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AMD's Radeon HD 4870 X2: R700 First-Look

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Test Setup And Some Bugs

We didn’t get as much time with the Radeon HD 4870 X2 as we would have liked for a thorough review of the hardware. Nor did our testing go as smoothly as we had planned. AMD’s beta drivers are still premature. And while the software worked well with the other cards in our test suite, it caused notable visual artifacts in the menus of a number of games. Moreover, the Catalyst Control Center had a tendency of crashing without wanting to come back, prompting repeated restarts. As we hammered out a handful of issues, our test suite evolved ever so slightly and this story came to be a first-look rather than full-blown review.

Benchmark Setup:

  • Asus P5E3 Deluxe (Intel X38)
  • Intel Core 2 Quad QX6850 (3 GHz)
  • Crucial 2 x 1 Go DDR3 1333 MHz 7-7-7-20
  • Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250 Go
  • Lector DVD Asus 12x
  • Coolermaster RealPower Pro 850W Windows Vista Catalyst 8.8 beta (8.52.2) ForceWare 177.79 beta

Seeing as how AMD’s driver issues created some interesting issues, we concentrated on benchmarking two resolutions: 1920x1200 and 2560x1600, with and without the visual details like anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering.

Because the side-port pathway isn’t doing much of anything, we asked AMD how a Radeon HD 4870 X2 would differ from a pair of 4870s in CrossFire prior to benchmarking. The answer was that the X2’s advantage is a result of its memory capacity. The extra 512 MB per GPU should translate into better benchmark results at high resolutions with lots of eye candy enabled. Let’s see how the board fares in the real world.

118 Comments Comment from the forums
  • randomizer 12 August 2008 13:37
    How's the microstutter?
    Reply
  • tipmen 12 August 2008 13:40
    Good job ATI/AMD! really good card you have here lets hope its cheaper then the GTX 280. I'm glad i waited it out now i can replace my old setup. Now i will get new X48 board and 2 of these puppys and im sure I need a better power supply I don't think a 750 watt will do it.
    Reply
  • kite212 12 August 2008 13:49
    looks like i need a new mobo and a bigger case to fit this beast
    Reply
  • 12 August 2008 14:08
    Whoa, what happened to the heat and power consumption level charts? Where they that far off the scale you dare not show them? The card performs nicely but this is ATI/AMD we are talking about, they love heat and power. So what are they?
    Reply
  • Cmhone 12 August 2008 14:14
    It says at the end of the article their power meter went kaput, and also not to expect much in the power consumption department anyways.
    Reply
  • neiroatopelcc 12 August 2008 14:29
    Someone explain to me what this means in english?
    "Back when we tested the Radeon HD 3870 X2, we found that the biggest impact on performance was attributable to the board’s memory capacity, since memory on a bi-GPU card has to be divided in two. And in order to assure adequate performance, you often have to multiply the quantity of memory by four, which is what AMD does with the 4870 X2." from page 1
    Reply
  • romulus47plus1 12 August 2008 14:32
    I can smell incoming price drops...
    Reply
  • 12 August 2008 14:33
    It's nice to see AMD/ATI challange nVidia again, it's been too long nVidias market. My take is that this situation can only benefit the consumers; push for faster GPU's to more affordable prices. It will be interesting to see nVidias run to retake the performance as well as the midrange price/performance crown.
    Reply
  • randomizer 12 August 2008 14:52
    neiroatopelccSomeone explain to me what this means in english? "Back when we tested the Radeon HD 3870 X2, we found that the biggest impact on performance was attributable to the board’s memory capacity, since memory on a bi-GPU card has to be divided in two. And in order to assure adequate performance, you often have to multiply the quantity of memory by four, which is what AMD does with the 4870 X2." from page 1The HD3870X2 had only 2x512MB memory, and each GPU could only access 512MB, which held its performance back. Although I think it should say "doubled", not "quadrupled", since the HD4870X2 has 2x1GB.
    Reply
  • Thurin 12 August 2008 15:01
    .............................
    Point 1:
    It's great that Ati is putting up a fight and it's obvious that with all fan-boys and trash talking/flaming aside the only reason why this rapid progression on a pure processing and on the overall technological level is made possible through competition between the titans of the graphics processing world.
    .............................

    BUT!

    According to other valued/trustworthy sources the 4870 X2 manages only a 1.09 over 1.00 increase in performance.

    see link:
    http://tweakers.net/reviews/957/4/his-radeon-hd-4870-x2-versus-asus-geforce-gtx-280-pagina-4.html (Copy paste the link if needed)
    .............................

    As for the significant increase stated in this article, it's great, but only applicable to those games with integrated support for crossfire technology. (Further and extensive testing would be desirable, and posting actual facts to support claims would also be duly noted. // I know some testing has been done, but a full review on exactly what value is added with the new card, still remains to be seen.)

    .............................
    Point 2:
    As for NVidia's reply to the 4870 X2 dual-gpu card is the introduction of the 65 nm -> 55nm gpu chipsize reduction.

    Link:
    http://tweakers.net/nieuws/55050/introductie-55nm-versie-geforce-gtx-280-eind-augustus.html

    According to the news this is to take place at the end of August. meaning that the reply is ready and launched by the end of THIS month.
    .............................

    I would like to at this point state I'm not a fan boy for either side, and I myself have switched from Nvidia to Ati back to Nvidia and will keep doing this as either side dominates the market with high quality merchandise and depending on which one is the market leader at the points where I update my machines.
    .............................

    My apologies to those of you who cannot read or understand Dutch.

    Here is a substitute link for the interested English parties:
    http://www.stokedgamer.com/2008/07/nvidia-geforce-gtx-290-launching-at.html

    The reason I responded with such diligence and ferocity is not because I hate Tomshardware, think that Ati is doing a bad job or that NVidia rocks beyond compare... The reason for my reply is that I wish for the consumer to be fully informed and not end up buying a more expensive product for less bang/buck than originally expected.

    Stay informed folks ! (For those of you who have a no limit budget the 4870 X2 might be the way to go, other than that, if you are looking for a more financially affordable card, wait for the 55nm NVidia GTX280 revision (name is yet to be determined, release expected at the end of the month))

    That concludes my rant for the day and I hope you guys are now fully informed or that I have at least have sparked your interest on the field of gathering information before drawing a conclusion based on a single review ;)

    Look around! and stay informed ! Ati and Nvidia both rock and the best of luck to both companies... may the struggle be eternal and the progress fiery and extreme!

    .............................

    -= Michael Out =-
    Reply