AMD dubs HD 4870 X2 "world's fastest graphics card

papu

Engadget story

Looks like all the Cinema 2.0 fuss that AMD has been blustering about with its new RV770-based GPUs is fully warranted. The benchmarks are in and AMD's new $549 ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 -- what AMD calls the "world's fastest graphics card" -- is an out and out screamer, besting the best cooked up over at NVIDIA thanks to that RV770 GPU pair nuzzled up next to 2GB of GDDR5 memory. As noted by PC Perspective, the new champ, "is able to run away from NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 1GB card handily. Our various game tests proved this - Crysis, Call of Duty 4 and GRID showed big gains for AMD's new card at resolutions 2,048 x 1,536 and 2,560 x 1,600," though performance gains are less dramatic as resolutions drop to 1,600 x 1,200. Not that any self-respecting gamer would push so few pixels. CrossFireX performance was disappointing, however, as the systems didn't scale well when going from 2 to 4 GPUs. In fact, Crysis seemed to barely notice the additional CrossFireX horsepower, something that should be corrected with future driver releases. Make no mistake though, as power-hungry, expensive, and hot-running as the new HD 4870 X2 may be, it's a big day for AMD as it retakes the graphics crown from NVIDIA, as short-lived as this victory may be.

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alansweeney100

Custom pc are tracking the cheapest etailers
ebuyer are the cheapest at the min, (do they ship to Eire?) they are still charging far more than the RRP I heard before release which which was $500
to buy or not to buy........................

papu

alansweeney100 wrote: »

Custom pc are tracking the cheapest etailers
ebuyer are the cheapest at the min, (do they ship to Eire?) they are still charging far more than the RRP I heard before release which which was $500
to buy or not to buy........................

Yeah i think ebuyer do ship to ireland , but i'd wait for the card to hit other stores like komplett , or Hardwareversand before buying , Overclockers and ebuyer usually have them first but gouge allot

DanGerMus

Pre order at 424.90+ postage

http://www.hpm-computer.de/product_info.php?info=p9042_Club-3D-Radeon-HD-4870-X2-2048MB.html

Grim.

geek side of me says i should buy this, sensible side says no arghh

Overheal

my inner child says I need a quadcore 8GB Ram 4870X2 beast with a Raptor drive..... my Wallet says no.

MooseJam

very nice, is there going to be a GTX 280 x2

PogMoThoin

MooseJam wrote: »

very nice, is there going to be a GTX 280 x2

Nope, they're shrinking the die to 55nm

MooseJam

so it'll run cooler with less power but won't be more powerfull, probably most people would rather a more powerfull card than a die shrink

PogMoThoin

Will have higher clocks, slap some gddr5 on it and it just might beat the 4870x2. Jeez i love a good battle, this gpu war is great, they'd have sat forever without shrinking if Ati hadn't become competitive

Rumours that [URL="[url]http://www.techpowerup.com/65577/GT200b_Already_hit_Stores?.html[/url]"]this[/URL] is a new die shrink

PogMoThoin

OK, NVIDIA slips GTX 280 GX2 rumor, as of today. But I think they need the die shrink first. Imagine the heat :eek:

MooseJam

how much would that cost 800 euro ?

Overheal

And it would probably suffer from more manufacturing errors. no, I'm letting my cousin be my nvidia guinea pig for the next few years, which is why i sent him off with the GTX

srsly though I told him about the 4870 but he wouldnt even consider ATI. Now the bitch is my guinea pig. So far he can only get the 260 up to 70 degrees but we're only 1 week into my 3 year experiment.

Blazer

Dabs.ie ar selling the 4870X2 for €420.
Overcockers are selling it for approx €130 euro dearer at least..the robbin bastards..

bubonicus

Mathew Reilly wrote: »

Dabs.ie ar selling the 4870X2 for €420.
Overcockers are selling it for approx €130 euro dearer at least..the robbin bastards..

Can you link to the dabs.ie , I can't find them.

edit: actually I found it, but not in stock:(

Cuddlesworth

Ordered off of Hardwareversand for 370, waiting on stock now. Lets see how it compares to two 2900xt's.

Blazer

should trash em I'd say..
The 2900Xt's weren't that great were they?
It wasn't till the 3870's came out that ATI began to get back into the game.

papu

Mathew Reilly wrote: »

should trash em I'd say..
The 2900Xt's weren't that great were they?
It wasn't till the 3870's came out that ATI began to get back into the game.

i enjoyed my 2900xt , more or less 8800gts performance , but the Black Box from steam Sold it for me \0/

TerrorFirmer

Definitely better then dual 2900XT, those cards weren't the worst or anything but they were pretty mediocre value for money in my opinion being so freakin inconsistent in a variety of games, the 2900Pro cards were better value. The Black box was a good offer though. I'm done with new cards right now anyway though, 8800GS Sli is still enough to run any game I'm playing right now at 1920x1200 high settings.....I decided not to give into the Crysis fad a long time ago, it's sitting unused on a shelf where it will continue to rest until Christmas I reckon.

Cuddlesworth

That and they are power hungry bastards. Try crossfire them in a 600watt power supply and see what happens.

projectmayhem

papu wrote: »

i enjoyed my 2900xt , more or less 8800gts performance , but the Black Box from steam Sold it for me \0/

+1

Was going to get an 8800 but decided the games were worth it, as really all I regularly play are Valve games anyway. I still use the 2900XT without any hitches whatsoever, but I think the 4870 is where I'll go next... I would go X2 but I can't justify the cost compared to what I'll be doing, especially since there'll probably be something new next year anyway that'll blow that out of the water...

Scram

Overheal wrote: »

my inner child says I need a quadcore 8GB Ram 4870X2 beast with a Raptor drive..... my Wallet says no.

lol know the feeling

Blazer

Anyone know offhand if crossfire is enabled by default for this card?
I know in SLI you still have to enable it but not sure bout x-fire.

MooseJam

ah yea its just the same as any single card , just pop it in and bobs your uncle

Blazer

One thing about X-fire as I've found out.
The master slot is the one furthest from the CPU.
On my gigabtye board I have it in the nearest slot.
Only for benchmarking did I notice that the 2nd gpu was disabled.
Once I moved it to the furthest slot both gpu's worked fine.
You can check it in PC Vantage..go to system info and the pc information.
Under the DX column look for where it says linked graphics adatper.
It should be true..mine was false when card was in the nearest slot.

alansweeney100

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Ordered off of Hardwareversand for 370, waiting on stock now. Lets see how it compares to two 2900xt's.

€370? I can't find one that cheap

BadCharlie

alansweeney100 wrote: »

€370? I can't find one that cheap

Their postage is something like €30 or €35. So if that is total cost with postage then its very cheap.

L31mr0d

Mathew Reilly wrote: »

One thing about X-fire as I've found out.
The master slot is the one furthest from the CPU.
On my gigabtye board I have it in the nearest slot.
Only for benchmarking did I notice that the 2nd gpu was disabled.
Once I moved it to the furthest slot both gpu's worked fine.
You can check it in PC Vantage..go to system info and the pc information.
Under the DX column look for where it says linked graphics adatper.
It should be true..mine was false when card was in the nearest slot.

Have you got a link to where you read this? I recently got an intel chipset board and a 4870x2 but I have it in the slot nearest the CPU.

Blazer

Was in the AMD forums. Some other user had the same problem as me and he resolved it by doing moving the card.
Weird thing is now I've updated the drivers vantage is tell me i'm not running x-fire but on gpu-z i'm seeing both gpu ramp up and i'm getting the same benchmarks on cod4.
Really weird.