Radeon HD4870 X2 Readies for Release

[trt740]

yea 499 us dollars thats like 370 euro

still not a cheaper price really , because the cost of living is alot lower here in the USA.

 

[Morgoth]

yes but i'm planning to buy it end 2008 with bloomfield so the price sould be droped

 

[DarthJedi]

yes but i'm planning to buy it end 2008 with bloomfield so the price sould be droped

Isn't it better than to buy GTX280 instead of Crossfire which has its issues.

 

[farlex85]

Isn't it better than to buy GTX280 instead of Crossfire which has its issues.

Crossfire doesn't have many issues, and supposedly this card is alliviating the one's it had w/ a new bridge. So no, imo the cheaper better performing one makes more sense.

 

[newtekie1]

It doesn't really make a lot of sense to release a dual card at more than the price of the 2 that make it up. Nvidia released the gx2 at like 2.5x the price of the gts 512, and that was ridiculous. 3870x2 was released at about $50 less than 2 3870s, which is right where it should be. I would imagine this comes in a $549, but if it is $499 that's all the better. Ati is actually making it practical to spend so much money on a video card (as practical as it can be) instead of simply throwing out a high end card and making it elitist. And I bet their sales benefit from it.

9800GX2 Price at Launch: $600
8800GTS(G92) Price when 9800GX2 launched: $290
HD3870X2 Price at Launch: $450
HD3870 Price when HD3870X2 launched: $210

You statement is complete BS, get your facts straight.

$600 is not even close to 2.5x $290. It is actually not even 2.1x, it is 2.07x.
$450 is more than 2.1x $210, it is actually 2.14x AND the HD3870x2 wasn't truely two HD3870s, it used GDDR3 memory instead of the GDDR4 memory found on standard HD3870s. The 9800GX2 on the other hand was truly two 8800GTS cards.

I'll believe te $499 price tag when I see it. But for right now, I don't believe it one bit. ATi isn't going to release a card that is essentially two lower end cards combined for less than the price of two lower end cards, it doesn't make sense business wise unless they are going to stip it down. Although competition does some pretty strange things to the market, so I'm not saying the price is impossible, just unlikely IMO. Especially with ATi's past history of overpricing cards.

 

[farlex85]

9800GX2 Price at Launch: $600
8800GTS(G92) Price when 9800GX2 launched: $290
HD3870X2 Price at Launch: $450
HD3870 Price when HD3870X2 launched: $210

You statement is complete BS, get your facts straight.

$600 is not even close to 2.5x $290. It is actually not even 2.1x, it is 2.07x.
$450 is more than 2.1x $210, it is actually 2.14x AND the HD3870x2 wasn't truely two HD3870s, it used GDDR3 memory instead of the GDDR4 memory found on standard HD3870s. The 9800GX2 on the other hand was truly two 8800GTS cards.

I'll believe te $499 price tag when I see it. But for right now, I don't believe it one bit. ATi isn't going to release a card that is essentially two lower end cards combined for less than the price of two lower end cards, it doesn't make sense business wise.

I'm pretty sure your numbers are actually off there as well. I don't remember exactly, so my numbers were off a tad for sure, but I do remember the gx2 came in priced considerably higher than 2 gts's and the 3870x2 came in about $50 under the price of 2 3870s, given differences in brands. And yes, it did use gddr3 instead of gddr4, which supposedly made very little difference. Perhaps my memory is inaccurate, but recently ati has been pricing very competitively to outdo nvidia, and it seems to be moving in the right direction. I think $499 seems a little low too, but I think it's a good business strategy to attract more people to the high end that normally wouldn't spend that much for a video card.

 

[Morgoth]

Isn't it better than to buy GTX280 instead of Crossfire which has its issues.

no cus x58 doest support sli

 

[chron]

eym getteeng wun

 

[Morgoth]

englishka plz ? ok da

 

[freaksavior]

Sweet! finally some info is coming out on it. i just need to know power requirements.

 

[ShadowFold]

Sweet! finally some info is coming out on it. i just need to know power requirements.

Probably will want a 500w or higher since its got 6 + 6+2 pins on the PCB.

 

[freaksavior]

i have a silvertone da 800 but i want to do dual 4870 x2

 

[DarthJedi]

Crossfire doesn't have many issues, and supposedly this card is alliviating the one's it had w/ a new bridge. So no, imo the cheaper better performing one makes more sense.

Crossfire itself has a few nasty issues. I am the owner of 3870x2 and if you don't have a game profile in drivers, you're screwed.
Waiting for next drivers is hell.

Example: Conan: 8.5, 8.6 both got out after the game, and I still must turn off my Catalyst A.I. to turn Crossfire off so I don't get epilepsy from flashing icons which is a CF bug.

 

[ShadowFold]

i have a silvertone da 800 but i want to do dual 4870 x2

Just take the TDP of the 4870 take that X2 and maybe add 20-70w for the PLX thing or w/e's in the middle.

 

[freaksavior]

Just take the TDP of the 4870 take that X2 and maybe add 20-70w for the PLX thing or w/e's in the middle.

Then i wont have enough power. the 4870 cf draws about 450w from what i believe i have read. so that times 2 plus another 150w = 1050w? . SO that means leaving me roughly -250w for the rest of my system.

Intel Test Platform

Component
Brand/Model
Processor - Intel Core 2 Quad QX9770
Motherboard -Gigabyte X38-DQ6
Memory - 4GB Corsair PC2-9136C5
Video Cards - See Chart
Hard Drive - Western Digital SATA RaptorX
Cooling - Corsair Nautilus 500
Power Supply - Corsair HX620W
Operating System -Windows Vista Ultimate

you people are talking about the 3870 x2 it used a internal corrsifre bridge to communicate with the chips. The 4870 x2 does not use a crossfire bridge it's a different method. From what i understand of it it's more like the fsb on intel

 

[farlex85]

Crossfire itself has a few nasty issues. I am the owner of 3870x2 and if you don't have a game profile in drivers, you're screwed.
Waiting for next drivers is hell.

Example: Conan: 8.5, 8.6 both got out after the game, and I still must turn off my Catalyst A.I. to turn Crossfire off so I don't get epilepsy from flashing icons which is a CF bug.

Hmm, well I guess we'll have to see. Supposedly this card works differently than the previous ones, how exactly I don't know. It would take some pretty big issues to make the gtx 280 a better deal imo.

 

[ShadowFold]

Dude your fine.. 472w is for the whole system not the cards.

 

[DarthJedi]

you people are talking about the 3870 x2 it used a internal corrsifre bridge to communicate with the chips. The 4870 x2 does not use a crossfire bridge it's a different method. From what i understand of it it's more like the fsb on intel

Unfortunatelly, according to this:

http://www.techpowerup.com/64318/ATI_Radeon_HD_4870_X2_1GB_GDDR5_Nude_Shots.html

4870x2 will use PLX 2.0 on it's board, so no, no internal bus instead of CF chip. ((

 

[freaksavior]

Dude your fine.. 472w is for the whole system not the cards.

OHHH!!!! ok.

So then the 4870 x2 probably uses about 300w.?

 

[mdm-adph]

I'll believe te $499 price tag when I see it. But for right now, I don't believe it one bit. ATi isn't going to release a card that is essentially two lower end cards combined for less than the price of two lower end cards, it doesn't make sense business wise unless they are going to stip it down. Although competition does some pretty strange things to the market, so I'm not saying the price is impossible, just unlikely IMO. Especially with ATi's past history of overpricing cards.

Maybe you're right, but I so wanna see you eat crow over this.

As some people have said, perhaps it's cheaper to put two R700's with GDDR5 on the same card, thus a $500 price for the 4870X2 even though two 4870's cost $600.

 

[Easy Rhino]

Because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to sell this card for $500 when two HD4870's would cost you $600. They would be shooting themselves in the foot.

think of it as buying in bulk!

 

[newtekie1]

I'm pretty sure your numbers are actually off there as well. I don't remember exactly, so my numbers were off a tad for sure, but I do remember the gx2 came in priced considerably higher than 2 gts's and the 3870x2 came in about $50 under the price of 2 3870s, given differences in brands. And yes, it did use gddr3 instead of gddr4, which supposedly made very little difference. Perhaps my memory is inaccurate, but recently ati has been pricing very competitively to outdo nvidia, and it seems to be moving in the right direction. I think $499 seems a little low too, but I think it's a good business strategy to attract more people to the high end that normally wouldn't spend that much for a video card.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_9800_GX2/

My numbers were taken from there, there is no mistakes. All the MSRPs of all 4 cards at the time of the 9800GX2's release are listed there. When the 3870x2 was announced the 3870 was $269, but by the time the 3870x2 actually hit the streets and was available to purchase the HD3870 had dropped to $210 due to pressure from the release of the 9600GT. There might have been a very brief couple of days where the HD3870x2 was cheaper than two HD3870s on paper, but it didn't last and the supply of HD3870x2s hadn't actually hit the market yet.

think of it as buying in bulk!

I wish my Sam's Club card got me discounts on computer hardware.

 

[newconroer]

Its 512mb x2

Bingo!

And it's a dual gpu issue again.

I'd still pay the extra for the 280.


Ati is only hurting themselves by selling this, especially at a lower price.

Consider, before, with the 3800 series, they needed the X2, to have SOME standing vs the GX2 (even though the X2 lost the lower minimum frame rate battle to the 9800GTX in some situations).
Now, with the 4850/70, they're using the X2 to trump the 280, which is a bad move, as it takes away attention from the 4870, which is where they really can make money, if they spin that age old price / performance cliche.

As soon as that X2 drops, be on the lookout for Nvidia to top it. All the prices will fall, the 280 will still beat the 4870, the new GX2 will beat the X2 and we'll be right back where we started last year.

 

[freaksavior]

Bingo!

And it's a dual gpu issue again.

I'd still pay the extra for the 280.


Ati is only hurting themselves by selling this, especially at a lower price.

elaborate

 

[vojc]

Dont you mean 599$?

ATI is not Nvidia, they put 2GPU on ONE PCB (nvidia use 2PCBs for 2GPUs), so it is cheaper
to produce

.......and abaut dual GPU...well no one complain on Intel quad core (2 dual core sticked as one) AMD has a real quad (monolitic)
and than again ...no one does give a shit abaut it, as long as u are intel fan and as long as intel is faster than AMD.
When we come to the graphics, well same story here, just diffrent actors (nvidia=AMD, while AMD/ATI=Intel)