Hardware Winter 2008 Graphics Performance Update

[CardJoe]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...mance-update/1

With new and improved drivers from AMD and Nvidia and a whole batch of new graphically intensive games to test with, we've retested seven high end graphics cards to see how they perform in Far Cry 2, Fallout 3 and more! How does your card perform? Read on to find out!

[Kúsař]

Great job! Definitely good idea to retest GPU's with new drivers.

So many reviews in november...did you forget to sleep?

[WildThing]

In short then, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB is still the card we'd spend our own money on at the moment

That's great news for me! (I just bought one, should be arriving today ) nice one Bit-Tech!

[bowman]

Why do you test on different platforms when there's no SLI/Crossfire involved?

[zr_ox]

I'm likewise thankfull for your recommendation recently for the 1GB 4870 which I've had for about 1 month.

Excellant card, only problem I had so far was Crysis at 1600x1200 and high settings with lots of AA & AF on the last mission. Overclocked my CPU to 3.5Ghz and it went away.

Buying another soon for CF.

[mm vr]

Blah, makes me just wonder why I bought a 4870 512MB... The 1GB version is so much better for so little money...

(I think that was because the 1GB version wasn't out yet when I bought )

[Baz]

Originally Posted by bowman

Why do you test on different platforms when there's no SLI/Crossfire involved?

It's simply a hardware and timing setup. We WILL need SLI and Crossfire support at some point, so it's easier to just test all out ATI card on a Crossfire compatible setup and all our Nvidia cards on an SLI setup. It also makes it quicker, as we can be running benchmarks on both set-ups simultaneously.

However, we've aware of the slight loop it can throw in our results, which is something we'll be sorting when we build our new GFX test systems in the next few months.

[[USRF]Obiwan]

Ati:
The cheapest Radeon 4870 1GB I could find is a Club3D for 235,- euro
The cheapst Radeon 4870x2 I could find is a Club3D HD 4870 X2 2048MB for 434,- euro

Nvidia:
The cheapest GTX260 I could find is a Point Of View GTX260 for 245,- euro
The cheapest GTX280 1GB I could find is a Asus ENGTX280 for 375,- euro

So if you want the best bang for the bucks you just cant go wrong with a 4870 1GB


Edit: Forgot to say: thanks for the nice shootout review, very helpful around these days. I would love to see the same for a motherboard, memory or processor! If you guys can find the time

[lp1988]

nice review allways good to see some competition on the marked.

is it possible that we could see some crossfire tests at some point? currently using a 4850 512MB, and it would be nice to see how two of these looks in comparison with the competition.

[Zero_UK]

Good to see Nvidia closing the gap. If nvidia gets back on their feet their should be some very nice competition for DX11 cards next year. = Low priced DX11 cards hopefully

[outlawaol]

I think my next card will be a radeon....

4870 1gb to be exact.

Thanks bit-tech for the unbiased reviews.

[Cupboard]

I am surprised the new driver make that large a difference.
I might have to try them for me 8800GTS which is, after all, pretty much the same as a 9800GTX+

[frontline]

Nice article, as usual

Would be good to see some dedicated crossfire/sli benchmarks across the various cards, i'm particularly interested how 2 4850's stack up against a 4850X2, as the price of this card (£300) seems to be a tad out of sorts with the rest of the lineup.

[Design_Master]

When some sites say that a GTX 280 is faster than a 4870 1GB is a BIG mistake, mainly because in the most of cases are considering games using NVIDIA’s platform. If it was considered more games using ATI’s platform, such as Assassin’s Creed, GRID, Devil May Cry 4, Rainbow Six Vegas, etc, the advantage of ATI would be clear and bigger.

The funny is that when some sites complain about the poor performance of some VGA’s brand and don’t use appropriate games (or unfair mix of games), they are making a huge injustice. The fault for the poor performance is entirely of the complaining tester, in the most of cases.

IMHO, my vote goes to 4870 1GB instead of GTX 280, by far. It has a much better performance in ATI’s platform games and some of NVIDIA's, is more modern and cheaper.

[SubtleOne]

I have a 4870(512) and no regrets. I do have one comment, and wondered whether anyone had made the test. The 4870(512) OCs very easily, especially the memory. I really haven't run into anyone who wasn't able to achieve a very stable OC of say 800/1100 (4400 effective). Don't kid yourself, the memory makes a genuine difference in performance, especially here, with +800MHz effective.

On the other hand, i have consistently read that due to being double-density, OCing the memory of the 1GB models beyond 15-25MHz (60-100MHz effective) is nearly impossible without artifacting in 3DMark06, and very risky. So the question is: on regular OCs (no 100% fan speeds, or watercooling) of 800/1100 on a 512MB, and 800/900 (or 925), on a 1GB model, how do they compare?

[DXR_13KE]

i would love to see something like this:




this was taken from crisis at 1,680 x 1,050 4xAA 8xAF, DirectX 10, Very High Quality

edit: the king of performance/price is the 4850...

the prices were averages from bit-tech shopping.

[wuyanxu]

there are more to pure gaming performance for graphics cards....... for more feature rich and top end performance at relatively low price it has to be the gtx260+.

the 4870 1GB is good, but it is slower with gtx260+ in games that matters (eg. Crysis), for all other games, there is little point to upgrade at all, if already got a 8800 or equivalent.

[SubtleOne]

Crysis is a nice benchmark, but as a game.... Once finished I certainly felt no urge to go back to it. Fallout 3 for example is a far better game with much more reply value IMHO. So unless the only game you plan to play is Crysis, a more balanced look at the card's performance is preferable.

[rollo]

i brought a gtx280 and never regretted it. Never been a crossfire fan. Due to lack of driver support. Will always take a single card solution over crossfire or sli.

[The_EXorcist]

i'd like to see how much of a difference the is between the 512mb and 1gb versions of the 4850, as we see a noticeable difference with the 4870's, but dont see the 1gb 4850 in any bit-tech reviews