ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics card gets official

Just five days after ATI fessed up with an official release of its Radeon HD 4850, along comes a similar announcement for the just-leaked Radeon HD 4870. This dual-slot beast is finally being outed on the record, and at the very least, Diamond Multimedia's version will come stocked with 512MB of DDR5 memory, a clock speed of 725 MHz, 900MHz memory speed and 800 stream processors. The unit also provides CrossFireX upgradeability and should be available here soon from your favorite online retailer.

[invictus1er @ Jun 25th 2008 12:52PM]

hot

[Jim @ Jun 25th 2008 1:05PM]

200 Degrees Hot!

PC CASE = EZ Bake Oven

[Shinigami @ Jun 25th 2008 1:35PM]

Not just hot! Cheap!!! Super-cheap compared to GTX 280!!! Provides similar fps = still unplayable in Crysis v1.2 in max settings xD But at half price so its the best performance per dollar (my opinion, but I'm waiting to see what 4870 X2 offers).

Nvidia! Time to cut off half of your MSRP on GTX 280!

[waiownsyou @ Jun 25th 2008 1:43PM]

Seriously. Shouldn't it get smaller, cooler, and cheaper overtime?

WTF NUBCAKEZ

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Jun 26th 2008 3:14AM]

@waiownsyou

Not if they keep doubling or tripling the transistor count in each successive generation.

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Jun 26th 2008 9:16AM]

$309 at newegg.com or $10 over MSRP.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=4870&x=0&y=0

[OneLove @ Jun 26th 2008 11:19AM]

when did we get to DDR5? I was so hoping for DDR4.

[Ferfinand @ Jun 25th 2008 12:55PM]

Two issues:

1. It runs very hot.

2. Where is AMD-ATI's answer to CUDA?

Other than that, great product / price ratio, will give good competetion to nvidia.

[papu @ Jun 25th 2008 1:12PM]

2 more issues

its faster and cheaper than teh 260...

[ethana2 @ Jun 25th 2008 1:20PM]

Brook, GLSL, OCL...

I don't think CUDA's licensing is compatible with GNU software, making it worthless to me. I could be wrong though..

[Shinigami @ Jun 25th 2008 1:33PM]

Do you use CUDA?
I think they had a similar technology that we just don't know of xD

[sjdurfey @ Jun 25th 2008 1:41PM]

AMD/ATI teamed up with Havoc to compete against CUDA.

[sjdurfey @ Jun 25th 2008 1:44PM]

here is an execellent (as always) review and information on the new 4850 and 4870. http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Jun 25th 2008 5:21PM]

> Where is AMD-ATI's answer to CUDA?

I though it was Stream SDK - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_FireStream#Software_Development_Kit

[cody @ Jun 25th 2008 12:59PM]

Doesn't seem like much of a leak extreme tech had a review up this morning http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2321634,00.asp

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Jun 25th 2008 4:46PM]

From the review:

"ATI's cards excel at Supreme Commander, with the $200 HD 4850 coming it just a touch slower than the $400 GTX 260. The $300 HD 4870 is fastest of all, and in this game may even be a real competitor for the $650 GeForce GTX 280."

I'm sold. Period.

[mcg @ Jun 25th 2008 1:02PM]

How come the Diamond is 25MHz slower than all the other 4870s?

[michas_pi @ Jun 25th 2008 1:04PM]

Is that still the 40mm fan they always use?

[From My Cube @ Jun 25th 2008 1:05PM]

That thing is huge*












That's what she said

[natels @ Jun 25th 2008 1:07PM]

You can't 'that's what she said' your own comment. The joke is overused as is.

[linusk01 @ Jun 25th 2008 1:06PM]

so wait. does crossfirex make this pair-able with my single slot 3870? i hope that dream can come true.

[Doug @ Jun 25th 2008 1:22PM]

From what I knew, It wouldn't do that.. But then again.. I saw that a on-board HD 2500 could be used at the same time as another ATI HD series card.. ¿¿THIS IS MADDNESS!??

[tbone @ Jun 25th 2008 1:42PM]

i would hope so too, but ati has come out said it's not possible.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8075&Itemid=1

[mcg @ Jun 25th 2008 2:44PM]

That's funny, considering the administrator of the Game.AMD forums has mentioned it is possible, but not all that beneficial as it will only be as good as two of the 3800-series cards in crossfire for some reason.

[Ethren @ Jun 25th 2008 9:18PM]

Yes, it will Crossfire with any other HD3850 or later. The new card should be in your primary slot, but the 3870 will still slow down your new card a bit as well. Look for reviews of 3870's crossfired with 3850's.

[derX @ Jun 25th 2008 1:08PM]

It's red so it must be best on the market. It's proven scientific fact.

[Hotrod @ Jun 25th 2008 1:18PM]

Holy popcorn batman, 800 stream processors? Should be great after the drivers mature a bit.

[TheNothingShow @ Jun 25th 2008 1:19PM]

*GDDR5

[ch3no2 @ Jun 25th 2008 1:27PM]

From all the benchmarks I can find, 2 of them in CF beat the GTX280 across the board, and 2 4870's costs the same or less the a single 280. This is the kind competition that truly benifits us gamers.....great price/performance.

[Maverick Saturn @ Jun 25th 2008 2:02PM]

Not bad, but should I really trade in my current 1 I wonder...

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Jun 25th 2008 4:43PM]

This is definitely my upgrade this autumn.

In part also because I need some Linux-friendly card. If any HD playback acceleration would be developed for Linux, chances great are that it would be on ATI cards, rather than nVidia's. Latter mostly concentrates on Linux workstation, missing many small and simple features required for home computers (e.g. power management).

[Tom Robertson @ Jun 25th 2008 3:32PM]

Ahhh yes, finally a 9800GTX+ beater (in the same price range)... Runs hot as though :( Are you sure it's 200 degrees though? (93 degrees c)

[Ninjakamster (PS360 FTW!) @ Jun 25th 2008 3:39PM]

I hear it runs a little over 80C, very hot indeed. : (

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Jun 25th 2008 5:00PM]

> I hear it runs a little over 80C

It makes sense to wait a little for better built cards - with better integrated cooling. The cooler as in reference design is joke: 80C is hot and I bet it is as noisy as plastic chinese 4K rpm fan.

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Jun 25th 2008 4:48PM]

FYI, in Yorupe, the 4870 with 512GB goes for 250€

Not bad at all.

[Ruben @ Jun 25th 2008 7:14PM]

I'm primarily an Nvidia user, but I am extremely impressed with the price/performance of this card, as well as the 4850. Well done ATI.

Nvidia needs to change its ways. The GTX280 is extremely fast, but its not 600+ fast, that's for sure.

From all the reviews I've read in the past few weeks, at least Crysis did one thing, besides produce some of the best generated graphics ever created. It makes all video cards look like absolute garbage, even the highest end. Even Oblivion, back in its day when it was bringing cards to its knees, had a card that could breeze through it in less than a year. I get the feeling we are still a generation away from Crysis being handled at full detail by a single processor card at 60fps.

[Laughing Man @ Jun 25th 2008 8:46PM]

That is because Crysis was the second worst optimized game EVER. I have played around with the code work and run various tests with a couple of GPUs at my disposable. From what I could gather from info. online and my test.....Crysis will just bring your system to its knees period. The game is just badly coded.

While it did usher in a new standard for GPUs that has brought use some of the best GPUs (based on need at the time vs. games they would be used to play) in history. It just did it for all the wrong reasons.

[Laughing Man @ Jun 25th 2008 8:51PM]

I am not sure, but the CrossfireX system should allow this to run in Crossfire with any HD 3000 series card. The HD 3000 card would have to be the secondary slave card and the HD 4870 would do approx. 65% to 70% of the work instead of an even 50-50 split. At least that is what I can gather from the white paper.

linusk01 has a point, that is something that should be looked into by reviewers.

[Laughing Man @ Jun 25th 2008 8:58PM]

I checked, the 4000 and 3000 series will not work in Crossfire as of now because that configuration is simply not supported.

[ian @ Jun 26th 2008 3:19PM]

@Philips your pretty naive for saying that the stock cooling isnt adequate, the thermal paste needs re-applying as is the case with ANY card ever released. If you want to overclock you must raise the fan speed, its very simple. For the regular user 80c on a non-oced card is acceptable, if it wasn't amd would have never released the card with the cooler it has.