The Radeon HD 4870 1GB: The Card to Get
by Derek Wilson on September 25, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
With the launch of the Radeon HD 4870, AMD showed us that they are not only still in the game, but they are back. Their hardware either out performed or was on par with NVIDIA hardware priced significantly higher. As a result, NVIDIA was forced to significantly adjust their prices downward to remain competitive. And, currently, they are competitive in terms of pricing and performance.
But in this business competitive isn't always good enough. AMD came out of the gate swinging for a knock out. And they did a good job of winning a significant amount of mindshare. They built a good product and priced it very aggressively at launch. While our concern is the current state of things, and our recommendation will be for the part that gives our reader the best value, that's not how every graphics card enthusiast sees it. The things companies do (like initially selling their hardware at way too high a price) can significantly affect the position of some enthusiasts.
That might be one reason NVIDIA went down the core 216 path with the GTX 260. A name more like GTX 265 would have been nice, and we already talked about how much we don't need dozens of parts all with slight tweaks and price differences cluttering up the market. But, the core 216 did help make NVIDIA's hardware more competitive (even if it didn't put it over the top). And more competitive is a good thing. Better competition does nothing but benefit the consumer, and we love to see it. If NVIDIA took that step because they want to win back some mindshare then that's fine with us. All we care about is what performs best in a price class, because that is what benefits our readers.
Of course, the core 216 might also have been anticipating the eventual availability of the Radeon 4870 1GB. In which case, the core 216 falls short.
Well, it isn't just that the GTX 260 falls a little short. The fact is that the extra RAM really does make a significant difference in many high quality high resolution situations when playing current games. We didn't expect the gains we see here, and combined with the original stellar performance of the Radeon HD 4870, we have to say that we are impressed.
The Radeon HD 4870 1GB has the same number of GDDR5 chips on board, but the devices on the 1GB model are double the density of the 512MB part.
Yes, these are different parts. The top one is the 512MB version and the bottom one is the 1GB.
The 512MB card we have uses Qimonda GDDR5, while the 1GB model we tested has Hynix devices. As GDDR5 is still pretty new, it is likely that the delay in getting out the 1GB model of the 4870 had to do with delays in getting a high enough supply of high density RAM.
Anyway, we mentioned that the GTX 260 core 216 doesn't quite keep up now that the 4870 has twice as much RAM. Let's take a look ath exactly how short it falls, first in terms of how much performance we gain over the original model and then in absolute terms.
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DerekWilson - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
there is no longer any reason to use 32bit vista over 64bit vista ... the initial problems have been resolved, and the apps that have 64bit specific issues are few and far between. if you use one of those apps, sure that's an issue, but in general 64 bit vista is the way to go.in fact, we'd recommend 64bit over 32bit every time for the gamer. we do all of our game testing with 64bit as well, and we haven't had any issues for a very long time that were related to the 64bit operating system.
yyrkoon - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
"While the 4870 512MB part can be had for $20 or $30 cheaper than the 4870 1GB (if you shop around), many of the 512MB variants are still priced in the same range as the 1GB cards. There is no reason to buy the 512MB part if prices are equal, so we hope to see a downward shift in price for the 512MB version."I can think of at least one reason why not to buy the 1GB version given the prices are the same.
A person using a 32bit version of Windows, with 4GB of memory installed. More video ram used = less available system memory available for use in windows. Granted for some this may not be a HUGE reason, but for people like me who try to build the best all around system for gaming, image editing etc, this can make a difference(especially if you're not cranking the resolution up). Eventually, I will be going to a 64bit OS, so buying 2x2GB makes more sense than wasting money on a 1x1GB stick, and loosing that little extra performance from a dual channel setup.
Now here is to Windows 7 being released tomorrow ; )
DerekWilson - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
you are right about the effect of that case, but i think, at least for gaming, because graphics is the largest bottleneck, you would want your graphics card to have the best advantage possible.in the general case there is no longer any reason to use 32bit vista. we only use 64bit for all our graphics testing.
there may be a few isolated apps here and there that have issues, but the problem is no where near as wide spread as it was the first year or so. for anyone who wants vista, we recommend 64 bit.
i do get the continued attraction to windows XP though ... i'm not a huge fan of vista myself, and xp 64bit still isn't a great option.
but if we're talking about 32bit XP then some of our benchmarks would not make any sense (DX10) and that might change things as well ... so there really its both more an less of an issue at the same time :-)
yyrkoon - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
Well, in my case, I did not adopt early into Vista, and yes if I were to buy Vista right now, it would probably be Retail Ultimate. So, I would have a 32bit version, and a 64bit version. Anyways, it will probably be around the time SP2 comes out for Vista before I will consider buying it, and until then I will stick with what I have (which is XP Pro x32).About my Windows 7 comment, I was sort of serious in that I may even wait until it comes out before making a move, but I know it is not due out right now. The thing for me concerning Direct3D 10 is that most of the games right now are not using it properly, or to its full potential. That, and it really does not(right now) make games look all that much better, OR perform better than Direct3D 9(which would be the main reason I would want 'dx10' to begin with).
Also just a FYI, if you purchase a 32bit copy of Vista, Microsoft will ship you a 64bit copy for the cost of shipping. Some versions of Vista may not retail as 64bit copies, but all version except for Home personal (I beleive) have their 64bit counterparts. At the very least, I am sure business on up have 64bit versions.
XP Pro x64, and Windows 2003 share a lot of architecture as you may already know, so maybe this is why XP x64 does not work well for everyone. However, I have a customer that runs XP x64 on an Asus SLI board, with SLI 7800GTX's, and aside from the occasional quirk, it seems to run very well. I actually had to reinstall the OS for him a few months back because he had somehow hosed his install, and all drivers(except one) installed very easily. I do not recall which driver gave me hassles, but it was just PiTA, that lasted at most 30 minutes until I sorted it out. Most games as I understand it will work with XP x64 just fine, with a few that require work-arounds, if they do not already outright work.
BikeDude - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
[quote]i'm not a huge fan of vista myself[/quote]You're a technical competent person. If you disable superfetch, the glass look, UAE, and a handful of other features, you will have a very XP-like experience, except with proper DX10 support and better 64-bit drivers.
Tsktsktsk.
--
Rune
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
Actually, SuperFetch is one of the features I like (for the most part - the increased hard drive noise at idle can be irritating). What irks me is stuff like the modified dialogs. It now takes a couple more clicks and opened windows to get to screen savers, resolution, network settings, etc. I can live with all that, of course, so I'm using Vista on virtually all of my PCs. (I've still got an XP laptop I use for a few things, though.)Spoelie - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
The difference between 3,5GB and 3,0GB will hardly be noticeable. If it is, then installing the 32bit version for a new build is not the smartest thing to do.ilkhan - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
So you are saying that doubling the ram (without any speed improvements) on the 4870 gives a bigger increase than increasing the raw power om the GTX260?I like the accessability of your benchmarks, but sometimes they are just really hard to trust.
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
Yes, that's what we're saying. The Core 216 has 12.5% more computation power, but it has the same amount of memory and the same memory bandwidth. It appears we are now at the point where at 1920x1200 and especially 2560x1600, 1GB GPUs see a decent performance boost over 512MB cards. It's not guaranteed, but personally I think we'll see more titles using larger textures in the future - or at least giving users the option for higher res textures.But of course we still have the platform question to a certain degree. If you want SLI or CrossFire down the road, you need to consider the choice between NVIDIA or Intel/ATI chipsets (until X58 at least). I give Intel the advantage on chipset, but personally I think SLI is better overall than CrossFire.
Power is something else to consider; there's really no reason the 4870 can't idle at 4850 levels; that a single 4870 at idle uses more power than 4850 CF is pretty shocking - to me at least. Load power is almost tied, but a 45W idle power increase is really lousy. Sure, that only works out to $30 to $40 per year running 24/7, but that's also heat, which generally means more noise and wear and tear.
My personal opinion differs somewhat from Derek here. If you want maximum performance for the dollar, the HD 4870 1GB appears the best choice. If you're looking at the entire package, I'm more inclined to go with the $260 GTX 260 for the above reasons (power being a major one). If you're then looking at SLI or CrossFire, while I would still take the X38/X48 over the 780i/790i, and the NVIDIA chipsets are notoriously power hungry, it's close but I'd still go with GTX 260. Since I'm already quite happy with my X38 board, however, I don't think I'll be upgrading my GPU to the NVIDIA camp for a while yet.
Finally - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
Yes, please! Check on that. A german site has dug into the underflashing story and found out that a properly undervolted HD4870 uses less power in idle than a HD4850!If you are ready to flash, you have the lower power card right there.
http://www.computerbase.de/news/hardware/grafikkar...">http://www.computerbase.de/news/hardwar...ten/ati/...