The Radeon HD 4850 & 4870: AMD Wins at $199 and $299
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on June 25, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Multi-GPU Performance
Crysis
NVIDIA's own multi-GPU solution outperformed the GeForce GTX 280 when it launched, so it is not too surprising to see the Radeon HD 4870 in CrossFire mode doing the same. If AMD can put two of these things on a single card it will have a viable competitor for the GTX 280 as well as the GX2.
Call of Duty 4
AMD's architecture did very well under Call of Duty 4 in the single-card tests, with a single Radeon HD 4870 performing better than a GeForce GTX 260. The scaling from one to two cards is beyond perfect in CoD4, the reason being that we test on two different platforms (Intel X48 for CrossFire, NVIDIA 790i for all single-cards), the end result is a rare case where two of AMD's $300 cards actually outperform two of NVIDIA's $650 cards. By no means is it the norm, but it is a testament to the strength of AMD's RV770 GPU.
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
CrossFire continues to scale poorly in Quake Wars, while NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 SLI completely dominates the charts here. The 4870 CF performance isn't terrible, it's actually in line with where it should be (2 x $300 cards are about as fast as 1 x $650 card).
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NullSubroutine - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
It scaled more than 100% in a few games?DerekWilson - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
greater than 100% scaling is due to margin of error combination for both single card and dual card tests in the vast majority of cases.we also tested single card performance on an nvidia system and crossfire performance on an intel system, so the different computers will also add margin of error.
two card solutions generally don't scale at greater than 100% except in extraordinarily odd situations (where rebalancing loads might help with scaling on both individual cards -- but that's odd and rare).
Sind - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
Why no 260 and 280 SLI?ImmortalZ - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
Because, with that kind of money, one can an entire system with one 48xx :PAlso, page 10 appears to be broken.
Lifted - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
No 260 or 280 SLI in the benchmarks, but they included them in the power charts. Odd.Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
The power data was simply taken from the GTX 280 review, we just added to the list.As for the GTX 280 SLI numbers, we didn't include them as it it's mostly out of the price range of the Radeon HD 4870 ($1300 vs. $600 for two 4870s). We can always go back and redo the graphs to include them if you guys would like, but in the interim I would suggest looking at the GTX review to get comparison numbers.
Take care,
Anand
DerekWilson - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
we actually only have one GTX 260, so we can't test thatClauzii - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
Yes, and the click to enlarge doesn't work.And believe it or not, posting right now from a AT page that looks like 1994...!
ImmortalZ - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
Insert a buy in there. Need edit!TonyB - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
but can it play crysis?