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

By Florian Charpentier
published

Conclusion

Our first conclusion is that the Radeon HD 4870 X2 manages to achieve its objective—namely to be the best performing card you can buy. It has been a long time coming, and other Radeons have had the same goal but have not been able to attain the same results. Case in point, look at the Radeon HD 3870 X2 which was launched at the beginning of the year. With this model, however, the advantage that the Radeon HD 4870 X2 takes over the GeForce GTX 280 is incontestable. It averages a 25% gain (with a peak at 51% in 2560x1600, plus eye candy) and above all, stays true in all of the games except for Flight Simulator X.

It must be said that the design of the Radeon HD 4870 X2 takes into account the mistakes made with the Radeon HD 3870 X2. The memory capacity has been quadrupled, so that now there is 1 GB of usable memory. Its frequency has not been reduced. The PCI Express controller serving as a bridge between the GPUs supports PCI Express 2.0. And there’s a side-port connection between the GPUs reserved for future use when the PCIe pathway might become saturated.

And thus, Nvidia has finally been beaten and won’t be able to respond in the coming weeks. Considering the size and price of its own GT200 graphics processor, Nvidia is somewhat prohibited from any sort of retaliation based on the same bi-GPU solution.

In short, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is the newest and fastest 3D card of the moment—25% better on average than the GeForce GTX 280 and up to 51% at the highest resolutions. And if you’re hoping for something in the near future with lower energy consumption, less noise, or a lower price, we’d recommend you not hold your breath.

Editor’s Note: While we were hoping to provide comparison numbers with the 4870 X2 in CrossFire and a pair of 4870s in CrossFire versus the X2, we’ve been somewhat limited by time and troubleshooting in the short time we’ve had the card. Also, the untimely death of our power meter prevented us from measuring consumption here. Keep an eye out for a follow-up story where we compare more elaborate X2 configurations to a higher-end GTX 280 setup.

Florian Charpentier
118 Comments Comment from the forums
  • randomizer
    How's the microstutter?
    Reply
  • tipmen
    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
    looks like i need a new mobo and a bigger case to fit this beast
    Reply
  • 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
    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
    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
    I can smell incoming price drops...
    Reply
  • 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
    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
    .............................
    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