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  • David Brown - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link

    Well if you say so, but I am not sure most people would agree...I mean if you really think about it.
    ----------------------------------------
    David Brown
    http://mymmoshop.com/buy/age-of-conan-us/gold/inde...">http://mymmoshop.com/buy/age-of-conan-us/gold/inde...
  • granulated - Wednesday, July 23, 2008 - link

    If the charts are all correct then I'm quite astonished that the bizarre results haveb't been highlighted.


    4870 @19x12=73.7fps
    4870CF@19x12=99.8fps


    4870 @25x16=43.9fps
    4870CF@25x16=30.4fps


    plus loads of other bizarre results
  • paradoxnighthawk - Friday, July 18, 2008 - link

    I've been an ATi fan since I built my first PC with a 9600 256MB card. I have to say AMD has now proven it can handle the legacy of ATi. I haven't bought a new graphics card for myself since the X1900XT (been waiting for something like this to happen), and in just a short time I will be getting the 4870X2.

    A $500 to be card seems to dominate and combination of alternatives (even more expensive ones) in most applications. If nothing else, this will drive down the price-gauging of nVidia's new GTXs, and make the life of enthusiasts and gamers alike, much more interesting. Regardless, go AMD, bring the competition.

    Afterthought: If only AMD put this much brilliance into their Phenom X3 processors. I think the X3 idea has a lot of potential, just needs some more TLC.
  • ilkhan - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link

    You know what Id really like to see in these reviews?
    Instead of nVidia GeForce / AMD Radeon being repeated in each chart, use the street MSRP for that GPU.

    Then I could get everything I need on one graphic, crysis performance vs the price.

    We KNOW they are going to destroy everything else, so please stop bothering.
  • jameswalker - Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - link

    I have 3 ati 4870x2 on an asus workstation motherboard with 4 intel qx9850, i'm going for the 3d mark world record, using linux. Because it is the only operating system that well utilize all 4 cpu's and my 3 video cards. It is water cooled by liquid nitrogen.
  • vailr - Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - link

    Will this 4870 x2 card be commercially available in time for Leo Laporte's "Ultimate Game Machine"?
    Anand had phoned in, to talk on the UGM show:
    http://twitlive.tv/">http://twitlive.tv/
    on July 4 and had offered design tips for the UGM that's being assembled for a late August giveaway. The motherboard/video card selected (then: July 4) was an nVidia 780 motherboard coupled with SLI'ed: two water cooled 9800 GX2 cards:
    http://www.bfgtech.com/bfge98512gtxh2ocwe.aspx">http://www.bfgtech.com/bfge98512gtxh2ocwe.aspx
    Will a water cooled 4870 x2 card be available by mid-August?
  • pattycake0147 - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Excellent preview you guys always do a great job on your articles. Is there any news as to when the 790GX chipset is going to be released?
  • dragonbif - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    I found a posting of the 1GB version of 4870
    http://www.powercolor.com/Global/products_features...">http://www.powercolor.com/Global/products_features...

    Also I do beleve that the card AnandTech tested is a 2GB 4870x2.
  • thewanderer666 - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Anand, I really enjoy your site, but please, get rid of Derek Wilson, not only does he fail miserably at showing that he really knows how to bench video cards (like when he tried to prove how his methodology is better than HardOCP) but he makes huge mistakes in judgement.

    First off, how come he doesn't answer the simple question of how is it possible that you guys, the most respected HW site got an X2 with only 1GB in RAM...many posts talk about this yet he has not even tried to reply. Second, his take on the performance results is simply flawed. If he had read the specs of the X2 as the rest of the sites and noted that the card had 2GB of RAM, the GRID results could have been easily explained by the additional frame buffer memory (1gb vs. 512mb) instead of coming with outlandish remarks about how there are internal aspects of the card that push the performance considerably above a regular crossfire setup.

    As I tell you I really like your site and I respect all of those who write here, but seriously for such a professional site such as yours it's really sad that you have a person like Mr. Wilson in your staff. I hope this is taken as constructive critisism and not as bashing...I'm a long time reader of your site and I have no intention of having anythg different in my mind than helping this site become even better.
  • thewanderer666 - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    I did see the corrections were made regarding the huge mistakes in the original preview, so kudos for fixing them. Still I stand by my statements about the person in question...this kind of annoying mistakes are becoming more and more common on this site (on the graphics department). Knowing the Anand's professionalism these kind of noob mistakes (how about contacting AMD/ATI and asking them why the results might be so different) should not be allowed.
  • ZootyGray - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    I look forward to Anandtech testing. Other sites - some good, some biased, some illiterate, etc.

    I describe Anandtech testing as thorough, fearless, accurate, brutal, relentless, and uncompromising. And few typos/language issues. And this results in far fewer fanboy/junk comments as well.

    If I want the real truth, I come here, and I read it slowly - it's like a feast.

    Thanks Anand and company.
  • jamesbond007 - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    On page 7:

    It is likely that the extra 512MB of RAM available to each GPU has significantly impacted perforamnce since we are testing with all the options cranked up and 4xAA.

    Anyways, I can't wait to see tests with 2x 4780X2 going! I also would have liked to see the 4780 (single) in all of the tests, but I figured the card would get roughly half of the performance of the new X2. No big deal.

    The power consumption diagrams are making me realize why the 1000W+ PSUs exist. :) Good gravy, boy! A guy would have to pick up an extra shift or job just to pay the electric bill for the new cards coming out these days. Then again, most guys who buy this card likely live in their parent's basement. :p

    Just joking, of course!

    Game on, ATi! Nicely done.
    ~Travis
  • hooflung - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    This can't be a 1G version Derek. This has to be the 2G version everyone else has gotten. Can you confirm that?

    Nvidia... meet face. Age of Conan on this card is simply amazing. I think I'll trade in my 3850 512 for the X2 once it comes out. Something I said I wouldn't do for a while.
  • yacoub - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Kind of annoying you didn't include the ATI Radeon HD 4870 card in every test, as that's the most expensive one most people will care about. The $500+ stuff is ridiculous. The $299 card is a bit more worth reading about.

    The other thing is how you have to test at 2560x now just to show the biggest differences. Kinda shows that something like an 8800GT is still fine for 1680x and even 1920x for most games.
  • 7Enigma - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Let's see this is a preview about AMD's new high-end card that will directly compete with the 280. Of course most of us will never buy it, it doesn't mean it isn't important. There is already a review about the $300 card, it came out already with an indepth review.

    Every comparison has a nice graph and chart at the bottom showing performance at several different resolutions. If you are too lazy to THINK instead of just looking at the pretty color bars and seeing which one is longer, that's on you.

    Really these complaints are just getting rediculous. If they failed to review the cheaper cards or only showed a single resolution/setting (cough...cough..(H)) then I could see your point. Fact of the matter is people shelling out >$500 for a graphics card probably DO have the screens with the resolutions in the bar graphs.
  • Alexstarfire - Tuesday, July 15, 2008 - link

    No offense to you, but it would seem to me that they were just a bit lazy on making the extra lines in the graph. I know that at Guru3D that they include different resolutions in the graphs.

    To me, it's not that I'm lazy, but it's a lot more difficult to compare different numbers across a range of cards and settings than it is to see which one is above and/or below others on a graph.
  • FXi - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Put 2x 4870x2's in CF on an Intel X48 or X58 and you can kiss BOTH Nvidia's chipsets AND GPU's goodbye.

    Advantages:

    Crossfire is fully supported on Intel chipsets with NO bridge chip required.

    Crossfire won't be denied to function on Intel chipsets - the current bridge chip on Skulltrail has had 280 SLI denied by Nvidia, because they don't "feel" like enabling it.

    Dual screens on Crossfire? No problem. Crossfire doesn't artificially limit dual screen use to just their workstation cards like Quadro.

    4870x2 is already managing to beat SLI 280's in some places. Driver improvements will only make it a stronger beating in the future.

    Don't you want a company that is committed to working WITH Intel, where it makes sense, rather than fighting them?

    Support for DX 10.1 "just in case" it should end up enabled in some games.



    Can you possibly imagine what the R800 is going to do? People should be considering the 4870x2 over the 280 and Crossfire of 280 SLI without a doubt. High res gaming has never looked so good.

  • DigitalFreak - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Fanboy much?
  • piroroadkill - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Uh, multiple monitors are really important to a lot of people, I know it is to me, rendering SLI pointless
  • Griswold - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    So, AMD needs to bring their drivers to the point where all games of the past benefit from multi-GPU? Are you sure we need to play 5-10 years old games (assuming they even run on todays systems) at 5000fps just to prove a point? :P
  • Grantman - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Very interesting to see the 8800gt sli outperforming the gtx 280 in two of the game tests. They can be had so cheap so I'm alwayes interested in info on them. Also pleased to see Oblivion as a test. The 4870x2 will has potential but as you said it really depends on the driver department. If ATI could come out with some solid reliable and fast drivers the 4870x2 should take off.
  • JonnyDough - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    THANK YOU FOR INCLUDING OBLIVION! I think that this graphic heavy title does NOT get enough attention sometimes! Sure it's not as new, but it still doesn't run at high FPS with everything on high at a high resolution! Keep including it!
  • B3an - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Will there be a 2GB version of this card???

    Because i've no idea how Derek gets these frame rates at 2560x1600 with only 512MB usable VRAM. I guess once again they are using a special magical version that magically fits all those textures PLUS AA into 512MB @ 2560x1600 res.

    From looking at dodgy charts like this before i got a 9800GX2 and that was a joke for this res, always running into the memory limit, where your'd then go into the realm of the slide show. It wasn't just me btw, every other owner of the GX2 with a 30" monitor i spoke to had this problem. As for GRID that wasn't even anywhere near playable with 2xAA, let alone 4 times @ 2560x1600 - again the memory limit. Yet anand and some other sites have these magical versions....

  • Alexstarfire - Tuesday, July 15, 2008 - link

    It's a 2x1GB card, what are you babbling on about?
  • ViRGE - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    "Today's article is merely a preview as R700s won't be officially launched for at least another month, but AMD wanted to unveil a bit of what it's cooking."

    This is starting to drift back in to paper launch territory, which makes me uneasy. It strikes me that allowing early previews is just as much about sinking the GTX 280 as it is showcasing a new product, which leads to the same kind of problems that we've seen in the past with paper launchers. While I love AT's CPU previews, those are both several months in advance and are for a product with a longer shelf life; I'm not sure GPU previews are necessarily as fair.

    I really don't want to see this becoming a habit, with companies previewing products early enough that it's always untenable to buy something because there's something better just around the corner (except that we don't know how far).
  • hooflung - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Meh, Nvidia's been doing it to AMD for the past 18 months. Time for some payback.
  • toonces - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Like the 9800GTX+ preview done 3 weeks ago coinciding with AMD's 4850 launch?

    I don't really have a problem with previews like this as long as AnandTech and the manufacturer can guarantee the GPU/CPU/PSU/WhateverU will be released in reasonable quantity in a reasonable amount of time.

    As long as AMD/NV can avoid another 7900GTX 512MB or X800XT PE paper launch debacle they should be given the benefit of the doubt, for now, IMHO.
  • ira176 - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Wonder when AMD will design dual core gpu with on chip memory controller. That should help significantly shorten the card.
  • n7 - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    The huge gain in GRID would be due to the extra vRAM, as it chokes with only 512 MB.

    I am having a hard time believing AT is the only review site to get a 2x512 MB version instead of 2x1 GB.
  • toyota - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    I have seen 4 so far plus all the individuals that have personal cards now and they have ALL been 2gb models. like I said earlier ATI doesnt even have a 4870 X2 1gb model in their slides.
  • Alexstarfire - Tuesday, July 15, 2008 - link

    I've become curious as this is like the 4-5th comment I've come across that talks about a 2GB model and a 1GB model. What I'm curious is whether or not you are talking about a 2x2GB model, to make 4GB across 2 cards, or just 2GB in total RAM, because the one on this site has 2GB of RAM total 2x1GB, 4GB across 2 cards.

    I have a feeling many are just getting confused, but I'd like to sk to make sure.
  • Lakku - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    AMD, you fail! Without even reading the whole article, which I will finish in a sec, that board layout already has me in a tizzy. Are you really going to point the PCI-E 8 and 6 pint connectors facing that way? Maybe because it's so long, but I am not sure I like that idea of having a stiff cable (most PS's these days have sleeved cables) having to be routed that way. Then again, I am flying off half-cocked right now, so (if you live around Austin, TX and listen to 93.7 12 to 1, you'll know I am part of Snatch... so this may just all backfire in my face after I get done reading the article).
  • Lerianis - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Yeah, I have to agree that is a stupid way to point the connectors..... DOWN? They should be pointed towards the wall of the computer, not the bottom of the computer, in order to take into account that most people have a card or three UNDERNEATH those video cards.
  • toyota - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    I didnt read through the whole article but why did Anandtech end up with a 1024mb version when EVERYBODY else is getting 2048mb versions? heck even all the ATI slides showed 2048mb for the R700.

    http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=5...">http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=5...
    http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTU...">http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTU...
    http://techreport.com/articles.x/15105">http://techreport.com/articles.x/15105
  • orionmgomg - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    I was wondering the exact same thing.

    Maybe they are going to release even better results with the 2GB version and blow away Nvida!?

    I am a Nvidia Fan Boy - or should I say - who ever gots the biggest guns Fan Boy, so if ATI brings in the meat and potatos, Ill eat em all up.

    PS: I have an ASUS X38 DDR3 with QX9650 & 2 Gigs DDR3 1600 7-7-7-20, and I have been running just 1 EVGA 8800 Ultra Because SLI is not supported with this mobo, so when I upgraded from the 680i I sold my other Ultra...

    But!!!!!!!! This MOBO HAS CrossFIRE!!!

    As almost all other X38/X48 Mobos do! And I have been waiting for a Cross Fire solution that was worthy. If I could just get 2 of the 4870x2 cards in my system for Quad GPU - that would be really nice - give my Dorkfielf 4.0 something to do. LOL

    PS; Also need to upgrade to Vista 64 as a 32 bit OS would not like 4 gigabytes of ram on the video cards, and with 2GBs system memory - may be a problem - plus upgrade ro 4 GBs of course...
  • csiszarerik - Tuesday, July 15, 2008 - link

    Hm, reply on your PS: try to install service pack 1 for Vista... my 4 gigs are there... before it was only 3.3 gigs... i have read somewhere that the new core in SP1 supports higher ram amounts...
  • imaheadcase - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Ram on video card means Jack Squat in all but a few games out, even then its not noticeable. A 512meg vs 2gig card means no performance difference if 2 equal cards.

  • Lerianis - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    It doesn't? That's funny: every single testing place I have seen says that when you have a lot of memory on the card to hold textures and other things, it does help with performance a lot, since they don't have to page things to the hard drive or pull things from the hard drive as often.
  • Alexstarfire - Tuesday, July 15, 2008 - link

    That's if, AND ONLY IF, all the stuff doesn't already fit onto the cards memory. Most of the time you'll run the FPS into the ground before that happens, negating any performance gain you may possibly get. If, however, you happen to find a game where the FPS remains high, like in GRID, then it will help. Course, you'd need quite a big monitor to get a resolution that high, but that's beside the point.
  • gigahertz20 - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    AMD needs to get on the ball with their drivers, they still don't even have the 4850 and 4870 listed on their site under video card drivers.

    http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html">http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html

    Seems like all their effort was put into just releasing the hardware to sell and make money, and not putting as much time into perfecting the drivers as they should be.
  • docmilo - Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - link

    This hotfix is a new set of drivers for the 4800 series. I installed them last night on my 4850 and when I run the Overdrive I reach 700mhz on the gpu stable.
  • docmilo - Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - link

    Well the link didn't work. Here's the address:

    http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?dep...">http://support.ati.com/ics/support/defa...mp;task=...
  • Lerianis - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    They probably haven't released a new driver for these cards yet and expect you to use the driver they include on the disk with the card. Wait until next month, they will most likely finally have a driver on their website for these cards.
  • alzg22 - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    They do have drivers, Catalyst 8.6 introduced support for the 4800 series. It's just not listed under the driver finder, probably.
  • bob4432 - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    i think they are referring to a driver that changes the fan speed so you don't cook the 4850/4870s....
  • KikassAssassin - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    You can do that now by creating an Overdrive profile in the control center, and editing the profile's file (Documents/username/AppData/Local/ATI/ACE/profilename.xml) in Notepad. There's a line in there for fan speed that you can edit. I set mine to 40% (up from the default 20%) and idle temps on my 4870 dropped from about 75C to 45C, and load temps dropped from about 95C to about 65C. 40% fan speed was right about at the upper limit I could set it to before the fan noise became annoying (the thing seriously sounds like a freaking jet engine at max speed).

    It'd be nice if they'd add an option to change the fan speed in the control center, though.
  • sc3252 - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    This card is hot for a $500 video card. I cant wait to pick one up. Two questions I have. Does it actually share the memory or is it separate? Did they fix the stutter associated with Crossfire?
  • DerekWilson - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    oh yeah, and we're going to wait until the card actually comes out to look at things like micro-stutter etc...
  • DerekWilson - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    memory is not shared. shared framebuffer won't come out for a while yet apparently ...

    each GPU has a separate 512MB framebuffer.
  • LeftSide - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Hardopc is saying their card has 2gigs, 1gig per core. Are there 2 versions of this card?
  • toyota - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    EVERY other review I have seen has been the 2gb models.
  • homerdog - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Same here...
  • GTaudiophile - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    AMD: Focus on "Crysis" domination and I'm sold!

    Keep up the good work but keep on working!
  • orionmgomg - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    Rgr THAT 100%

    That and a 64 bit OS Vista 64 Ultimate for all the memory and DX10
  • soydeedo - Monday, July 14, 2008 - link

    AMD: Give me $300 more dollars and I'm sold!

    Also a spelling note on the GRID benchmark page: intreguing

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