (plural) that increases the visual quality more for the same amount of slowdown.
It really all depends on the game.

But if they make a card that doesn't take a big hit from AA I would be much more tempted to use it.

 

[bamacre]

I was reading AT's review of the 4850 and read this...

With two 4850s paired up in CrossFire, we once again ran into issues with our power supply. Our 1000W OCZ EliteXStream wasn't always enough for the dual-GPU setup and in Call of Duty 4 our system rebooted in the middle of our test at 2560 x 1600. Thankfully OCZ sent us a PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 1200W unit that is certified for use with GeForce GTX 280 SLI, and if it works on that beast, it had better work with a pair of 4850s in CrossFire.

Yet, the chart shows that at load, the system with two 4850's hit 335.7W.

I'm confused.

 

[Vipeax]

Originally posted by: Piano Man

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: shamus8888
Let's say the games I play ranges from WoW (I know it doesn't require much but sometimes I struggle to push over 25fps in crowded areas) to AoC (Age of Conan) and the likes of Need for Speed Pro Street etc. I also like a lot of RTS games like World in Conflict etc.

From what I understand, WoW is CPU-limited in high-pop areas. So a new video card will probably not help here.

Correct on WoW. It is extremely CPU defendant. I remember going from my ATI 9500 Pro to the Nvidia 6800U and the FPS barely budged in crowded areas while on my PIV 2.4Ghz.

Then I upgraded to C2D 6750 and the FPS went up considerably under raid/shatt conditions.

Exactly, from an Opteron 170 (running @ 3GHz speeds which gove the same benchmark results as a stock x2 6000+ in about 90% of the benchmarks that I ran) to an E6750 stock boosted my fps by like 200% during raiding, now with my overclocked Q6600 it just doesn't drop below my vsync standards in any environment.

@TS: I would really check your addons (in WoW), because 1 of them is really limiting your FPS.

 

[Hauk]

Originally posted by: ddarko

Originally posted by: SteelSixAnandtech 4850 review say July 8th on 4870 release date..

That date is listed on an ATI slide in the review. The slide also says the release date for the 4850 is June 25 and look how that turned out. So who knows, maybe the July 8 date will hold but just as well maybe not. We'll see. I'm just pleasantly surprised at the performance of the 4850. Prior to release, ppl were suggesting it would match the 8800GT and look at this, it instead matches the 9800GTX and even occasionally challenges the GTX260, which is supposed to be twice the cost and not even available yet. Pretty amazing. Under promise, over deliver. Quite a contrast to this week's over promise, under deliver.

nV's rained on more than one ATI release parade. Paybacks are hell. You're probably right, it likely all depends on GTX 260 timing..

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: bamacre
I was reading AT's review of the 4850 and read this...

With two 4850s paired up in CrossFire, we once again ran into issues with our power supply. Our 1000W OCZ EliteXStream wasn't always enough for the dual-GPU setup and in Call of Duty 4 our system rebooted in the middle of our test at 2560 x 1600. Thankfully OCZ sent us a PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 1200W unit that is certified for use with GeForce GTX 280 SLI, and if it works on that beast, it had better work with a pair of 4850s in CrossFire.

Yet, the chart shows that at load, the system with two 4850's hit 335.7W.

I'm confused.

That's just the cards, add together the rest of the system; and it probbaly touches ~650W occasionally, then factor in the possibilty of OCZ using cheap parts in the PSU (eg. low rated caps), then it may have very well overwhelmed the psu.

 

[Hauk]

Originally posted by: bamacre
I was reading AT's review of the 4850 and read this...

With two 4850s paired up in CrossFire, we once again ran into issues with our power supply. Our 1000W OCZ EliteXStream wasn't always enough for the dual-GPU setup and in Call of Duty 4 our system rebooted in the middle of our test at 2560 x 1600. Thankfully OCZ sent us a PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 1200W unit that is certified for use with GeForce GTX 280 SLI, and if it works on that beast, it had better work with a pair of 4850s in CrossFire.

Yet, the chart shows that at load, the system with two 4850's hit 335.7W.

I'm confused.

My 850w psu had no issues. Curious...

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: SteelSix

Originally posted by: bamacre
I was reading AT's review of the 4850 and read this...

With two 4850s paired up in CrossFire, we once again ran into issues with our power supply. Our 1000W OCZ EliteXStream wasn't always enough for the dual-GPU setup and in Call of Duty 4 our system rebooted in the middle of our test at 2560 x 1600. Thankfully OCZ sent us a PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 1200W unit that is certified for use with GeForce GTX 280 SLI, and if it works on that beast, it had better work with a pair of 4850s in CrossFire.

Yet, the chart shows that at load, the system with two 4850's hit 335.7W.

I'm confused.

My 850w psu had no issues. Curious...

I think its clearly a case of AT having a flaky PSU that needs to be retired from the test bench.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Quiksilver

Originally posted by: bamacre
I was reading AT's review of the 4850 and read this...

With two 4850s paired up in CrossFire, we once again ran into issues with our power supply. Our 1000W OCZ EliteXStream wasn't always enough for the dual-GPU setup and in Call of Duty 4 our system rebooted in the middle of our test at 2560 x 1600. Thankfully OCZ sent us a PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 1200W unit that is certified for use with GeForce GTX 280 SLI, and if it works on that beast, it had better work with a pair of 4850s in CrossFire.

Yet, the chart shows that at load, the system with two 4850's hit 335.7W.

I'm confused.

That's just the cards, add together the rest of the system; and it probbaly touches ~650W occasionally, then factor in the possibilty of OCZ using cheap parts in the PSU (eg. low rated caps), then it may have very well overwhelmed the psu.

Well, the chart says "Total System Power," and with one 6-pin power connector, I highly doubt the cards are pulling 340W of power by themselves.

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Quiksilver

Originally posted by: bamacre
I was reading AT's review of the 4850 and read this...

With two 4850s paired up in CrossFire, we once again ran into issues with our power supply. Our 1000W OCZ EliteXStream wasn't always enough for the dual-GPU setup and in Call of Duty 4 our system rebooted in the middle of our test at 2560 x 1600. Thankfully OCZ sent us a PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 1200W unit that is certified for use with GeForce GTX 280 SLI, and if it works on that beast, it had better work with a pair of 4850s in CrossFire.

Yet, the chart shows that at load, the system with two 4850's hit 335.7W.

I'm confused.

That's just the cards, add together the rest of the system; and it probbaly touches ~650W occasionally, then factor in the possibilty of OCZ using cheap parts in the PSU (eg. low rated caps), then it may have very well overwhelmed the psu.

Well, the chart says "Total System Power," and with one 6-pin power connector, I highly doubt the cards are pulling 340W of power by themselves.

Then I wouldn't know...
It would just have to be a flaky PSU then.