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Radeon HD 4830: High-Speed, Cheap CrossFire

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  • HD
  • Radeon
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December 11, 2008 7:30:03 AM

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

More about : radeon 4830 high speed cheap crossfire

December 11, 2008 8:00:43 AM

Great look into the 4830. Makes me want to buy a Xfire setup using these.
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December 11, 2008 8:21:24 AM

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.
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December 11, 2008 8:43:57 AM

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!
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December 11, 2008 8:44:04 AM

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?
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December 11, 2008 8:56:41 AM

Numbers and charts are corrected.
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December 11, 2008 8:59:26 AM

Actually stock clocks on the 4850 *are* 625. :p 
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December 11, 2008 9:18:23 AM

I'm sure i saw that "4850 - smarter by design" article at anandtech first. or somewhere else... the name anyway not necessarily the article >.>
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December 11, 2008 9:18:41 AM

I knew that the 8800GT wasn't that fast, but those benchmarks ahve to be wrong... Sorry Nvidia fan boy here. Bye.
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December 11, 2008 9:27:06 AM

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.
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December 11, 2008 9:32:32 AM

LOL at 1680x1050, the 4870X2 IMPROVES when 4xAA is added? i smell a rat...
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December 11, 2008 9:37:03 AM

Which test are you talking about, Venom? is added? i smell a rat...[/citation]
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December 11, 2008 9:46:56 AM

Far cry 2
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December 11, 2008 9:56:03 AM

daskrabbeFar cry 2


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.
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December 11, 2008 10:02:33 AM

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.
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December 11, 2008 10:08:35 AM

cangeliniActually stock clocks on the 4850 *are* 625.

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 ...
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December 11, 2008 10:21:16 AM

neiroatopelccOh 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.


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?
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December 11, 2008 10:26:02 AM

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.
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December 11, 2008 10:27:39 AM

Would have loved to see this with the new Cat 8.12's, as theyre getting much better performance than the 8.10's.
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December 11, 2008 10:57:05 AM

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


Yeah, unfortunately the 8.12s just came out and this article has been a long time in the making. :) 
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December 11, 2008 11:02:35 AM

DoltronIf 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.


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. :) 

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December 11, 2008 11:38:49 AM

Does anyone know if there's a way to unlock the remaining shaders etc? ie. flashing with a 4850 bios or soldering something etc ...
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December 11, 2008 11:43:03 AM

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
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December 11, 2008 12:00:35 PM

madcownrbtw4000 series cards all support internal ati crossfirex interconnectmeaning they dont need the crossfire cablehttp://game.amd.com/us-en/content/ [...] _Nov08.jpg


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.
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December 11, 2008 12:08:52 PM

lamorpaHow 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


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.
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December 11, 2008 12:28:54 PM

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.
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December 11, 2008 12:32:57 PM

Pei-chenNo 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.


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.
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December 11, 2008 12:47:33 PM

Cleeve is very responsive.I have one question Cleeve.If you were to pick between the 8800gt and the 4830, which would you pick?
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December 11, 2008 1:19:03 PM

area61Cleeve is very responsive.I have one question Cleeve.If you were to pick between the 8800gt and the 4830, which would you pick?


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.
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December 11, 2008 1:33:16 PM

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.
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December 11, 2008 2:24:48 PM

Very nice article. I'm starting to feel that upgrade itch...
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December 11, 2008 2:26:02 PM

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.
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December 11, 2008 2:31:49 PM

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.
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December 11, 2008 2:44:08 PM

briandri 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.


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.
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December 11, 2008 2:44:57 PM

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


I would have loved to but I didn't have a 4870 handy. Sorry dudes. :( 
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December 11, 2008 3:49:56 PM

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.
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December 11, 2008 4:06:28 PM

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.
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December 11, 2008 4:42:50 PM

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.
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December 11, 2008 4:59:30 PM

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!
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December 11, 2008 5:03:01 PM

lamorpaI'm just trying to remind the author to stick to modalities of usage irregardless of their apparent intellectuality.


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

2. 'Irregardless' isn't a word. :D 
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December 11, 2008 5:23:56 PM

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!
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December 11, 2008 5:51:46 PM

TeruoHi 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!


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... :D 

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December 11, 2008 6:07:50 PM

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
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December 11, 2008 6:09:42 PM

Would it be too much to ask for you to retest using Oblivion's opening cave at 1680x1050 maxed out with 4xAA and 16xAF?
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December 11, 2008 6:58:12 PM

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


That's an indoor scene, and I bet it'll be cpu limited at that size.
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Anonymous
December 11, 2008 7:03:42 PM

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.
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December 11, 2008 7:06:00 PM

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. :-)
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December 11, 2008 7:17:20 PM

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.

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