Same packaging, different card?

[therschbach]

This is really two questions. The first is this:

I have a Visiontek 4870 that I bought from Circuit City. I wanted to Xfire so I got another one off ebay at a good price. The seller says it's new and it was still in the plastic when I got it...everything was in place and didn't appear to have ever been opened. I've got them running now and everything appears to be normal, but the design of the two cards is significantly different. My first card is the typical 1-fan design that you'll find if you google an image of it. The one I got off ebay has two fans and a couple heat-pipes coming out the side, but the top of the shroud is labeled Radeon 4870 and the two fans are labeled ATI. Even the circuitry on the boards looks slightly different. The box it came from is identical to the box that I got my first Visiontek in. Is this a Visiontek card? Why are the two different? I just want to make sure I didn't get scammed.

Second question:

When I look in CCC, it says the two cards are linked 8x which is expected on my P5Q-Deluxe...but it says the first card (the ebay card) has 256 MB of hyper memory, while the second card shows 512 MB GDDR5. The clock speeds are the same on both cards. Is this correct? Or should they both say 512 GDDR5?

I'm just making sure I didn't get ripped off. Thanks a bunch!

 

[jerreece]

Hmmm, interesting. You can't take pictures of your two cards can you? And post them here?

The issue of the 256MB of memory is really the part that makes me curious. You can't get a 4870 with 256MB of RAM. Pretty sure they just don't make it. They're all 512MB or 1GB.

You could also look at the UPC/Barcode on the box and make sure they are identical. Could be that one card is a newer revision than the other.

Is this your box?

http://www.visiontek.com/products/cards/retail/4870_512_PCIe.html

If your clock speeds are identical, and the Catalyst drivers allow you to run them in Crossfire, you must be fine. I don't think it will let you Crossfire two cards unless they're identical chipsets anyhow.

 

[tenaciousleydead]

If you can get me a picture of the second card i might be able to tell if its a fake. Take the first visiontek you bought out of the case, Download GPU-Z and run it. This will give you a definite answer

 

[jerreece]

You might also try the GPU-Z utility and see if it shows both video cards properly as far as memory and such.

EDIT: lol Tenaciusleydead beat me by 16 seconds.

 

[therschbach]

Yes, that's the same box that both came in. I'll get GPU-z and let you know the results. Thanks!

 

[therschbach]

 

[curnel_D]

I'm really curious too. Only posting so I get email notification when you give us an update.

I never trust electronics from ebay.

 

[Shadow703793]

^+1. You know the bottom card looks "cheap". Yes, like said before run GPUZ.

 

[curnel_D]

Edit: What port is that on top? Size and shape makes it look like VGA, and I'm not even sure if any of the 4k series comes with VGA. Might be something totally different though too.

 

[squatchman]

The Visiontek version of the card does.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129113

The top card is probably what the original reference design looked like. Identical to the Diamond, HIS, and a few others. No custom decals or anything.

 

[therschbach]

WOW. lol. Did you see the pictures before you bought it off ebay?

Edit: What port is that on top? Size and shape makes it look like VGA, and I'm not even sure if any of the 4k series comes with VGA. Might be something totally different though too.

There were no pics of the card because as I posted before, the box was sealed in plastic and sold as new. He would have had to open the plastic to take a pic of it.

That's another strange thing...this card only has 1 DVI port. It also has a VGA and an HDMI port. My other 4870 has 2 DVI's and an S-video.

I pulled out my original card and ran GPU-z and got the same results as I did by running GPU-z with both cards in and switching between card 1 and 2. There are small differences between the cards....

Card #1 (Ebay)

BIOS VER 011.010.000.000.000000
Subvendor - Visiontek (1545)
Texture Fillrate - 30.6 GTexel/s
Bandwidth - 117.8 GB/s
GPU Clock - 765 MHz (I have it OC'd via CCC)
Memory - 920 MHz (OC'd)

Card #2 (Original)

BIOS VER 011.003.000.001.029254
Subvendor - ATI (1002)
Texture Fillrate - 30.4 GTexel/s
Bandwidth - 116.5 GB/s
GPU Clock - 760 MHz
Memory - 910 MHz

All other fields are identical.

So it actually seems the one I got off ebay is a bit better than my original. I'm confused about why the clock speeds are different on each card though, with Xfire enabled.

 

[Rahbot]

They are both 4870's thats for sure, they are from the same Company. Its just that both cards are also diffrent. If you look closer at them. They only thing that is Diffrent is the Coverings and the Clocks, and the one from Ebay yes is better but not by much. With CrossFire enableing them the better of the two will really show its colors. I also have the same problem with my 8800GTS's one is from EVGA and Better one is From BFG. My BFG is better becase of the SLI will some how overclock my BFG and run my EVGA card at norm spec's. Don't Worry to much about it. If you want your computer to run them both at the same clock and speed switch Card 1 and 2 places. The Faster one will down clock to the slower one. One good thing about that is that it will run cooler.

 

[therschbach]

Ok, but for max speed, I should leave the better card as #1? Sounds good to me.

 

[spathotan]

Its the same card.....the one with the 2 fan cooler is the revised cooler, not the reference design. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129113

Really suprised nobody here knows this.

 

[squatchman]

Check about four messages up spath....

 

[spathotan]

Check about four messages up spath....

Ahh...corrected :lol: