Anandtech Preview of 4870X2 14July

[WR2]

[:wr2:4] : With pictures and performance benchmarking

 

[xx12amanxx]

Why do they use so many color's? I have a hard time telling the diif between dark and light purple.

 

[WR2]

If you click on the graphic in the AnandTech review you'll get a much larger graphic that is easier to review.
And they also have more traditional charts - just not for every resolution

 

[nvalhalla]

graphs on their site are easier to read.

 

[Plain Old Me]

I thought the X2 had 1 gb of memory per side? Or is that coming on a later model or something?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Interesting, especially the GRID results (CF dies off the R700 doesn't).

Also interestin that they got the 1GB model noth the 2GB model most will be getting. Which kinda leads to the next surprise...

Too bad the shared memory implementation isn't implemented yet, guess that'll be next generation unfortunately.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I thought the X2 had 1 gb of memory per side? Or is that coming on a later model or something?

Yes, retail versions will be 2GB GDDR5, but there will also be other variants like the GDDR3 models so seems different combinations are possible/likely.

 

[th_username]

yes amd + ati for life like my current build

 

[ovaltineplease]

GDDR3 is going to be a 4850x2 I hear..?

 

[ovaltineplease]

Interesting, especially the GRID results (CF dies off the R700 doesn't).

Also interestin that they got the 1GB model noth the 2GB model most will be getting. Which kinda leads to the next surprise...

Too bad the shared memory implementation isn't implemented yet, guess that'll be next generation unfortunately.

The r700's result in Grid is what I was expecting for universal performance of the card; the disappointing thing was that Grid was the only game that seems to benefit from the memory communicating xfire or whatever it is now.

I'd hope this new dual gpu communication will be driver driven (how that makes sense I don't know) at least in the final release..

 

[dirtmountain]

Very good pre release review, they laid out the rules they had to play by and stuck to them. I'm glad they included AoC in the review

 

[hannibal]

Too bad the shared memory implementation isn't implemented yet, guess that'll be next generation unfortunately.

Is the new crosfire sidebridge used?
But yeah, many of us were waiting shared memory... In CPU's the cores communicate more directly with each other? Maybe the crossfire sidebridge is not fast enough? Or is there some means that CPU's use in memory handling that GPU's can not do at this moment? In anyway it would be nice to know what prevents that.

 

[Yoosty]

Also check out the Review by Hexus.
Twin-gun AMD R700 aims to blow NVIDIA out of the water.
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=14178

It looks impressive, but its temps and high wattage use could cause problems in the long run.

Temperature musings
We perform our testing in an open test bed, with a 120mm fan simulating case airflow.

The ambient-to-load delta isn't too much of a concern, but the fact that the idle temperature is, for all intents and purposes, identical to the load's is troubling. ATI really needs to fix the card's BIOS before partners ship them out.

Power-draw
Dear Lord! The idle load of the AMD R700 engineering sample is higher than a Radeon HD 4870 running at full chat, and the under-load figure is 120W higher than a GeForce GTX 280's - the draw is the highest we've seen. Confirmation, if it was needed, that the engineering sample we've tested is a real power-hungry mutha!

Indications are that things could change in this area, but if not, then we'll not be impressed on this front. We still believe it likely that you'll need a high-quality, high-wattage PSU to power Radeon HD 4870 X2 when it launches but presently the same is true for all extreme multi-GPU set ups.
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=14178&page=9

 

[JeanLuc]

When is AMD/ATI going to sort out their Crossfire profile for Crysis? There cards should be doing around 60 FPS in crossfire not 39.

 

[Spyhawk]

Well the review at Hardocp I saw shows the x2 doing 60 +

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

The cards arent released yet, and we see the idle temps high, itll be fixed. Cant buy one yet, so why worry? The same problem exists on the 4xxx singles, but my guess is they wont pose a problem, although that may be different with the x2. Theres a few spots where the scaling is superior to CF, Im wondering if its because its so early and we will see more, or it only works in some games

 

[John Vuong]

This looks like my next card upgrade. Congratulations to ATI this round.

Though Crysis cannot be tamed yet, not very surprising. Looks like Crytek really screwed up their coding.

 

[The_Abyss]

ATI have said they would address the idle power draw and temperatures. They had better, because the temperature and power has been the weak spot of the 4xxx series so far. Both of these also lead to noise.

 

[ovaltineplease]

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUzMSw3LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Look at the 24xCSAA with ADAA performance

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Also check out the Review by Hexus.

Temperature musings
We perform our testing in an open test bed, with a 120mm fan simulating case airflow.

The ambient-to-load delta isn't too much of a concern, but the fact that the idle temperature is, for all intents and purposes, identical to the load's is troubling. ATI really needs to fix the card's BIOS before partners ship them out.

Well, I'm not sure if Hexus got the same directives as everyone else, but all the other early releases were given intructions not to test idle temps since powerplay was not enabled on the X2 in those early drivers. So it seems either they missed that point or they don't understand what's BIOS related and what's driver related.

 

[yipsl]

I thought the X2 had 1 gb of memory per side? Or is that coming on a later model or something?

New preview comment at Anandtech:

UPDATE: Our initial publication of this article indicated a 2x 512MB framebuffer for a total of 1GB on board. We have since learned that the R700 we tested has 2GB of RAM total for 2x 1GB framebuffers. This has affected some of our analysis and conclusion. We do apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3354

I'm glad it's not 512 x2. IMHO, the 3870x2, though it does very well compared to regular Crossfire and was (briefly) the top single PCB card, should have 2 gigs too.

Now, this is interesting. The 4850's not a dual GPU card, but it's as fast as the 3870x2 with only 512 megs of RAM. Wonder how the PowerColor HD 4850 2 gig will perform at higher resolutions?

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7943.html

Sigh, I need CPU, mobo and RAM upgrades before a new GPU.

 

[mathiasschnell]

Too bad the shared memory implementation isn't implemented yet, guess that'll be next generation unfortunately.

But that could just be for these early samples and the retail versions WILL have this fixed and implemented... right?

 

[ZootyGray]

amazing - anand tries to present accurate info - (under a gag order) - and then everybody speculates based on their latest wish-fantasy. It's just a Preview. The in depth Review and Testing info will not adhere to what anyone thinks, would, should, could, might, etc.

To me, the most significant thing is that this is not the place to get new tek info fast. But the forums are hilarious. lmao.

Where am I? What am I doing? Oh, yeh. I am reading this stuff! (omg)

I really like anand's Preview - and he indicates that when it comes out they will "put the screws to it". That's what I want rather than bias and expectation.

Is this why I don't get invited to many parties?

Too funny.

 

[mf2385]

When is the 4870X2 coming out?

 

[Guest]

what happened to scaling... I thought the 4870 X2 was supposed to get 1.6 - 1.8 scaling NO MATTER WHAT... thats why they changed the internal bridge... in crysis its like 1.3... nothing near 1.6 or the claimed 1.8.... hopefully this is either just a CPU bottleneck... or a driver problem