Monday, July 14th 2008
Radeon HD 4870 X2 Previewed, AA Performance a Trump Card
HardOCP previewed the ATI Radeon HD4870 X2. In the preview it was pitted against a single BFG GeForce GTX 280 OC (overclocked) and Crossfire X setup using two cards was pitted against two GeForce GTX 280 cards in SLI. Across variable settings, the HD4870 X2 was compared to the GTX 280. In Crysis the competition was neck-to-neck while the ATI cards returned marginally lower average frame rates. In Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, the ATI cards outclassed the NVIDIA cards significantly, where the Anti-Aliasing (AA) performance of the cards proved to be a trump-card, with the cards returning over 30% performance increments in both single and Crossfire X configurations over the GeForce GTX 280 OC and its SLI configuration. With the AA bottleneck reduced, the R700 is a monster. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures shows what this card is truly capable of, the author of the preview goes on to use "AMD AA Performance FTW" to head a write-up on the AA system. AMD has reworked AA and also a new mode that doesn't tax the video memory as much has been added. The total of 2 GB GDDR5 memory only helps this cause.
The card in Crossfire X peaked 700W though not much is revealed with the power-testing. You can read the article here.
Source:
HardOCP
The card in Crossfire X peaked 700W though not much is revealed with the power-testing. You can read the article here.
95 Comments on Radeon HD 4870 X2 Previewed, AA Performance a Trump Card
e.g. If you have a dual GPU card where each GPU uses 100w, then a single GPU card using 200w. The PSU wont know the difference.
imho price has nothing to do with it at all
its about the results,the benchmarks,the scores ,whatever you wish to call them and for the results to be comparable the cards in question MUST SURELY be basically the same ie: both dual cards or both single card solutions ,but this is not ,its a dual V's a single.
doesnt matter a jot that 1 may cost $100+ more ,the hardware is different,1 has only 1 gpu the other has 2 ,yet every seems to go on about price ,i fail to see where that comes into it taking all of the above into account.
its about the "RESULTS on COMPARABLE" hardware not the price.
id think the exact same if it was a dual Nvidia card v a single ATI btw ,yes the ATI wins on price but thats not the point of benchmarking is it ?
:D Fuggin' 'ell! :twitch:
I appreciate everyone has their own requirements from their hardware, but price plays a massive role, and for me, I couldnt care less if one manufactuer had 300 GPU's on a PCB against one. I go for best price/performance ratio, be it nvidia or ati.
Seriously guys, why do you even care how performance and quality is attained? Is it some moral obligation? Because if it is you really need to get a dose of reality.
Remember that two RV770's cores is equivalent to one GTX280 in surface area and transistor density. Therefore its pretty much even. Nvidia keeps things in one package, AMD keeps them in two.
Performance and cost? Different story. AMD saw the inefficiencies in a monolithic die and decided to split the packages. Nvidia just went ahead.
So... to us does the dual vs single really matter? No. Not at all. However the price does. Installing two small die packages onto one PCB isn't too hard. However installing one MASSIVE package is. You have to consider stresses etc.
Did we EVER question the use of dual core? No.
In the end the R700 is STILL cheaper to manufacture, and outperforms the GTX280. The R700 is going to be cheaper, upon retail moreover; therefore we are the winners.
This isn't like the 7 series GX2 cards which had driver issues and only worked with some chipsets, this is a high end card that doesnt cost an arm and a leg.
and finally realise that all GPUs are multi cored; think of the stream processors, the components; all are single cores themselves. GTX280 and R700 BOTH have more than two processors. GTX280 puts them all in one package, R700 in two.
Those perf numbers are really otherworldly almost... considering how its cheaper than the GTX280...
Source
anway...the size of the 2x4870cores and 1x 280GTX cores equals, so at the same die size ati is faster (lets call that 65nm vs 55nm)
My view is, healthy competition benefits us, the consumer.
While we may debate the technical merits of either solution, people vote with their wallets.
And don't stop the debating guys. It helps us to know our minds.:rockout:
so i give up ,but if u lot want to convince urselves that its a perfectly fair benchmark then feel free.
altho im going to be mailing evga about my faulty card as i didnt get any extra points in 3d mark cos of the price as most of you seem to :roll:
anyway forgetting all the above ,it is good to see ATI on the up and up again after being behind for so long.and i hope nvidia respond quickly and then ATI to that etc etc ,its all good for us ,the humble consumer :)
Like Wile E said. If you dont take into account price, it is like pitting a Bugatti Veyron against a Fiat Panda (now that I would like to see :p )
rubbish over the price anyway ,as ur benchmarking HARDWARE not prices ,its about the results not the price ,unless suddenly cheaper prices make your score increase,now theres a thought :)
the comparable hardware argument i made is over a dual ati over a single nvidia ,when they should both be either dual or single not 1 of each ,you wouldnt bench a single core cpu v a dual core cpu and proudly announce to the world the dual pwnd it would u? its pretty obvious even to a n00b 2 is better than 1.
as for the 2400 v 280 no of course its not fair ,competely diff generations. it should be..
gtx 260/280 VS hd4850/4870 as they are all the newest gens
and 4870x2 VS 9800gx2 as nvidia are lacking anything faster or newer in dual gpu's atm
(replacing the 9800gx2 when and if nvidia come up with something newer)
and i wouldnt be saying on the 4870x2 VS 9800gx2 that the 9800 wins cos its cheaper ,that doesnt matter a bit ,its the results that count ,so obviously the clear winner of that fight is the ATI.
you all want to mix it up and then stick the price in ,fair enough ,is up to u but i think its totally wrong.
this is my last post on the subject as im bored of repeating myself with the rather obvious.
altho i will say this ,i wonder how many ATI fans would be as fast to say the exact same thing they are saying now about ATI if the positions were reversed and the nvidia card was faster and cheaper?
some of course but i suspect not all.
But a note on the dual vs single core thing. I would proudly announce it, if the prices were the same.
The way I see it there are two ways of doing it. One big GPU or two smaller ones. Nvidia and ATi have just gone about creating their flagship models in different ways.
But from your perspective. Yes, nvidia have built a much more powerful better performing "GPU" as it takes two ATi "GPUs" to compete.
But this comes at a price, which is what the rest of us are saying about. One nvidia GPU costs the same if not more than two ATi GPU's.
I wouldnt care what company it was, whoever gives me the most bang for my buck in my budget is the card I will get.
1 gpu + expensive + rip my ass = bad buying product
Is this not the basic debate in cpu world ,where Intel dropped 2 cores on 1 die while AMD made 2 separate cores ?
I think these X2 cards are great for some guys on Intel uhmm boards that have 2 X8 pcie and can not get a board with 4 slots...also for guys who want CrossFire (please stop the XFire,there is a progam by that name Xfire.com) but do not want to upgrade to a 850 watt to 1200 watt PSU.
2,4870`s +$329+$329=$658=we loose unless they drop down the 4850 to $150 and the 4870 to $200 mark then we all win.
PS
How long in real terms do you think customers are going to pay the green camp nearly $800 for 1 card ?( going by pricing in Canada.