ATi 4xxx Series Review

[Compddd]

Originally posted by: Kuzi

Originally posted by: Compddd
I got a 4850 over the weekend at Fry's. Love it so far, especially in Age of Conan. Going to return it when they get the 4870s though

That is good news, cause I want to get Age of Conan after I get an HD4870. May I ask what resolution you tried for AoC with your 4850?

I play at 1920x1200 with every video option set to max, with 4xAA and 16xAF. Outside my fps is between 25 to 40fps. Inside dungeons it's always 60+

4870 should be awesome for AoC!

 

[hddvd]

Dont know if these slides have been posted before. Sorry if they were. They are straight from AMD/ATI. I was taking a training at retail access.

http://img161.imageshack.us/my...?image=76491006bb0.jpg]

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http://img367.imageshack.us/my...?image=80678647ir8.jpg]

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http://img367.imageshack.us/my...?image=10181480ac2.jpg]

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sorry i messed up the image links. Im in a rush.

 

[allies]

Slides look nice. Seems as if AMD took a page out of nvidia's book by starting the y axis at .8... tsk tsk.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Yeah, I noticed that and lol'd too. At least the fourth slide starts at 0

 

[Mem]

ASUS SmartDoctor info for 4850 at Expreview.

The Guys over at OCworkBench tried ASUS SmartDoctor and find out the utility can adjust fan speed from 0% to 100%.

Rivatuner needs a update to support HD 4850, and according to Unwinder the latest verion won?t out until the end of July. So seems HD 4850 users need another utility to adjusting fan speed.

According to the screenshot the fan is running at 8000RPM, but we all know it is not possible. Till now we still don?t know what?s the version of SmartDoctor but it is said that the utility will be bundled with ASUS HD 4850. and now If any of you have just bought ASUS HD 4850, please share the utility with us.

.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: hddvd
Dont know if these slides have been posted before. Sorry if they were. They are straight from AMD/ATI. I was taking a training at retail access.

http://img161.imageshack.us/my...?image=76491006bb0.jpg]

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http://img367.imageshack.us/my...?image=80678647ir8.jpg]

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http://img367.imageshack.us/my...?image=10181480ac2.jpg]

[/URL]

sorry i messed up the image links. Im in a rush.

those are obviously a few days old since 9800gtx should be compared to 4850 instead of 4870. 4870 should be compared to gtx 260.

 

[HOOfan 1]

has it been determined whether the NDA still lifts on June 25th or has that also been pushed back to July 8th?

 

[Gunslinger08]

Anyone have a guess when the 4870 will hit the streets for us normal people to buy?

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: joshsquall
Anyone have a guess when the 4870 will hit the streets for us normal people to buy?

interesting question... even when it does hit the street, GDDR5 probably means limited supply and inflated prices.

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

Originally posted by: hddvd
Dont know if these slides have been posted before. Sorry if they were. They are straight from AMD/ATI. I was taking a training at retail access.

http://img161.imageshack.us/my...?image=76491006bb0.jpg]

[/URL]

http://img367.imageshack.us/my...?image=80678647ir8.jpg]

[/URL]

http://img367.imageshack.us/my...?image=10181480ac2.jpg]

[/URL]

sorry i messed up the image links. Im in a rush.

those are obviously a few days old since 9800gtx should be compared to 4850 instead of 4870. 4870 should be compared to gtx 260.

The GTX 260 doesn't cost $299 though, it is $100 more than the HD 4870.

I think the HD 4870 and GTX 260 will be close in performance. But they can't be compared based on price unless nVidia drops the price of the 260 significantly. And I don't think that is going to happen.

 

[taltamir]

nvidia slashed the price on the 9800GTX from 300 to 200$ the DAY that the 4850 hit the market... What do you want to bet that the DAY the 4870 hits they slash the GTX 260 by 100$ as well... and leave the GTX 280 at the same price point for those wanting an uber SLI setup?
nvidia just palys the game, as long as they control first place and some places behind it, they set their prices at whatever they want. Because some people just have that kind of money.
When there is competition, they lower their price to match equal performing cards.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Thing is, the GTX+ is a 55nm shrink of a much smaller chip than the GT200. Thus Nvidia could afford to sell it cheaper. The GTX is old inventory and thus could be cleared out for cheaper as well.

The GTX260 doesn't have that luxury. It's a really large chip and even though it's the ones with faulty units, it still isn't that easy to cut the costs.


This does NOT mean Nvidia can't cut the price. It's just that they'd have to think a lot harder about doing it compared to the GTX and GTX+

 

[taltamir]

i am not so sure the GTX 260 is some of the faulty units... I mean... it has a small bus witdth... Can you actually reduce bus width by cutting out faulty "bus width units"? AFAIK this can be done with SP clusters but not with this.

Anyways, I bet both the GTX260 and 280 are being die shrunk to 55nm ASAP.

 

[JPB]

HD4870x2 just around the corner

IN A MALAGAN BUNKER, AMD's borged graphics gang divluged their latest 3D battle plan to a gaggle of gagged hacks.

These were alegedly chained in a room with a real live 45nm Phenom lurking behind the curtains. No-one's sure whether it was turned on.

Daamiteers were on hand to overclock current 65nm Phenoms to 3.3GHz using nothing but sneaky software.

Why! Those pesky Nvidians can't even name their cards properly let alone sell any! the Daamiteers cried. They're up to their eyeballs in inventory!

And, having gotten its act together - unlike the chip chaps that borged them, said one - AMD's graphics divison will launch the HD4870X2 sooner rather than later, they proclaimed.

And it will be dressed entirely in black just like the 9800GX2.

 

[Chronoshock]

Originally posted by: BLaber
Check this post , if its true then AMD's looking good

HD4870 and HD4870 CF Crysis Test



Merged in from the 9800+ thread

Posted twice in this thread already =/

 

[bryanW1995]

he put it here and the 9800gtx+ thread. they should have just deleted the other one. nbd.

 

[GoodToGo]

Man, I cant wait to see the 4870 results in AA against the 280. Makes me real twitchy on whether I should wait for nehalem

 

[Paratus]

My My My,

Some thoughts of mine on the new cards:

So ATI releases a midrange $199 card and suddenly NV is forced to:

• Release "magic" faster drivers

• Drop the price of the 9800GTX to $199 (has this happened yet?)

• Paper Launch (that's right Paper Launch) a possibly faster card 9800GTX+

Seems to me NV got caught a bit flat footed.
I actually think NV is going to rocked twice more due to them positioning themselves on a larger process with huge monolithic die. Even if they shrink to 55nm the die are is still going to be 50% larger than the RV770.

From preliminary results it looks like the the 4870 is going to be competitive with the GTX 260 for $100 less but I think the real GTX 200 killer is going to be the R700 4870X2.

I see one of three things happening with the 4870X2 assuming some or all of the rumors are true, i.e. shared RAM, and new proprietary GPU to GPU interconnect (lets face it the only reason to do away with CF comm is to remove it's limitations.

1. Low End: Due to thermals and or issues with GPU to GPU communications we get the following:
   
   Slower cores than the 4870
   Xfire like communications between the GPUs
   Shared Ram gives a bit of an efficiency boost
   
   Ends up being a bit faster than the GTX 280 but only between 4850 CF and 4870CF

1. Medium: Decent thermals and or no issues with the new GPU to GPU communications
   
   Same core speed as the 4870
   More efficient communications between the GPUs
   Shared Ram gives a bit of an efficiency boost but now 2 GPUs are sharing 1 256bit DDR5 bus
   Looks completely like a single card and acts like it
   
   Ends up being faster than the GTX 280 and 4850 CF, Basically 4870CF on single card without some of the CF limitations

1. High End: Excellent thermals and or no issues with the newGPU to GPU communications plus a 512bit memory bus
   
   Faster core speed then the 4870 (ala 3870X2 vs 3870)
   More efficient communications between the GPUs
   Shared Ram gives a bit of an efficiency boost but now 2 GPUs are sharing a 512bit DDR5 Monster bus
   Looks completely like a single card and acts like it
   
   Ends up being faster than the GTX 280 and 4850 CF, and 4870CF on single card without some of the CF limitations

If ATI could pull off the last one, we'd have a single card with 1.9 billion transistors, with a total die area 10% smaller than the GTX280, that could calculate more than 2.5 TeraFlops, with a ~230GB bus. I don't think even a die shrunk overclocked GTX 280 could beat that.

NV should start being very afraid.......

 

[HurleyBird]

We can only hope.

 

[bryanW1995]

they're not going to be able to make the cost and thermals work on a 512 bit bus, unless you let the marketing guys say that it's 512 bit b/c 256+256 = 512. However, they might be able to use higher-clocked gddr5 to get around 4.5 effective instead of 3.6 for additional bandwidth.

 

[GoodToGo]

Originally posted by: Paratus
My My My,

Some thoughts of mine on the new cards:

So ATI releases a midrange $199 card and suddenly NV is forced to:

• Release "magic" faster drivers

• Drop the price of the 9800GTX to $199 (has this happened yet?)

• Paper Launch (that's right Paper Launch) a possibly faster card 9800GTX+

[/list]


If ATI could pull off the last one, we'd have a single card with 1.9 billion transistors, with a total die area 10% smaller than the GTX280, that could calculate more than 2.5 TeraFlops, with a ~230GB bus. I don't think even a die shrunk overclocked GTX 280 could beat that.

NV should start being very afraid.......

Can you spell P A N I C?

AT receives an email at 1:30 in the night saying that they are launching a product no one knew was coming....hahahahaha...lap it up NVIDIA...you had the lead and failed to consolidate it by releasing tweaked cards of same cores...

 

[Hunt3rj2]

Right now the fanboys on both camps will be saying different things. The ATI fanboys will start flooding out like nothing else while the Nvidia fanboys will be going, "Well Nvidia will pull a trump card on ATI out of nowhere and Nvidia will win!!!!!!11111oneoneoneone"

But while the idiots duke it out the rest of us get to enjoy the spoils of war without having to fight it. ATI needs to stay afloat otherwise Nvidia will go back the 80 NM process to make a GTX 280 that costs 1k GBP. Lets just pray ATI can keep this up for a while so they get healthy financially and manage to keep AMD back up a while they're at it too. Competition is always good for us.

 

[gigahertz20]

Well, one more day until the NDA ends and we'll get to see reputable 4870 benchmarks from all the major sites. If the benchmarks online are not fake, and it performs at or better then a 9800GX2 for $300, then it's going to be a pretty nice card for the money

 

[unr3al]

Originally posted by: Paratus
My My My,

Some thoughts of mine on the new cards:

So ATI releases a midrange $199 card and suddenly NV is forced to:

• Release "magic" faster drivers

• Drop the price of the 9800GTX to $199 (has this happened yet?)

• Paper Launch (that's right Paper Launch) a possibly faster card 9800GTX+

Seems to me NV got caught a bit flat footed.
I actually think NV is going to rocked twice more due to them positioning themselves on a larger process with huge monolithic die. Even if they shrink to 55nm the die are is still going to be 50% larger than the RV770.

From preliminary results it looks like the the 4870 is going to be competitive with the GTX 260 for $100 less but I think the real GTX 200 killer is going to be the R700 4870X2.

I see one of three things happening with the 4870X2 assuming some or all of the rumors are true, i.e. shared RAM, and new proprietary GPU to GPU interconnect (lets face it the only reason to do away with CF comm is to remove it's limitations.

1. Low End: Due to thermals and or issues with GPU to GPU communications we get the following:
   
   Slower cores than the 4870
   Xfire like communications between the GPUs
   Shared Ram gives a bit of an efficiency boost
   
   Ends up being a bit faster than the GTX 280 but only between 4850 CF and 4870CF

1. Medium: Decent thermals and or no issues with the new GPU to GPU communications
   
   Same core speed as the 4870
   More efficient communications between the GPUs
   Shared Ram gives a bit of an efficiency boost but now 2 GPUs are sharing 1 256bit DDR5 bus
   Looks completely like a single card and acts like it
   
   Ends up being faster than the GTX 280 and 4850 CF, Basically 4870CF on single card without some of the CF limitations

1. High End: Excellent thermals and or no issues with the newGPU to GPU communications plus a 512bit memory bus
   
   Faster core speed then the 4870 (ala 3870X2 vs 3870)
   More efficient communications between the GPUs
   Shared Ram gives a bit of an efficiency boost but now 2 GPUs are sharing a 512bit DDR5 Monster bus
   Looks completely like a single card and acts like it
   
   Ends up being faster than the GTX 280 and 4850 CF, and 4870CF on single card without some of the CF limitations

If ATI could pull off the last one, we'd have a single card with 1.9 billion transistors, with a total die area 10% smaller than the GTX280, that could calculate more than 2.5 TeraFlops, with a ~230GB bus. I don't think even a die shrunk overclocked GTX 280 could beat that.

NV should start being very afraid.......

All I can say is DROOOOOL At last some competition in the graphics card market. Now DX10 will become worthwhile at last. Well, once Vista has become worthwhile, anyway lol

 

[chewietobbacca]

Looks like the first 4870 review is on the web. Seems to math or beat the GTX260 in most setups and even trades blows with the GTX280 when 8xAA is applied:

http://translate.google.com/tr...ie=UTF8&sl=zh-CN&tl=en

(Chinese website translated by google)