The Radeon HD 4870 1GB: The Card to Get

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• SiliconDoc - Friday, October 3, 2008 - link

  No offense robotslave, none to anandtech either, but they've reached the point that the corpo-politician model of perma e-boner has been erected, and there's no going back.
  They need no gamer left behind legislation. lol
  It must be blocked from the floor overclocking vote. tee hee
  ( don't you care about team cohesion and enthusiasm levels ?) -rofl
  I mean do you expect these silicon valley monster review boys to settle for 1024x768x32 on a $150.00 vidcard lineup ?
  That sounds like a hostile work environment.
  The "secondary" market (or is that 3rd world now ?) requires too much viagra, the team has to think about morale and hype, man.
  I think we'd better move to the "less interesting" review pages where gamerz aren't "seen or heard" even if they "are there".
  ( I'll see ya there, or rather, I won't ... wink)
  
  

• Gaz - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link

  which of theses two senario's would be the better one to implement 4 x 4870 1gb or 2 x 4870x2
  I have a MSI K9A2 platinum that can handle 4 cards in crossfireX the only problem is that the power conections to the cards and the size of the power supply needed to run all 4 4870 1gb cards compaired to the 2 x 4870x2 which would only use 2 six pin and 2 eight pin conectors
  the 4 x 4870 1gb i think would use 8 six pin power conecters to run the vidio cards but what size psu would you realy need a 1500psu or would a 1350 or 1000 psu do
  I havent bought any cards yet

• Comdrpopnfresh - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link

  I think the changes in the 4870 show that AMD was smart in designing their current generation of graphics products.
  
  They were able to provide an appreciable performance increase by adding more memory. In doing this, they saved money by not have to tape out new die alterations, and don't drastically alter power consumption.
  
  Nvidia, on the other hand, didn't seem to be able to provide as much of a performance improvement, while increasing power consumption and probably having to spend on the new core.
  

• Paladin1211 - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link

  Unlike the GTX 260 Core 216, this card isn't an epic fail at its price point...

• AlB80 - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link

  "It still draws a significant amount more power at idle and load than the GTX 260."
  
  They still using catalyst 8.7.

• dennilfloss - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link

  I am confused when you say it does not tax memory as much because with QTP3, I sometimes reach around 950MB of VRAM use, so I'd think the extra 512MB would make quite a bit of difference in not having to use the hard disk instead of some VRAM. I think most of the Oblivion players interested in the 1GB version of the 4870 will have extra texture mods installed. Do you use one of the more detailed texture packs in Oblivion or is your Oblivion just vanilla?
  
  dennilfloss

• grmnasasin0227 - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link

  So now that the 1GB is out, when will we be able to see the 4870X2 compared to a 4870 1GB in CF? I'd like to know which is the better buy.

• Kulamata - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link

  I would have liked to have seen the 4850 XFire included; I think it (they?) can run with this pack. I'm keeping my eye open for the promised 4850 X2; we'll see if they're a real product. If so, I'm quite interested for 1920 X 1200.

• emilyek - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link

  Can you guys show frames for something other than 2560 x 1600 and maxed AA/AF? Not everyone has a 30" Apple Cinema Display or better.
  
  Cards that are neck and neck at that resolution very well might have anywhere from a 10-20 fps difference at, say, 1680 x 1050, where most people game.

• AnnonymousCoward - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link

  Look again: the line graphs have your resolution.