4850 at high resolutions

[tomstar]

I am trying to build a low cost performance system but I'm a little stuck on the graphics card. I was having doubts between the 4870 and 4850. At first I wanted to go with the 4870 because of the high resolution I will play at, so the GDDR5 will come in handy. But since I want to keep the costs a low as possible I thought that it would be smarter to go with the 4850 now and upgrade in a year or so to a much better card, hopefully.

Truth is, the 4870 doesn't give that much more fps then the 4850. The only game it will make a difference in is crysis but then again both 50 and 70 are unable to play crysis at high resolutions (2048x1152) so maybe I am worrying about nothing.


All the other games, both cards get over 80 fps which doesn't realy make any difference to me.


So 4870 or 4850, just trying to make up my mind.

 

[mactronix]

If you plan to play at (2048x1152) then IMOA you really need a 4870 and a 1GB card at that.
Mactronix

 

[customisbetter]

If you are gaming at that resolution (i don't see how) then you really should a get a 1gig card.

Honestly, the 4850 is fine for pretty much everything. The only reason i got a 70 is because i have a mental condition.

 

[mactronix]

Here is a review dealing with a 4850 1GB. http://www.guru3d.com/article/gigabyte-radeon-hd-4850-1gb-gvr485oc1gi-review/

Now looking at the benchmarks it shows its pretty much game dependant but a lot of the time at 1920x1200, which is the closest match to your resolution in terms of pixel count,(nice monitor by the way i may get one) the 4870 makes enough differance in my opinion to be worth it.
On the oposite side of things does the 1GB make enough differance enough of the time to warrant a 1GB card ? I would say yes as games will only get more taxing so a 1GB card would be a good bet whichever card you decide to get.
So as i said my personal choice would be a 4870 1GB

Mactronix

 

[squatchman]

20x11.... will games even support 20x11? The benchmarking people went straight to 25x16...

 

[xxcoop42xx]

If you plan to play at (2048x1152) then IMOA you really need a 4870 and a 1GB card at that.
Mactronix

i heavily second that

 

[tomstar]

so no waiting for newer cards or anything just go with 4870 with 1G

Anyone has a review of the 4870 512 vs the 1G one? Read some a few months ago but kinda forot the exact outcome... got to go.

Thanks

 

[boulard83]

Yup ... at that Res ( what screen you have ?!?! ) you need 48701gb. 224$ on newegg.

the 4850 512 isnt enough for really high res and candy.

Have fun !

 

[jaguarskx]

Read the following review which has both 512MB and 1GB versions running at stock speed and overclocked. The FPS advantages of the 1GB ranges from -1 FPS (yes that's negative) to +6 FPS depending on the game at 1920 x 1200 resolution.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd4870-1024.html

Here's a quote from page 15 of the review:

Summary Diagrams
Radeon HD 4870 1024MB vs. Radeon HD 4870 512MB

First of all, I want to show you the comparison of the Radeon HD 4870 with 1024 megabytes of graphics memory with the reference Radeon HD 4870 512MB at the same frequencies of 750/3600MHz. The reference card is taken as the baseline in the diagram. An increase or reduction of performance is shown relative to it.

As you can see, the extra 512 megabytes of graphics memory are not always a good thing. The 1024MB version shows best results in such resource-consuming games as World in Conflict, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, Crysis Warhead, Far Cry 2 and in the graphics tests from 3DMark 2006. 3DMark Vantage, Unigine Tropics, Call of Duty 4 and Devil May Cry are largely indifferent to the increased amount of memory. The 1024MB card is 3.6% faster on average across all the tests (the geometric mean was calculated) at 1280x1024 and 5.1% faster at 1920x1200. When FSAA was in use, the 1024MB version was 7% and 5.8% faster, respectively, than the 512MB version.

 

[boulard83]

Nice review jaguar !

But the 4870 will perform better at hose res. The 4850 is few step behind

 

[tomstar]

I have a samsung 2343BW, bought the screen mainly for watching video's because of it's high resolution and 16/9 ratio. The maximum resolution is 2048 x 1152. This resolution is just a little bit more then 1920x1200. 200k pixels more I think. So it shouldn't be that much of a difference in gaming compared to 1920x1200.

Anyway, the price difference between the 4870 512 and the 4870 1g is minimal and therefore I picked the 1G version because it will be better no matter what.

I'm just wondering if the 4870 will realy be that much better at higher resolutions compared to the 4850

 

[boulard83]

yes it is.

Sum of FPS Benchmarks 1920x1200
ATI Radeon HD 4870 512 MB 550.40
ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB 485.40

Sum of FPS Benchmarks 1680x1050
ATI Radeon HD 4870 512 MB 595.80
ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB 536.50

The 4870 can be found (when there's a deal) for just 50 more $ and less. why not !

 

[tomstar]

because 50 euro's is 50 euro's

 

[tomstar]

I'm not the kind of person that will pay 50% more for a 5% performance increase.

 

[boulard83]

loll