Radeon HD 4830: High-Speed, Cheap CrossFire

Benchmark Results: Supreme Commander Forged Alliance

Supreme Commander also has a reputation for brutalizing PC hardware, relying just as heavily on CPU power as it does on GPU power, while the Forged Alliance expansion only ups the ante. Luckily, real-time strategy games do not require many frames per second to remain playable. With that in mind, let’s have a look at the results of our benchmark:

We can see some definite CPU bottlenecking going on here. It does look like this title prefers the Radeon HD 4830 over the 8800 GT in multiple-card configurations. Since this is even happening at low resolutions, it’s likely that this game isn’t very well optimized to work with SLI.

Let’s add 4x AA and see if there are any major changes:

With AA enabled, the 4830s in CrossFire seem to be chugging along well while the 8800 GTs in SLI are slowed to the speed of a single card. Once again, it looks like this title is not well-optimized for SLI.

We can also see that 4xAA really isn’t an option for a single 4830 or 8800 GT in this game. However, the 4830s in CrossFire are definitely displaying a good value and do well even compared to the Radeon 4870 X2.

  • badge
    Great look into the 4830. Makes me want to buy a Xfire setup using these.
    Reply
  • Doltron
    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.
    Reply
  • hannibal
    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!
    Reply
  • neiroatopelcc
    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?
    Reply
  • cangelini
    Numbers and charts are corrected.
    Reply
  • cangelini
    Actually stock clocks on the 4850 *are* 625. :P
    Reply
  • V3NOM
    I'm sure i saw that "4850 - smarter by design" article at anandtech first. or somewhere else... the name anyway not necessarily the article >.>
    Reply
  • giovanni86
    I knew that the 8800GT wasn't that fast, but those benchmarks ahve to be wrong... Sorry Nvidia fan boy here. Bye.
    Reply
  • V3NOM
    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.
    Reply
  • V3NOM
    LOL at 1680x1050, the 4870X2 IMPROVES when 4xAA is added? i smell a rat...
    Reply