Double standards for 4870x2?

[dagger]

Why is 4870x2 so well received? The previous "monster" cards, like 9800gx2, gtx280, were so heavily criticized at launch for being costly, oversized, running hot, comsuming too much power... etc. Yet while 4870x2 is the most expensive card on market, consumes more power than any other card, is the longest card yet, runs hot, and somehow still got a good reputation? The first thought coming to mind is fanboyism. But that can't be. ATI's last dual gpu card, the 3870x2, was bashed harder than anything else. So why?

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

I think its innovation, competitiveness and design. Its DX10.1, it has the side port. It has GDDR5. All these things are forward looking, and intrguing. Ive seen reviews which show its not being hot as well. Thats confusing. Its by far the best card out, and consuming power and being the best is ok in most peoples minds. The card isnt pretentious. Its for top of the line setups, ones that should be able to fit and handle cooling, size etc. Even tho its the most exspensive card, it still comes in under the overpriced G280 by a 100$. And the only reason the G280 isnt still as costly is because of the 4870, which also set the attitude towards this card

 

[speedbird]

It's well received, because ATI was second best for a long time. Nvidia had been dominating the market, especially in the High-end.

ATI finally offer a range of cards that can compete with Nvidia. The 4850 and 4870 didn't quite take the top spot, but the 4870 X2 has and it's good news because of ATI's struggle.

As for Power consumption etc Anyone who wants a 'Green Computer' or a smaller card size shouldn't even be considering a Performance GFX card period.

I get the feeling your a Bitter Nvidia Fan

 

[Plain Old Me]

It was well received because it gets great performance to price ratio. The other "double" cards did not scale nearly as well as the new X2. People were not too excited about the other double cards because they were seen as fake ways to get on top, but ATI/AMD has stressed the modularization of its new line, and this card proves that concept. The 280 was not hugely praised because it simply did not improve a lot over the previous generation, and it costs a ton for a small performance boost, especially considering the 4870 and now X2 below and above it, and even to an extent the 260.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

I wouldnt say dagger is a fan BOY heheh, maybe dagger leans to nVidia, but whats wrong with that?

 

[dagger]

It's well received, because ATI was second best for a long time. Nvidia had been dominating the market, especially in the High-end.

ATI finally offer a range of cards that can compete with Nvidia. The 4850 and 4870 didn't quite take the top spot, but the 4870 X2 has and it's good news because of ATI's struggle.

As for Power consumption etc Anyone who wants a 'Green Computer' or a smaller card size shouldn't even be considering a Performance GFX card period.

I get the feeling your a Bitter Nvidia Fan

Lol, please leave fanboyism out of it. My 3 out of the last 4 graphics cards are ATI. Had x1950 before 8800gts. Just whatever is the best bang for the buck at the time. Think about it now, ATI was on top of Nvidia for a long time. Maybe you were too young to remember?

The 3870x2 was meant to unseat 8800ultra and be the "best," not "second best," which it did. And for ATI's troubles, they got bashed for it. So what changed?

 

[babybudha]

The G2xx cards were nothing revolutionary compared to thier previous generation. Compound that with the fact that they had all the time in the world (since 8800GTX came out) to work on it.

Meanwhile the 4870x2 is a major difference from its predecessor (the 3870x2). Not only is it at least double it's performance, but it also hold up amazing well with AA (which plagued the 2900xt, 3870 architecture).

It generally is so well praised because it proved to have alot of quality innovation and improvements on ATi's part.

 

[PsyKhiqZero]

The 9800g x 2 card was poorly recieved cuz it barely edged out the 9800gtx. The 9800gtx2 made alot of sacrafices inorder to get both chips on a single board. The 4870x2 actually doubles performance of a 4870. I guess really it's so well recieved cuz it works as advertised.

 

[dagger]

The G2xx cards were nothing revolutionary compared to thier previous generation. Compound that with the fact that they had all the time in the world (since 8800GTX came out) to work on it.

Meanwhile the 4870x2 is a major difference from its predecessor (the 3870x2). Not only is it at least double it's performance, but it also hold up amazing well with AA (which plagued the 2900xt, 3870 architecture).

It generally is so well praised because it proved to have alot of quality innovation and improvements on ATi's part.

That's a valid justification for 4870, but not 4870x2. It's basically just 2 4870s stuck together. The side port addressing would be one minor innovation over 4870, but it wasn't necessary for pcie2.0 right now, not even working at the moment, and had to be activated by future drivers. Considering the rumor that 4870x2 was supposed to scale as a single gpu. When this over inflated expectation fell flat, there seems to be no fallout from it. Strange.

 

[roadrunner197069]

Simple, its the best card on the market and its $100 cheper then Nvidia when they had the best card on the market. Its win/win.

I respect ATI alot for not gouging like Nvidia does.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

When the 38x2 came out, it was still caught up in the 4xAA thing, which has improved dramatically. Also, everyone knows whats down the road. People had to get used to dual core cpus, and Im thinking people are starting to see that the future of gpus is a multi chip solution, so people are getting used to it

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Also, pointing out that 1 nVidia had just done a redo/rename/rehash on every card they made, people became tired of it. So what does nVidia do? They take a 9800GTX and x2 it. Ho huim. Not only that, they make this card with 2 pcbs. Totally unstylish, non innovative and boring to boot. Yes it performed, but it didnt have any wow factor, was expensive, and people were looking towards the single chip solution in the G200, which once again, came in hot, was waaaay overpriced, and didnt wow in performance like people wanted. This helped to set up the 4xx series, and certainly helped the x2, as it WOULD deliver those wow numbers, and still come in cheaper at introduction. People dont like sandwiches

 

[eklipz330]

why? because it performs really well, for a price thats cheaper for a similar 4870cf solution, with performance improvements. its way better than nvidia's powerhouse, which was way ovepriced... if you compare the 4870x2 to the cf solution, its priced pretty well, and im sure this is only an early adapters pricing, and weren't shareholders mad for the cheap prices ati was putting up? its a great card considering its also a dual gpu solution,

as for size, its the same length as a gtx 280

and why haven't they released the 4870 massive oC edition with watercooling? i bet that'll turn alotta heads as well..

 

[Guest]

viva la ATI baby ! Yeah !!!!!!!!

 

[ro3dog]

because i am getting one and threatened reviewers with death if they persuaded me not to.

rofl

 

[ro3dog]

Because while Nvidia was sitting on there a$$,AMD got off of theres

 

[dagger]

Because while Nvidia was sitting on there a$$,AMD got off of theres

That would be ATI, not AMD. While technically the same company, the core development teams are largely intact and the same. The real AMD, or the cpu manufacturer, are still a long way from getting off their a$$.

 

[ovaltineplease]

While you are right in as much that the 4870x2 is deserving of a degree more criticism i'll put this quite plainly as to WHY people are criticizing the **** out of the gt200

There was a LARGE batch of defective cards which made it to the public which hurt this cards' reputation.

The ones which are functioning in the manner they are intended to are great performers and overclockers, but they still launched at WAY too high of a price (ie: gouging)

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

For me there are a few key things that make all the difference. Micro stuttering, gone. Half-sized ram issue, gone. Scaling, better than anything else. Add in dx10.1 and some more basic issues, like how ati actually has to make their cards much better than nvidia's in order to compensate for all the nvidia optimized games. Plus they embraced the dual solution these last two rounds where as nvidia bitched about having to do the dual solution to keep with their "fastest card at any cost, even at the expense of image quality" mantra. Those cinema 2.0 demos also play a part, I mean these ati cards can do this ray tracing stuff now much better than intel and nvidia are promising for hardware that's still in labs. To top it all off, there's a chance that PhysX on Ati cards might pan out very well. All that leaves me with no reason to choose nvidia over ati until we have some major architecture changes.

For the record I have a rare 8800 GTS 1024 that I've been very happy with, but in a month or so I'm trading it in for a 4870x2 with no regrets.

 

[-Fran-]

Giving more criticism, the correct way, gives readers a better picture about what they'll get when they buy that piece of hardware.

So being "mean" to the Radeon 4000 series will make them improve or, in the worst case scenario, show us that they don't deserve to be bought.

I see it that way, so, being general, giving good criticism is always a good thing to do.

Esop!

 

[CyberDC]

I agree that a lot of it is expectations. A lot was expected from Nvidia with the new GTX 200 series, and the first impression of these cards was that they under-performed and were over-priced. On the other hand ATI has been behind Nvidia for some time now, and even just a few months ago it was widely reported that ATI was not going to try and compete with Nvidia at the high end and would just compete at the mid-range level. When the 4870 X2 was announced there was some skepticism that it could deliver. When it came out though it ended up exceeding expectations. Although $550 is high, it's lower than what most high end cards have launched at.

However with recent price cuts on the GTX 280 I'm not sure things are as clear cut as most reviewers are making them out to be. I saw a Palit GTX 280 at Zip Zoom Fly for $399 PLUS a $30 rebate. Let's just take the $399 price since we all know rebates can be shaky at best. Is the 4870 X2 a better card than the GTX 280? Yes, of course. However is it $150 better? Probably, IF, and this is a big IF, you run at a resolution of 1900X1200 or higher.

But what about gamers like me? I have a very nice 22' LCD, and I run my games at a native resolution of 1680 x 1050. Now at that resolution is the 4870 X2 $150 better than a GTX 280? I don't think so. The 4870 X2 really shines at 1900 x 1200 and above so if you're running at that the choice is a lot easier. Something else I noticed in reviews where they showed the minimum frame rates and not just the maximum was that the 280GTX often beat the 4870 X2 in minimum frame rates which means that the 4870 X2 is dipping down farther in the more demanding and intensive areas of a game. For most gamers this minimum number means more than the maximum.

I'm not a fanboy of any kind. I buy the best for the money, and I don't care what brand it is. For a long time I bought AMD processors, but once the Core Duo line came out I switched to Intel. I was with ATI through the 9800 Pro, and then switched to a 8800 GTX. I was all set to go ATI this round, but now I'm not so sure. I'm getting ready to get a new rig that will feature the E8500 with 4 gigs of RAM on a P45 based Motherboard, and right at this moment I'm leaning toward a GTX 280.

 

[sarwar_r87]

For me there are a few key things that make all the difference. Micro stuttering, gone. Half-sized ram issue, gone. Scaling, better than anything else. Add in dx10.1 and some more basic issues, like how ati actually has to make their cards much better than nvidia's in order to compensate for all the nvidia optimized games. Plus they embraced the dual solution these last two rounds where as nvidia bitched about having to do the dual solution to keep with their "fastest card at any cost, even at the expense of image quality" mantra. Those cinema 2.0 demos also play a part, I mean these ati cards can do this ray tracing stuff now much better than intel and nvidia are promising for hardware that's still in labs. To top it all off, there's a chance that PhysX on Ati cards might pan out very well. All that leaves me with no reason to choose nvidia over ati until we have some major architecture changes.

For the record I have a rare 8800 GTS 1024 that I've been very happy with, but in a month or so I'm trading it in for a 4870x2 with no regrets.

+ 4870x2 scales far better than than 4870CF.
+ 4870x2 doesnt only beat gtx280, but beats it by 30% to 50% while being merely 15% more expensive

 

[cjl]

Part of the reason people love it so much is that although it costs an arm and a leg, it performs well enough to be worth that price. In many games, it actually beats not just the GTX280, but even the GTX280 in SLI, and the lead tends to be larger at higher resolution and with AA (which is where you really need the powerful card in the first place).

 

[random_2]

I think part of the issue with the 4870X2 is it's still soon enough after the release of the 4870 to be riding on the 4870's coat tails. I mean how could you fault ATI's development, release and pricing strategy on their 4000 series cards? For ATI this was a major leap forward, and a very welcome one at that. I think we were all getting a little tired of Nvidias strangle hold on our wallets, with no hope of seeing better than average performance without taking a second mortgage on the house. If you think about it, the 3800 series started the trend of affordable performance and the 4800 series carved it in stone.
I don't know about you, but I breathed a big sigh of relief when the first hints of what the 4800 series capability was going to be. Not because I am a fan boy by any stretch, but just because we desperately needed the competition in the market place, and it really wasn't happening up until now.

I also think there were a few too many unnecessary releases from Nvidia. I'm not sure what they were trying to accomplish but we saw more than a few new cards come down the chute with flashy new numbers from Nvidia, only to find ourselves wondering what the big deal was when the NDA's were lifted and we finally got to see the reviews. I suspect this was because Nvidia finally began to realize there is a limited market for 700.00-900.00 video cards and that if they could re-introduce a pre-existing design, with a little more performance in the middle of the price range, they'd still be able to use the economies of scale and realize even better margins on their mid price point product.

The 4800 series from ATI was revolutionary in comparison to what had been going on at Nvidia (other than the 9800X2,), With the release of the 280 and 260 and the subsequent ongoing reductions in pricing from Nvidia, It's going to be pretty exciting to be a computer nerd in the next while, cause I think the gloves are off now.

I'm getting the popcorn ready and the rootbeer's cooling. This could be a long one

 

[spathotan]

The reason this card isnt being tossed out the door is because, like many others have already said, it actually delivers with what it offers. This isnt just some gimmick like the 7950GX2 and the 9800GX2, two boards "put together" to make some alleged monster, when the only thing monster about it was the price, the size, the heat, and the power consumption. The price-performance ratio is god awful. However the 9800GX2 isnt near as bad as the 7950GX2 was.

Basically its all about getting the best bang for the buck here, and the 4800 series does this very well. While expensive, the 4870X2 is actually worth the money, due to the numbers, performance, and that wow factor somebody mentioned above.

And whats with all the rolleye emotes at the end of every post, really? Come on.