Looks like all the
Cinema 2.0 fuss that AMD has been blustering about with its new
RV770-based GPUs is fully warranted. The benchmarks are in and AMD's new
$549 ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 -- what AMD calls the "world's fastest graphics card" -- is an out and out screamer, besting
the best cooked up over at NVIDIA thanks to that RV770 GPU pair nuzzled up next to 2GB of GDDR5 memory. As noted by
PC Perspective, the new champ, "is able to run away from NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 1GB card handily. Our various game tests proved this - Crysis, Call of Duty 4 and GRID showed big gains for AMD's new card at resolutions 2,048 x 1,536 and 2,560 x 1,600," though performance gains are less dramatic as resolutions drop to 1,600 x 1,200. Not that any self-respecting gamer would push so few pixels. CrossFireX performance was disappointing, however, as the systems didn't scale well when going from 2 to 4 GPUs. In fact, Crysis seemed to barely notice the additional CrossFireX horsepower, something that should be corrected with future driver releases. Make no mistake though, as power-hungry, expensive, and hot-running as the new HD 4870 X2 may be, it's a big day for AMD as it retakes the graphics crown from NVIDIA, as short-lived as this victory may be.
Read -- HotHardware
Read -- PCPer
Read -- Tweaktown
Read -- CustomPC
Read -- TechGage
Read -- AMD press release
posted August 12th 2008 1:51AM
Why doesn't one of the sides just build some sort of giant graphical supercomputer (room sized, of course) with a PCI-E connector on one end and a DVI on the other and put it on the market at a ridiculously high price and claim victory?
Because it's about market share not ability, intel already make super computers, you don't hear anybody brag about that!
Why is it that the tech press give Tech Report no love?!
They are by far the best hardware reviewers around and their site is the least cluttered with infuriating ads!
http://techreport.com/
Here's their 4870 X2 review!
http://techreport.com/articles.x/15293
next up, Russia invades the Phillipines
oh wow I did just notice that there is no antialiasing. this doesn't impress me anymore.
I was glad until I saw the price!!!!
Before we heard numbers like 400usd to 500usd , but AMD did exactly what you expect and asking a crazy 550usd for one!
Hell No it isnt 100usd worth of speed faster than gtx280.
You seem to have no issue when the nVidia 8800 Ultra, barely faster than the 8800GTX, sold for $700-$800.
And obviously you haven't checked the 2560*1600 or 8xAA benchmarks. *eyeroll initiated*
Considering a standard 4870 beats out a single GTX280.. I don't understand why this is such a big deal? Isn't ATI complete domination and trouncing of nVidia's 9800 & GTX series, both in performance and price ratio, already common knowledge by now?
I still don't see the value in spending over $250 for a video card. My nvidia 7950 GT still crushes a lot of the new stuff coming out. I run most things at max. We're talking about a piece of hardware above the budget of probably over 90% of gamers. I can't warrant wasting that much money. Especially when video card technology triples in speed and quality every 2-3 years.
Hahaha Nathan, no it doesn't. Get real. Most of the stuff? What do you play? Msn Messenger games?
Seriously, at 'max' would imply highest settings or maxed out detail which realistically includes resolution. For example, you'd need to use very high texture quality, very high lighting quality, highest aa and highest af settings. Your 7950GT could not max out games like World In Conflict, Supreme Commander, Mass Effect, Crysis and a variety of other games 'IF' you played them at a shitty resolution which is not 'max'.
Now, if your a World of Warcraft addict and its all you play, yes a 7950GT can run that 8 year old game well.
Just goes to show you dont know what you're talking about.
I can run ANYTHING i want in existence on max.... at 640x480 res.
be more specific. This card absolutely destroys for those of us who prefer large RES and high settings. I use a 37" westy and finally these cards show up giving me no more screen tearing :-)
I've been designing gaming systems for a decade, I know what I'm talking about. You don't need a really high priced card for best graphics, you need well made hardware and a well rounded system. The most recent game I've played is HL2E2 and here are the settings.
Resolution: 1280x1024
Filtering 16x
Antialiasing 8xS
Highest shading, highest model, highest texture
Do I really need to go on? It looked pretty nice to me. As I said, max everything and I get a good framerate, around 60 or better. I don't play WoW and no my system can't run crysis very well, but not many systems can on XP. Okay so the card "absolutely destroys", but is it worth paying over $400 when a $200 card can do an adequate job? I mean.... an Xbox 360 costs less than just that video card. I don't see the point when a year later the cards drop in price by half.
What is Crysis?
Crysis is a gorgeous-looking, yet utterly dull PC game that has subpar-to-mediocre gameplay that fanboys insist is the whole REASON to spend $500 on a new video card, because it can't run at full settings on anything made this year without having issues of some kind or another.
Seriously, anybody who gives a damn if their video card is the "world's fastest" is still in the mindset of a 19-year-old in need of Ritalin.
Maybe it is the "world's fastest" THIS week. One thing I learned when building, repairing, and selling PCs for a living is that claims of "fastest" or "best" are mostly pointless, as the claim will be shattered shortly and the customers will either A.) Bitch that their product is now "obsolete", or B.) Immediately drop more money to get the newest, greatest, bestest hardware this week/month so they can impress their fanboy friends.
Personally, I'm very glad I left PC gaming behind me. It's not worth the headache or the penis-measuring competitions that go on when it comes to the power of one's gaming rig.
Uhm...how about comparing the single version AMD to a single version Nvidia, that's the only real comparision... Now 2 gpu's are compared to 1 gpu... and when I keep that in mind... the HD4870 doesn't compare that great to the 280..
and then again, 2560x1600, wtf, I'm already satisfied if it runs in full glory on 1680x1050 (which is the native resolution of my monitor)...
No. You don't compare 1 GPU to 1 GPU, you compare the price. And some do want it to run on crazy resolutions, let them.
And some people with 30" monitors want to run games on Native on their systems...
Back when the 7950gx2 came out I would complain about slapping 2 PCB's together to make "one" card. But now it's normal, and it's ATI's stated strategy. Nvidia went and made a gigantic core and ATI went to make smaller cores that actually can be stuck together on one PCB. The beauty of ATI's solution though is that you don't need a crossfire motherboard like the 7950gx2 needed (well that needed SLi) so it really can run as a single card.
"CrossFireX performance was disappointing, however, as the systems didn't scale well when going from 2 to 4 GPUs. In fact, Crysis seemed to barely notice the additional CrossFireX horsepower..."
THIS IS JUST PLAIN B.S. Crisis is only one game. More than 2/3s of todays games saw a significant increase with TWO 4870X2 cards in CrossfireX. And on many titles, the scaling was >70% which is incredible for a quad-gpu solution!
This talk is getting crazy…… I know for a fact that NVIDIA has been trying to master the two GPU’S on one card for years. After all they were the ones who took the idea from 3DFx Voodoo years ago but could never perfect it. AMD/ATI has beaten NVIDIA to the post and made a successful card. In time drivers will prove the point. There is not much NVIDIA could do, apart for trying to plant a spy at AMD/ATI and pinch their ideas as they did with 3DFx in the early 90’s.
At the end of the day it is Price/Performance and playability that will decide the outcome and ATI/AMD wins here.
There is never a end to this war.. I imagine there never will be. One company makes a better card then the other comes back and trumps it with another. One company goes under, another rises up. It never ends, thus never a winner performance-wise.
Now when it comes to suckering everyone out of their money to buy these cards then both companies win hands down. All of us loose. I know I've bought quite a few of these cards, all the way back to the early days of the video card wars. Remember slapping in dual Monster cards in your machine. Now that was some power. LOL
The GTX 280 and the 9800GX2 are faster than the 4870X2 in HotHardware's Crysis benchmark. The GTX 280 is cheaper than the 4870X2 and the 9800GX2 costs half the price, I don't get why everyone thinks ATI's cards are best, NVIDIA's cards are still better and cheaper.
Yea all this back and forth about wots better built, the GTX280 1GB or the 4870 x2, the power consumption alone was enough to peak my intrest over the 4870, 280 watts compared a MASSIVE 550W that the GTX280 needs, crist you do the math, it pays for itself compared to the GTX280 power hungry little whore that it is.
personally and i say personally with good reason, i think AMD have a better grasp of wot to put into a bit of kit like a cpu or gfx card, intell's and nvidia's philosophy is just chuck as much in as possible and hope it does'nt fry itself within a year, AMD on the other hand seemed to have refined their ideas and the technology they use with a minimum of power consumption, a phenom 9950 and HD 4870 only need 440 watts of power at peak consumption, an nvidia GTX280 with a top intell would need close to 1000 watts, you could watch your eletricity meter spin so fast that the damn thing would take off and you would'nt see any real gaming difference if all these benchmarks are anything to go by.
just my two cents, hope it counts :)
Knowing nVidia, they will probably make a GTX 300 series with overclocked GTX 200 series processors, slap two OC GTX 280 processors on one GTX 300 board and try to claim victory.