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Hardware AMD ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Tim S, 13 Aug 2008.

  1. Drexial

    Drexial Minimodder

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    For those of you looking for a broader review. www.Anandtech.com has both dual GT680s and dual 4870 X2s. While I dont usually like their style of review. It does complete the picture of how truly awesome the 4870 X2 is.

    In reality AMD never claimed that the 4870 was ever supposed to be a top contender. Which is why the price point was so much lower. It was really just a disappointing release from nVidia that caused it to compete so well. That's not to say the GTX 280 doesnt perform well. But it does leave much to be desired for the price point. Considering that AMD was looking to compete with nVidias mid range and ended up taking on their top end. The 4870 X2 was the card that was intended to compete with the GTX 280. I don't think AMD expected to dominate the way it did, in both price and performance.
     
  2. mclean007

    mclean007 Officious Bystander

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    Or just omit "a"?
     
  3. Ninja_182

    Ninja_182 Enginerd!

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    That was something interesting to wake up to. I love industry upsets, even if it is done in a slightly crude way.

    While I can see nvidia's response will be just to stick two on a single card, as sticking out a new generation wont be practical. Im interested how they will fit two chips on. Do the 280 chips run cool enough for a stacked setup like the 9800GX2?
     
  4. Tim S

    Tim S OG

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    Won't happen... max board power would be ludicrous even if they could get the heat under control.
     
  5. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    9800 gx2 still not far behind is quiet fun for those that brought one

    will never buy duel gpu solutions. Still and always will be based on driver support.

    you can have 3 way sli on 280 chips with under 1k watts. ( 1200 ish min psu). Heat is counted by water cooling

    power consumption of a 4870 x2 will mean its never 3 way crossfired . As that would be more psu than is in existance. Even duel id say is past the idea.

    483 watt in use is just WOW
     
  6. Er-El

    Er-El Minimodder

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    I was really looking forward for this card to be released as I intend to put one in my new PC which I'll be building soon. But now I'm having second thoughts about purchasing a 4870X2 because it's not gonna be doing me any favours in terms of keeping my PC as cool and quiet as possible (oh and the high price).

    If I decide to bite the bullet and buy one for my PC anyway what's the minimum wattage PSU I should be looking at for something like this? Shall I forget about getting the Coolermaster 700W Silent Pro you guys reviewed recently? The PC will have an Intel Core 2 Quad (45nm) which I'll overclock to about 3.6Ghz once I eventually install water cooling for both the CPU and GPU, a 500GB HDD, and 4GB DDR2-1200Mhz RAM.
     
    Last edited: 13 Aug 2008
  7. sl1xx

    sl1xx What's a Dremel?

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    Cracking rev...right on time as well,hl2ep2 just roflmao silly frames now let the gfx price wars begin....!
     
  8. SPQQKY

    SPQQKY Evil Modder

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    GTX 280 is still the best purchase IMO. I would rather have a single GPU card, save $150 and save on my electric bill.
     
  9. Jasio

    Jasio Made in Canada

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    Woot, ATI IS KING (finally!) ... now all we need to wait for is for side-port to be enabled, and for the Catalyst drivers to mature (I see Bit-Tech used beta drivers) and then we'll really see this girl show her sexy, slim, and busty figure :p As Bit-Tech stated, the potential of this card isn't really experienced at lower resolutions... for those with larger monitors this is the card to get, crank it up to max and enjoy the sinful eye-candy. Go ATI!
     
  10. ComputerKing

    ComputerKing <img src="http://forums.bit-tech.net/images/smilie

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    I must get two of those :D hehehe

    Awesome review guys. now I wait for the price drop and get them ;)
     
  11. Jasio

    Jasio Made in Canada

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    Knowing ATI... it probably won't be long till MIR's and a price drop will show up. Maybe sometime in September/October in line with Nehalem/X58? Definitely something for Christmas. Since ATI is using their usual 55nm process, and an increased amount of GDDR5 RAM (since the 4870 isn't the only GPU now with GDDR5) the cost of GDDR5 should come down, allowing ATI to decrease pricing while maintaining a good profit margin.
     
  12. zoot2boot

    zoot2boot What's a Dremel?

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    i can't really see nvidia having an answer to this for a while. even a die shrink on GT200 wont bring them into the territory they need to be in - it looks like the AMD architecture is just substantially more efficient. Particularly in terms of profit AMD must have won this round easily. I'm no fan boy - i bought a GTX260 just the other week because it was cheaper than the 4870 for pretty much the same performance but that has to be hurting nvidia - to be selling chips that are SO much bigger than AMDs for less money has to be putting the profits in AMDs coffers. i just hope that money gets sunk back into R&D for video cards - not siphoned off to address the company's other troubles.
     
  13. salesman

    salesman Minimodder

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    Its been such a long time that it has happened i don't think amd knows what to do with it, as a matter of fact has amd owned the performance crown yet in the GPU, market or is this the first time since it took over ati that it has.
     
  14. mrb_no1

    mrb_no1 Pie Eater

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    i just came back from a business trip and was itching to read this review, i'd read some one other sites as they seem to churn them out quicker but i draw no solid conclusions from theirs as i dont trust them, and now i come back from denmark to see this and can finally put any doubts from other reviews to bed, its fecking awesome and i love it. Nice one timmy, nice on son, i'd feckin love to get a hold of one of these, soo jealous of you guys at bit-tech....i dont care what nvidia fanboys say, nvidia will roll out something to beat it, i hope they do, it pushes amd/ati harder and drives our costs down, and then amd can strap a turbocharged rocket on the 4870x2's ass and the same happens again, i'm just glad to see ati at the top spanking some ass again, now maybe if those engineeers spent some time over on the cpu side, amd/ati might compete on 2 fronts!

    Love seeing ati on top, roll on nvidia's response, i want to see where these 2 giants push the boundaries....AMD Cheesecake HOOOOOORAH!

    peace

    fatman
     
  15. Spaceraver

    Spaceraver Ultralurker

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    Tim. Take your time if you need it. There is no need to rush your articles. I know how thorough your articles are. And expect them to be of high standard. You should not have to work 24/7 to get there. :D

    Sidenote: A post on the forums with a chart for GPU(card) to monitor size(resolution) would be lovely. It's a bloody mess to figure out what to buy.
     
  16. naokaji

    naokaji whatever

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    yup, not until the die shrink atleast and even then it would probably be more of a 260x2.

    not true, 483 is the complete system, not the graphicscard. however, you can have a max of 2, there is only one crossfire connector on the cards, so 3 of them woudnt work.

    yup, first time since amd bought ati.

    nvidia's response atm is dropping the prices (except in uk of course), no faster card around for immediate release.
     
  17. ChaosDefinesOrder

    ChaosDefinesOrder Vapourmodder

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    so... does anyone know if there's likely to be a DisplayPort equipped version of this card at all? That would be great!
     
  18. Tim S

    Tim S OG

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    DisplayPort is supported by the chip, so it's just a matter of partners implementing it if they see a market for it (that's the biggest problem at the moment).
     
  19. ChaosDefinesOrder

    ChaosDefinesOrder Vapourmodder

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    yeah, that's what I mean, has there been any chatter or hints at any of the partners intending to support it?
     
  20. Tim S

    Tim S OG

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    Not yet, no... but I guess it is fairly early days. Almost all of the cards made so far will just follow AMD reference design - in the future, there might be additional designs from board partners, much like the Asus EAH3870 X2 (which featured 4 DVI ports).
     
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