# Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 2048 MB



## W1zzard (Nov 4, 2008)

Being priced at reasonable $419, the Sapphire HD 4850 X2 is designed to take some market share from NVIDIA's GTX 280. The card features 2 GB of GDDR3 memory and comes with a custom designed cooling solution. Even though you would expect very little overclocking from a dual-GPU card, we saw an amazing 15% performance increase from overclocking without touching any fan settings.

*Show full review*


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## Binge (Nov 4, 2008)

It always makes me sad to see my performance per Watt and performance per dollar for the 4870x2 

Great review!  I bet that card would easily take aftermarket coolers.


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## johnnyfiive (Nov 4, 2008)

Such an awesome card that STILL needs a better cooling solution. I want a 4850x2 for sure now. But, I'm waiting until a better cooling solution version or part comes out. That is SUPER loud and no external venting?!?!


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Nov 4, 2008)

wait for teh palit verison


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## kyle2020 (Nov 4, 2008)

Its finally here! 

my next upgrade!


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## buggalugs (Nov 4, 2008)

Performance looks good but why oh why do we still get cards that are very noisy. Its not good enough for a highish end card.


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## Zehnsucht (Nov 4, 2008)

buggalugs said:


> Performance looks good but why oh why do we still get cards that are very noisy. Its not good enough for a *highish end card*.



High:ish end card? It is simply the most high end card out there in resolutions over 1680. 

I'm getting this in a couple of months. Paired with water cooling


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## zithe (Nov 4, 2008)

Awesome! You should try Oblivion + Qarl and stuff sometime. Those mods can be pretty heavy.


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## knightlag (Nov 4, 2008)

Yay! been wanting to see a review of the HD4850x2. Like Zithe said, you should try Oblivion + Qarls Texture Pack 3 + More then everything visible when distant, that puts a load on almost any setup.


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## douglatins (Nov 4, 2008)

Why the (F*Word) did ati do to make it better than my 4870X2, oh cmon!, F*Word u AMD, FIRST and last ati card, nvidia FTW. And F*Word your drivers too! No physix, WTF.


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## razaron (Nov 4, 2008)

it beats the 4870x2 on higher resolutions, thats a bit stupid


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## zithe (Nov 4, 2008)

douglatins said:


> Why the (F*Word) did ati do to make it better than my 4870X2, oh cmon!, F*Word u AMD, FIRST and last ati card, nvidia FTW. And F*Word your drivers too! No physix, WTF.



...They're driver issues. Not sure how to explain it. I don't see why you're upset, anyways. You probably never drop below 60 frames per second unless you play crysis... This kind of thing happens on both ends...


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## mlee49 (Nov 4, 2008)

Nice review Wiz.  I really enjoy seeing F@H listed as a review category, perhaps a few new categories will be added?  maybe some will be dropped as new games/benchmarks come out?


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## lemonadesoda (Nov 4, 2008)

Excellent Review! As always, wiz does the magic:










You know, now the dust is settling, GTX260, esp with CUDA, really is a great little (or big LOL) contender. I think that or the new fab reduced GT206(?) is on my next upgrade list.

wiz: can you BIOS hack the 4850x2 2GB memory sizes to trick it to access just 1GB of memory for a comparative?


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## btarunr (Nov 4, 2008)

Zehnsucht said:


> I'm getting this in a couple of months. Paired with water cooling



It would be interesting to know if full-coverage water blocks come out for this PCB. It's a one of a kind PCB. Even then, you'd need some nano-bots from the future to go in and dissolve that epoxy for the bridge chip's heatsink, so you could use a block.


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## douglatins (Nov 4, 2008)

zithe said:


> ...They're driver issues. Not sure how to explain it. I don't see why you're upset, anyways. You probably never drop below 60 frames per second unless you play crysis... This kind of thing happens on both ends...



Ok i guess you're right, i think i cant get over the fact that i didnt think that a so hot gpu would also increase my overall system temp quite highly


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## TRIPTEX_CAN (Nov 4, 2008)

ATI didnt release this card eariler for a reason.... its just as good as the 4870x2 until you hit resolutions above 2500x1600. This card would have killed the 4870x2 sales based on price alone. 

Now if the other AIBs would only release their versions without this horrible fan Sapphire used. 

Good review Wizz


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## douglatins (Nov 4, 2008)

razaron said:


> it beats the 4870x2 on higher resolutions, thats a bit stupid



This is what got me very upset


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## btarunr (Nov 4, 2008)

Yes, it beats HD 4870 X2..those tests were re-run many times over for both the cards.


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## TRIPTEX_CAN (Nov 4, 2008)

ATI has been using DDR3 for a long time. They know how to use it better than they know DDR5. They engineered the 4850x2 very well.


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## mdm-adph (Nov 4, 2008)

.and down, down go the prices on the GTX 280.


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## niko084 (Nov 4, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Yes, it beats HD 4870 X2..those tests were re-run many times over for both the cards.



Probably has to do with better drivers..

But all in all, not a bad card, but I am still having a hard time seeing the reason for it when the 4870x2 is right above it... 

**Read next post #24**


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## btarunr (Nov 4, 2008)

niko084 said:


> Probably has to do with better drivers..



Both cards were compared in an identical environment.


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## niko084 (Nov 4, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Both cards were compared in an identical environment.



No they were not..

The 4870x2 was done with 8.7's
The 4850x2 was done with 8.10's check the reviews

**
Scratch that, I never noticed that the cards are actually all re-tested with the newer drivers..


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## TRIPTEX_CAN (Nov 4, 2008)

For W1zzard's review the drivers were the same.


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## Zehnsucht (Nov 4, 2008)

btarunr said:


> It would be interesting to know if full-coverage water blocks come out for this PCB. It's a one of a kind PCB. Even then, you'd need some nano-bots from the future to go in and dissolve that epoxy for the bridge chip's heatsink, so you could use a block.



Dual MCW60's all the way baby


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## btarunr (Nov 4, 2008)

Zehnsucht said:


> Dual MCW60's all the way baby



With the barbs/tubes right over the memory?


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## Duffman (Nov 4, 2008)

dang it, when is this card hitting the 'egg!?


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## Zehnsucht (Nov 4, 2008)

btarunr said:


> With the barbs/tubes right over the memory?


Either low profile heatsinks (have thermalright now), or a cool haird00de on the swiftech sinks will make it possible. 
Like so:






 (courtesy of http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=2279894 )


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## btarunr (Nov 4, 2008)

hahaha, nice one


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## Duffman (Nov 4, 2008)

> Each GPU controls its own fan speed depending on its own temperature.



That is an awesome feature


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## erocker (Nov 4, 2008)

Zehnsucht said:


> Either low profile heatsinks (have thermalright now), or a cool haird00de on the swiftech sinks will make it possible.



That looks awesome!  Like copper fur.


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## v-zero (Nov 4, 2008)

It's great and all, and it's nice to see that memory bandwidth becomes unimportant at high resolutions as the shaders become the bottleneck, at which point the lower latency of DDR3 compared to DDR5 gives it the upper hand - however, I think they got the price wrong. Even with 2048mb of memory it doesn't make sense... $160 x 2 = $320 . So, 1024mb of DDR3 costs $100, erm... no. Plus it's the price of one PCB (slightly more complex PCB) rather than two... 

Cheeky buggers.


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## douglatins (Nov 4, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Yes, it beats HD 4870 X2..those tests were re-run many times over for both the cards.



Ok ill refuse to believe that, will check other reviews


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## W1zzard (Nov 4, 2008)

douglatins said:


> Ok ill refuse to believe that, will check other reviews



let us know of the other reviews you find which compare the 4870 x2 to the 4850 x2 in multiple resolutions of the same test. will be interesting to see


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## PCpraiser100 (Nov 4, 2008)

Now thats a graphics card. I'm still very surprized that if you OC it through CCC the card is more powerful than it's bigger brother, wow.


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## douglatins (Nov 4, 2008)

PCpraiser100 said:


> Now thats a graphics card. I'm still very surprized that if you OC it through CCC the card is more powerful than it's bigger brother, wow.



Right!?!?!?!


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## Duffman (Nov 4, 2008)

i think i have to agree with Wizz on the fan noise...I was all about getting this card until i saw those db's.  And being as how it looks like Sapphire will be the only one making this card, and you can't get the heat sinc off of the bridge chip, there will be no aftermarket cooling solution for this card either.  The only option would be to rip the Sapphire fans off so you can put some of your own, quieter fans on...

I don't think i'd want to pay $400 for a gfx card just to turn around and have to tear it apart to make the noise more bearable.


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## btarunr (Nov 4, 2008)

PCpraiser100 said:


> Now thats a graphics card. I'm still very surprized that if you OC it through CCC the card is more powerful than it's bigger brother, wow.



Quite a bargain, isn't it?


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## W1zzard (Nov 4, 2008)

PCpraiser100 said:


> Now thats a graphics card. I'm still very surprized that if you OC it through CCC the card is more powerful than it's bigger brother, wow.



i didn't overclock the card through CCC because of the overdrive limit. but there is no reason why the card should not perform identical when oc'd through ccc


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## TRIPTEX_CAN (Nov 4, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> i didn't overclock the card through CCC because of the overdrive limit. but there is no reason why the card should not perform identical when oc'd through ccc



Not if the Overdrive limit is 700Mhz like most other 4850s. Still waiting for "ATI Tools successor" to OC my cards.


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## newtekie1 (Nov 4, 2008)

Very nice card, and at more than $100 less than then HD4870x2, I think this card would kill the HD4870x2 sales.  Though, I couldn't stand the fan noise, I don't know why ATi doesn't spend some time improving their cooling, nVidia has been miles ahead on their cooling solutions.

I really think going with the GTX260(216) would be the best bet for buying a video card right now though.  Overclocking to match a GTX280, and only $300 can't really be beat.


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## Binge (Nov 4, 2008)

Review at Overclocker's Club has reviews at lots of resolutions but no variable AA/AF.

The 4850x2 seems to do well in odd places.  I really wonder if it might just be a driver issue.


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## hclarkjr (Nov 5, 2008)

i am curious about something though, some of the other reviews are not showing the same results as this review. especialy vs the GTX280


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## Scrizz (Nov 5, 2008)

TRIPTEX_MTL said:


> Not if the Overdrive limit is 700Mhz like most other 4850s. Still waiting for "ATI Tools successor" to OC my cards.



mine is 800 in CCC 

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showpost.php?p=976909&postcount=5


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## TRIPTEX_CAN (Nov 5, 2008)

Without a BIOS tweak?


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## Scrizz (Nov 5, 2008)

it's not so hard, is it


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## Bytor (Nov 5, 2008)

btarunr said:


> With the barbs/tubes right over the memory?



Sure..  Why not?  Works great on my 3870's...  Just a little trim work on the heatsinks and they work great...


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## SystemViper (Nov 5, 2008)

nice job Bytor!


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## jbunch07 (Nov 5, 2008)

hmm I'm very surprised that this card outperforms its bigger brother in some test.
I was playing with the idea of CFing this card with my 4870 X2 but I was worried that this card would cause my card to run at slower clocks considering that it will default to the lower clocked card iirc. But now that I see that it performs very close/better than the 4870 X2 I wonder how they would do in CF? anyone have any ideas?


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## CY:G (Nov 5, 2008)

Someone needs to explain to me in detail how the hell is this doing better than the 4870x2, it has to be a mistake...

Im in denial to be honest, i feel kind of bad for getting the 4870x2 , someone tell me it wasn't a bad choice....


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## jbunch07 (Nov 5, 2008)

CY:G said:


> Someone needs to explain to me in detail how the hell is this doing better than the 4870x2, it has to be a mistake...
> 
> Im in denial to be honest, i feel kind of bad for getting the 4870x2 , someone tell me it wasn't a bad choice....



It wasn't a bad choice! I Have one! I love the thing. I'm very glad I bought it. However I'm still dumbfounded about the results. I think drivers for the 4870 X2 still need work.


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## CY:G (Nov 5, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> It wasn't a bad choice! I Have one! I love the thing. I'm very glad I bought it. However I'm still dumbfounded about the results. I think drivers for the 4870 X2 still need work.



I have ALWAYS supported ATI (yes even in the 2900 days) but this kind of thing makes me really distrust them.

Im pretty sure they had the 4850x2 ready around the time the 4870x2 was being made, they didn't release it at the same time for obvious reasons, even if it is drivers, why doesnt the 4870x2 gain performance as well?? i know they use different type of ram but it still is the same architecture (you know using 2 GPUs)

Im hoping somehow the 4870x2 gains some ground pretty soon with Driver updates or whatever, if not im going to the green side next round 

What is the advantage of having a 4870x2 over a 4850x2, the fan noise?? is that it? really?


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## Binge (Nov 5, 2008)

Fan noise and the sideport feature which has yet to be unlocked.


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## SystemViper (Nov 5, 2008)

wow, that card is throwing off the balance of power.


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## jbunch07 (Nov 5, 2008)

Ok w1zz! please tell us how this card is out performing the 4870 X2? I'm dumbfounded!


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## btarunr (Nov 5, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> Ok w1zz! please tell us how this card is out performing the 4870 X2? I'm dumbfounded!



The RV770 cores are handling GDDR3 with far greater efficiency than GDDR5, when the cores are overclocked.


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## jbunch07 (Nov 5, 2008)

so if the 4870 X2 had GDDR3 then theoretically it would perform better?


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## SystemViper (Nov 5, 2008)

btarunr said:


> The RV770 cores are handling GDDR3 with far greater efficiency than GDDR5, when the cores are overclocked.




So are you saying that it could be considered a smart move on the part of Nvidia to keep using the proven DDR3 instead of going with the bling value of DDR5? Thus being validated by DDR3 being able to be handled 





> with far greater efficiency


.


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## btarunr (Nov 5, 2008)

SystemViper said:


> So are you saying that by making that statement it could be considered a smart move on the part of Nvidia to keep using the proven DDR3 instead of going with the bling value of DDR5? Thus being validated by DDR3 being able to handled .



Where did I say that? Draw your own inferences, I'm speaking in context of this RV770 Pro setup. I remember W1z telling it could be due to the timings GDDR5 memory come with. Again, just one way of looking at it. I'm just as clueless as you are, but I'm sure the tests were re-run to double/triple-check the results, with both cards on the same drivers.


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## TRIPTEX_CAN (Nov 5, 2008)

SystemViper said:


> So are you saying that it could be considered a smart move on the part of Nvidia to keep using the proven DDR3 instead of going with the bling value of DDR5? Thus being validated by DDR3 being able to be handled .



Well DDR4 didnt help the 3870 win any battles.  

Why do you think ATI shipped the 3870x2 with DDR3?


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## SystemViper (Nov 5, 2008)

Love those 3870X2's, I still enjoy those cards.....


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## Binge (Nov 5, 2008)

GDDR5 is shown to give the 4870 a huge leg up over the 4850.  I have a theory about temperature hindering performance, but that's just speculation.  The 4850x2 has to be producing a lot less heat.


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## Scrizz (Nov 5, 2008)

does gddr5 run hotter than gddr3? no

and it's the same core....

maybe it's the length of the pcb, lol


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## Binge (Nov 5, 2008)

Scrizz said:


> does gddr5 run hotter than gddr3? no
> 
> and it's the same core....
> 
> maybe it's the length of the pcb, lol



I'd have to argue the opposite...  Their load temps are very different.


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## Mussels (Nov 5, 2008)

One reason this may do better here than in other reviews, is because its on a 3.6GHz wolfdale. For all we know, the drivers are more optimised for high CPU MHz than on the 4870


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## eidairaman1 (Nov 5, 2008)

1 negative shouldnt go against them and that is the CUDA Support, because of fact that Nvidia wont share the arch, just like SLI at the time. This Card is an excellent choice when pitted against the top dog cards (odd the slower chip is very comparable to both high end parts) And the average power draw isnt bad either.


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## hclarkjr (Nov 5, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> hmm I'm very surprised that this card outperforms its bigger brother in some test.
> I was playing with the idea of CFing this card with my 4870 X2 but I was worried that this card would cause my card to run at slower clocks considering that it will default to the lower clocked card iirc. But now that I see that it performs very close/better than the 4870 X2 I wonder how they would do in CF? anyone have any ideas?



according to the other reviews i have read it does not perform better than the 4870 x2, not sure which review to believe at this point


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## eidairaman1 (Nov 5, 2008)

performs onpar with the other X2s and it is 100 USD cheaper


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## W1zzard (Nov 5, 2008)

i sent an email asking amd if they have an idea why about the 4850 x2 beating the 4870 x2 in higher resolutions


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## CY:G (Nov 5, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> i sent an email asking amd if they have an idea why about the 4850 x2 beating the 4870 x2 in higher resolutions



Thanks W1zz, keep us posted


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## jbunch07 (Nov 5, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> i sent an email asking amd if they have an idea why about the 4850 x2 beating the 4870 x2 in higher resolutions



Thanks!


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## Mussels (Nov 5, 2008)

is the 4870 x2 a 2GB card as well? Could the memory be related?


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## jbunch07 (Nov 5, 2008)

Mussels said:


> is the 4870 x2 a 2GB card as well? Could the memory be related?



yup it's 2GB too.


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## wolf (Nov 5, 2008)

For a dual GPU offering, around 2 years later, we havent really come that far.

the difference IS higher as res goes up, but across all resolutions is a great measure.


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## Binge (Nov 5, 2008)

There are a lot of reviews on the front page.  Some seem a little rushed (specifically Benchmarker's), but one thing I'm noticing is that reviews which are getting better results for the 4870x2 than the 4850x2 have faster ram.  I have no authority to say that's why the results vary in such a way, but I've seen crazy performance changes in my machine when I beef up the memory bandwidth.  Can't wait to hear what ATi has to say about this.


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## douglatins (Nov 5, 2008)

*Now here is a review i believe*

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=244&Itemid=1
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/645/7

Read and wheep 4850X2 lovers, 4870X2 FTW
LoL

Now one thing 4850X2 has in its favours, dual fan and 4 DVI, but i would rather see cooper heatsinks they are better and look the best


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## TRIPTEX_CAN (Nov 5, 2008)

douglatins said:


> http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=244&Itemid=1
> http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/645/7
> 
> Read and wheep 4850X2 lovers, 4870X2 FTW
> ...



Are you trying to rub it in people faces that ATI's second most expensive card is slightly slower than the most expensive card?


* This just in.!!!!! The GTX280 is faster than the GTX260!!!! * 

lol im just kidding.


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## W1zzard (Nov 5, 2008)

AMD is looking into it and they confirm that they have seen similar tendences in other reviews


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## jbunch07 (Nov 5, 2008)

This makes me think that if the 4870 X2 used GDDR4 or GDDR3 then it might actually perform better?


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## niko084 (Nov 5, 2008)

I very well may have one of these in a few weeks...
Can't wait to find out for sure, be a pretty fast machine if he gets it


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## Darkrealms (Nov 5, 2008)

A thought on the 4870 vs 4850, is there any way the drivers could be optimized for the ddr3 memory?  _Something that no one has mentioned yet (drivers and memory type specifically) so I figured I'd throw it out there._

W1zz, again thanks for a great review!  I especially like the new *F@H* addition.
A question though, with the GTX260 are you now using the 216sp or is there a mix in there?  And in the future would it be very hard to specify that like you do with memory quantities?
Thanks for all the hard work.


eidairaman1 said:


> 1 negative shouldnt go against them and that is the CUDA Support, because of fact that Nvidia wont share the arch, just like SLI at the time. This Card is an excellent choice when pitted against the top dog cards (odd the slower chip is very comparable to both high end parts) And the average power draw isnt bad either.


If you think about this, its part of the cards performance.  Consider it Nvidia drivers vs ATI drivers.  If this was a third party utility I would agree with you.


newtekie1 said:


> I really think going with the GTX260(216) would be the best bet for buying a video card right now though.  Overclocking to match a GTX280, and only $300 can't really be beat.


I'm tending to agree with you on that, and even cheaper than that with some of the rebates and sales out there!


This is just a personal frustration for me, even being an Nvidia fan, I want them to be challenged and beaten to make them produce not rehash (8000/9000 example).
_Why is it that these 4870x2's and 4850x2's don't utterly destroy the GTX280's and 9800x2's._  They are current tech (9800x2 last gen) and have double the memory . . .  They should be KILLING Nvidia right now (across they board but the performance doesn't show that).  
Again just a personal frustration.
2¢


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## W1zzard (Nov 5, 2008)

Darkrealms said:


> A question though, with the GTX260 are you now using the 216sp or is there a mix in there?



it's the 196 SP card. should we ever add a 216 SP card to the test group it will be indicated properly


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## v-zero (Nov 6, 2008)

v-zero said:


> it's nice to see that memory bandwidth becomes unimportant at high resolutions as the shaders become the bottleneck, at which point the lower latency of DDR3 compared to DDR5 gives it the upper hand



I'm fairly certain of this...


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## douglatins (Nov 6, 2008)

CY:G said:


> Someone needs to explain to me in detail how the hell is this doing better than the 4870x2, it has to be a mistake...
> 
> Im in denial to be honest, i feel kind of bad for getting the 4870x2 , someone tell me it wasn't a bad choice....



Don't be, there's obviously something that need further investigation, just look for other reviews, even in their database, it should set your mind at ease. This is phenomenon present in this review and somewhat in overclockers


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## Mussels (Nov 6, 2008)

for all we know, the test system here just happens to be the one in 3 million chance, of being perfect for the 4850, whilst holding back the 4870. it'll be interesting to see if a cause is ever found.


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## sdedalus83 (Nov 6, 2008)

Most of the tests are CPU limited.  Adding CPU limited tests into the average performance is pointless.  Why don't you test at 2560 x 1600 and give the averages for just that resolution?
Your 3.6 Ghz dual core processor doesn't help any either.  These aren't cards that people are going to get for 24" or smaller monitors and moderately overclocked, air cooled dual core processors.

Preface your review with "Our conclusions are only meaningful if you have a mid range computer with screen smaller than 24"."  Although in that situation, having anything more than an HD4870 512 or GTX260 192 is extreme overkill.   You'd probably be better off with a 4850 or 9800GTX for around $150.


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## TRIPTEX_CAN (Nov 6, 2008)

sdedalus83 said:


> Most of the tests are CPU limited.  Adding CPU limited tests into the average performance is pointless.  Why don't you test at 2560 x 1600 and give the averages for just that resolution?
> Your 3.6 Ghz dual core processor doesn't help any either.  These aren't cards that people are going to get for 24" or smaller monitors and moderately overclocked, air cooled dual core processors.
> 
> Preface your review with "Our conclusions are only meaningful if you have a mid range computer with screen smaller than 24"."  Although in that situation, having anything more than an HD4870 512 or GTX260 192 is extreme overkill.   You'd probably be better off with a 4850 or 9800GTX for around $150.



You signed up just to post that? Gimme a break. :shadedshu

Go make your own review if you dont like W1zz's work.


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## AsRock (Nov 6, 2008)

sdedalus83 said:


> Most of the tests are CPU limited.  Adding CPU limited tests into the average performance is pointless.  Why don't you test at 2560 x 1600 and give the averages for just that resolution?
> Your 3.6 Ghz dual core processor doesn't help any either.  These aren't cards that people are going to get for 24" or smaller monitors and moderately overclocked, air cooled dual core processors.
> 
> Preface your review with "Our conclusions are only meaningful if you have a mid range computer with screen smaller than 24"."  Although in that situation, having anything more than an HD4870 512 or GTX260 192 is extreme overkill.   You'd probably be better off with a 4850 or 9800GTX for around $150.



Dam right W1z gives honest as possible reviews if there is a issue he does his best to correct if there is one. Which he already trying to get sorted out and lets face it he's not the only one with reviews with a review pretty much the same.

If any thing point your finger else were.



TRIPTEX_MTL said:


> You signed up just to post that? Gimme a break. :shadedshu
> 
> Go make your own review if you dont like W1zz's work.



hehe yeah.


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## zithe (Nov 6, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> This makes me think that if the 4870 X2 used GDDR4 or GDDR3 then it might actually perform better?



Only at first due to driver development. 


Can you clock GDDR3 that high? Wouldn't that mean a higher failure rate?


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## W1zzard (Nov 6, 2008)

sdedalus83 said:


> Why don't you test at 2560 x 1600



you people need to click the ads more so i can buy a big screen


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## mlee49 (Nov 6, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> you people need to click the ads more so i can buy a big screen



Do you seriously make a profit from us simply clicking on ad's?  If so I have no problem with clicking my way to help TPU!


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## Ourasi (Nov 7, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> you people need to click the ads more so i can buy a big screen



The first thing you should get is a new motherboard, the PCI 1.1 port on the current one is holding the HD4870x2 cards back where the GPU is the limiting factor, as we discussed in the feeedback thread for the HD4870x2. Try crossfire with 2 HD4870x2 on 8/8x PCIe 2.0 ports and see what gets lost, even 2 vanilla HD4870 in crossfire looses form on this config and remember a 16x PCIe 1.1 have the same bandwidth as 8x PCIe 2.0, and worse tech speccs...

We all know this by now, and even if ATI states that 16x PCIe 1.1 should be enough for HD4870x2, it does not mean it performs at it's best. And there is an economical insentive behind this statement aswell, as many still uses P35 boards and are potensial buyers.

The HD4850x2 is probably not hitting the PCIe 1.1 bandwidth bottleneck at all, atleast not as much as it's big brother, and will therefore seem closer to HD4870x2 then it really is. The GDDR3 is far behind GDDR5 in every way since the factor here is GB/s, not timings, and the speculation from some about the GDDR3 being better then GDDR5 is way off the mark, at best.....


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## v-zero (Nov 7, 2008)

Ourasi said:


> The first thing you should get is a new motherboard, the PCI 1.1 port on the current one is holding the HD4870x2 cards back where the GPU is the limiting factor, as we discussed in the feeedback thread for the HD4870x2. Try crossfire with 2 HD4870x2 on 8/8x PCIe 2.0 ports and see what gets lost, even 2 vanilla HD4870 in crossfire looses form on this config and remember a 16x PCIe 1.1 have the same bandwidth as 8x PCIe 2.0, and worse tech speccs...
> 
> We all know this by now, and even if ATI states that 16x PCIe 1.1 should be enough for HD4870x2, it does not mean it performs at it's best. And there is an economical insentive behind this statement aswell, as many still uses P35 boards and are potensial buyers.
> 
> The HD4850x2 is probably not hitting the PCIe 1.1 bandwidth bottleneck at all, atleast not as much as it's big brother, and will therefore seem closer to HD4870x2 then it really is. The GDDR3 is far behind GDDR5 in every way since the factor here is GB/s, not timings, and the speculation from some about the GDDR3 being better then GDDR5 is way off the mark, at best.....



That's all absolute rubbish. The reason crossfired cards get bottlenecked in 8x PCI-E 2.0 systems is because they have to transfer data between cards through the PCI-E lanes (yes , they do that), and hence they are hitting a wall there. In the 4870X2 and 4850X2 this bottleneck doesn't exist, and PCI-E 1.1 offers plenty of bandwidth for what is essentially a single card...


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## Ourasi (Nov 7, 2008)

v-zero said:


> That's all absolute rubbish. The reason crossfired cards get bottlenecked in 8x PCI-E 2.0 systems is because they have to transfer data between cards through the PCI-E lanes (yes , they do that), and hence they are hitting a wall there. In the 4870X2 and 4850X2 this bottleneck doesn't exist, and PCI-E 1.1 offers plenty of bandwidth for what is essentially a single card...



You'd better wake up dude... Depending on the game, even a 9800GX2 can be limited on a 16x v1/8x v2 PCIe slot http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-2-0,1915-12.html
Some games are hurt badly in terms of performance, and can easily show the limits of the PCIe on a P35...

The next I might hear from you might be somthing like "but most games have no loss", and I'll just answer you this: Some games get hurt badly, and are proof that "plenty of bandwidth on PCI 1.1 16x" might be true on older hardware, but not on the latest high-end hardware..

COD4 are one of the games that get hit by the bottleneck, and thats in even lower resolution then wizz's highest one, and as I have stated before, some of the results in wizz's HD4870x2 review does not show the cards true potensial...


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## eidairaman1 (Nov 7, 2008)

thats why you use tweakguides to get the most out of your hardware, i mean you can always increase the PCIE clock to compensate for certain games, seems like intel should of never released the P35 and should of jumped to the P65.


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## W1zzard (Nov 7, 2008)

> The HD4850x2 is probably not hitting the PCIe 1.1 bandwidth bottleneck at all,


so you are saying that the slower card does not hit the bottleneck, while the fast card hits the bottleneck. that should make the faster card run at the bottleneck speed and the slower card below bottleneck speed. by definition of this the 4850 x2 MUST perform worse than the hd 4870 x2 which it does not do in many tests


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## W1zzard (Nov 7, 2008)

dear ourasi, after giving you one infraction a few minutes ago i'll give you another one now because you apparently just registered here to crap on the 4870 x2 and 4850 x2 reviews (i knew i remembered your name from somewhere). if you are unhappy with our testing then start your own review site


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## TRIPTEX_CAN (Nov 7, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> you people need to click the ads more so i can buy a big screen



Why dont you just write horribly biased reviews for specific manufacturers to get free hardware?   <--- Sarcasm. 

Seriously though I'll start clicking adds just to help out. You're going to need an i7 (or Daneb) test bed eventually.


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## W1zzard (Nov 7, 2008)

TRIPTEX_MTL said:


> Why dont you just write horribly biased reviews for specific manufacturers to get free hardware?   <--- Sarcasm.
> 
> Seriously though I'll start clicking adds just to help out. You're going to need an i7 (or Daneb) test bed eventually.



i7 hardware is coming. but i'm not sure if it will make much of a difference for the vga reviews. if i remember correctly i actually saw some i7 reviews that said games performance will go down. remember, most games use one (1) core


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## TRIPTEX_CAN (Nov 7, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> i7 hardware is coming. but i'm not sure if it will make much of a difference for the vga reviews. if i remember correctly i actually saw some i7 reviews that said games performance will go down. remember, most games use one (1) core



The vga reviews might not see the drastic improvement people are hoping for right now, but more and more games are being developed multicore friendly and I imagine that your test suite will include some of them in the future. I also think a having a nice x58 board will open up the possibilities for some more CrossfireX and SLi reviews.


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## W1zzard (Nov 7, 2008)

TRIPTEX_MTL said:


> will open up the possibilities for some more CrossfireX and SLi reviews.



thats the main reason. are there any articles yet about performance and stability? wouldnt be worth it if people complain "uh teh x58 limits your pcie bandwidth"


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## Steevo (Nov 7, 2008)

Some of you need to look at the hardware specs that steam provides, it clearly shows the most common hardware and display resolutions.

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html


Above 1920X1200 accounts for a whopping 1.4%.


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## TRIPTEX_CAN (Nov 7, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> thats the main reason. are there any articles yet about performance and stability? wouldnt be worth it if people complain "uh teh x58 limits your pcie bandwidth"



I saw one review with 3 GTX280s running FC2 over 100fps on every resolution where the C2D based system was pulling a max of 52fps across the board. so performance wise I believe it has the right bandwidth for today's uber GPUs.. as for stability... idk I'm sure there are many BIOS updates in the x58 and i7 future. 

People will always complain when they dont get/see what the want. Its tough for people to swallow the fact that a 4870x2 is unnecessary for certain systems. Eventually everyone will hate your work for not using SSDs. :shadedshu  the other 99% of us thank you for your efforts.


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## W1zzard (Nov 7, 2008)

Steevo said:


> Some of you need to look at the hardware specs that steam provides, it clearly shows the most common hardware and display resolutions.
> 
> http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html
> 
> ...



the people who play steam games most often do not have the latest and greatest hardware. while the steam survey is a useful piece of data you have to consider its limitations. gpu-z has a stats page over all the submitted results here, again, consider who uses gpu-z and who doesn't


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## W1zzard (Nov 7, 2008)

TRIPTEX_MTL said:


> I saw one review with 3 GTX280s running FC2 over 100fps on every resolution where the C2D based system was pulling a max of 52fps across the board.



i can't imagine that any cpu/chipset/mobo alone can increase performance by almost 100% while staying with the same graphics cards. fc2 should be largely gpu limited. do you have a link?


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## jbunch07 (Nov 7, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> the people who play steam games most often do not have the latest and greatest hardware. while the steam survey is a useful piece of data you have to consider its limitations. gpu-z has a stats page over all the submitted results here, again, consider who uses gpu-z and who doesn't



Just curious what would be an example of an "Illegal vendor ID" ?


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## mdm-adph (Nov 7, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> gpu-z has a stats page over all the submitted results here, again, consider who uses gpu-z and who doesn't


"Ultra" enthusiasts?


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## W1zzard (Nov 7, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> Just curious what would be an example of an "Illegal vendor ID" ?



all 0's if i recall correctly. the pci specification requires every device to have a defined manufacturer id. 10de for nv, 1002 for ati for example. those 0000 devices are probably misreads or other unknown stuff to gpuz


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## jbunch07 (Nov 7, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> all 0's if i recall correctly. the pci specification requires every device to have a defined manufacturer id. 10de for nv, 1002 for ati for example. those 0000 devices are probably misreads or other unknown stuff to gpuz



Ahh I see, for a second I was thinking it was for those people that bought their card on the black market.

I would have thought that EVGA would make up more than 3% of the Vendors, ehh oh well I guess not everyone validates their GPUZ.


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## Steevo (Nov 7, 2008)

Bow chika bow wow. We have the ultra uber of the gamers, and more than likely the overclockers here outnumber the true gamers. 



Remember that alot of those games are available on steam. Many people just don't care to upgrade their systems unless they "need" to.  I have played TF2 and CS:S with peeps who run PCI cards and don't give a damn about pretties, and more times than not they kicked my ass.



You need some lightning on your av.


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## W1zzard (Nov 7, 2008)

mdm-adph said:


> "Ultra" enthusiasts?



not ultra, more like the above average gamer. most of our gpus in the database are g92 which is still a pretty powerful card considering the whole market. if we had a realistic image of the market you would see intel igp lead with like 40%


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## mdm-adph (Nov 7, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> not ultra, more like the above average gamer. most of our gpus in the database are g92 which is still a pretty powerful card considering the whole market. if we had a realistic image of the market you would see intel igp lead with like 40%



So, are the Valve statistics pretty much "regular" gamer?  I noticed there wasn't really much IGP on their GPU list, either.

Frankly, I'm amazed at the amount of people still running Geforce 6600's -- those were damn good cards.


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## Steevo (Nov 7, 2008)

Alot of the Intel IGP's are made by Nvidia or by ATI. A couple years ago Nvidia had to outsource to ATI the manufacturing of some on their contract as Nvidia was too busy producing the 7XXX series to keepup with market demands.


W1zz, are you saying that the average POSTER is only above average in gaming hardware, or the average software user is?


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## TRIPTEX_CAN (Nov 7, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> i can't imagine that any cpu/chipset/mobo alone can increase performance by almost 100% while staying with the same graphics cards. fc2 should be largely gpu limited. do you have a link?



Took me a while to find it but here it is. I think this is because the Dunia engine is largely multi-threaded. 

http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i7-multigpu-sli-crossfire-game-performance-review/11

I found this too. not as extreme but it shows some of the same tendencies. Ignore the 4870 scores since ATI obviously needs to work some kinks out of their drivers.


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## PCpraiser100 (Nov 11, 2008)

razaron said:


> it beats the 4870x2 on higher resolutions, thats a bit stupid



Well, the card has a far better cooling solution that the standard HD 4870X2, enabling higher stock clocks.


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