The next round of confrontation between two giants of discrete 3D graphics manufacturers Nvidia and AMD, which began after the announcement of new solutions in mid-June 2008, brought the public a lot of surprises and bitter disappointments.
Having relied on the most powerful single-chip TOP, Nvidia very much risked deciding to release the GPU GT200, a chip that was supposed to become the record holder in area - 576 mm2 and consist of more than 1.4 billion transistors. As a result, it turned out that the production cost of GT200 is high and this can have an extremely negative impact on the success of its promotion. In addition, the price of the card was supplemented by an expensive PCB with wiring for a 512-bit memory bus and the memory itself, albeit a hackneyed GDDR3 standard, but operating at fairly high frequencies, the standard volume of which was supposed to be 1 GB, which significantly reduced the stability of the Nvidia flagship. All this resulted in the creation of products that, by their definition, at the time of the announcement, could not be cheap. And so it happened. The first mentions of the recommended prices for a video card with a GT200 on board, which by that time had received the names GeForce GTX260 and GTX280, said that the first of them would cost $ 449, and the second $ 649. For future users, these prices did not become some kind of discovery, there were more, but many still decided to calculate the necessary capital for their acquisition.
But as we know, everything turned upside down after the announcement by AMD of video cards based on GPU RV770 - Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200band HD4870. It all started pretty ordinary. AMD's management has repeatedly emphasized that it is moving away from creating powerful single-chip solutions to multi-chip solutions, therefore, one could not expect a competitor to the single-chip TOP solutions from Nvidia.
The first on the torture tables to the reviewers were the Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200bvideo cards, which received very positive ratings. They competed on equal terms with solutions based on the G92, and besides, at a recommended price of only $ 199, Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200bvideo cards showed very good results for their value, and such that Nvidia urgently had to reduce the cost of its video cards and release more productive solutions (9800GTX +) to provide them with more or less worthy competition. But the Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200bcards could not reach the flagships of Nvidia GTX260 / 280, but they tried.
The second to enter the ring was the Radeon HD4870 with a recommended price of $ 299. And lo and behold! This athlete was able to knock a GeForce GTX260 who lost weight from $ 449 to $ 399 and beat the GeForce GTX280 well! No one expected such agility from a video card with a GPU, which was not originally aimed at competing with TOP, so the network was literally overwhelmed by a wave of increased interest in Radeon HD4870 video cards, and fan forums literally roared from the skirmishes of fans of the two opposing sides.
Well, what the Radeon HD4870 really is, I propose to get acquainted in our today's review using the example of the Gigabyte Radeon HD4870 512 MB video card.
Photos of the map.
The length of the Gigabyte Radeon HD4870 video card is 250 mm, which is 10 mm longer than that of its sisters Radeon HD4850, as well as HD3850 / 3870. PCB color - red. The Gigabyte Radeon HD4870 graphics card is based on a reference design. Its layout resembles the PCB of Radeon HD2900XT video cards! The video card is equal to it in length, in addition, there is a similar electronic power supply system for the GPU RV770.
Gigabyte Radeon HD4870 512 mb is based on AMD RV770 GPU. The number of transistors is equal to 956 million pieces. The graphics processor is manufactured using 55 nm technology. The area of \u200b\u200bthe RV770 is 256 mm2. The chip is based on: 800 unified shader processors (ALU) (160 VP5), texturing units (TMU) - 40 units, rasterization units (ROP) - 16 units.
All GPU RV770 units of the Radeon HD 4870 graphics card operate at a base GPU frequency of 750 (according to the specification 750) MHz.
From memory I want to make a small digression. For the first time, the GDDR5 memory type was tested on Radeon HD4870 video cards (this is even written on the packaging). This memory is not a further continuation of the GDDR1 -\u003e GDDR4 branch, but rather its legal successor. Its main feature is that at the same frequencies, GDDR5 memory has a bandwidth twice as high as that of GDDR1 / 2/3/4 memory. This happened due to the fact that GDDR5 memory can transmit 2 times more information per clock cycle than GDDR3, although the frequency indicators did not increase. The most common GDDR3 1.0 n.s. memory. has a real frequency of 1000 MHz, and an effective 2000 MHz. The Qimonda GDDR5 memory chips installed on the Radeon HD4870 video cards have an access time of 1.0 n.s and a maximum real frequency of 1000 MHz, but the effective one is 4000 MHz!
The GDDR5 memory installed on the Radeon HD4870 graphics adapter has a capacity of 512 MB and is manufactured by Qimonda. The nominal operating frequency is 4000 (4x1000) MHz, but the memory operates at a frequency of 3600 (4x900) MHz. The memory access bus is 256-bit, which at a frequency of 3600 MHz gives a total bandwidth of 114.5 GB.
In 2D mode, the card reduces its frequencies from 750/3600 to 500/3600 for the chip / memory, respectively (according to the Overdrive readings). If for the GPU we see that the frequency reduction is quite significant, then the memory does not reduce it at all.
There are two DVI outputs on the image output panel, which can also be used as HDMI, through adapters and a TV-out.
The video card is equipped with two 6-pin auxiliary power connectors. This means that a total of up to 225W of energy can be supplied to the accelerator. Consumption of the Radeon HD4870 video card is declared by the manufacturer at 160W.
Cooling system.
A reference two-slot cooling system is installed on the Gigabyte Radeon HD4870 512 MB video card, which has much in common with the cooler installed on the Radeon HD2900 series video cards. The system is not monolithic and consists of two parts - a heatsink for cooling the GPU and a heatsink for removing heat from the memory located only on the front side of the PCB and the card batteries.
The GPU is cooled by a design consisting of a copper heat sink, two heat pipes and aluminum plates. Most of all, in terms of its appearance, this radiator is similar to that of the Radeon HD2900GT video card. Here we see that everything is identical up to the number of thin aluminum ribs, but at the same time there are some differences. On the 2900GT, aluminum is used as the material of the base of the heatsink, and in the variant of the cooler for the 4870 it is already copper and the structure is noticeably heavier.
The second component of this cooler is a metal plate made of aluminum and removes heat from both the memory and the video card batteries. She contacts them through soft thermal pads.
The size of the turbine used in the cooler resembles that of video cards of the Radeon HD2900 series, but the principle of its operation has been significantly changed.
In general, the cooling system of the Radeon HD4870 video card looks better than that of its younger sister HD4850. The cooler has a more preferable two-story design and is designed for cooling a video card with much higher heat dissipation. Also, just like the reference 4850 card cooler, the 4870 is also quiet, which makes it a huge compliment.
However, at the same time, the temperature regime of the card was no less impressive than in the case of the 4850. Significant qualitative improvements in the structure of the cooler did not lead to a decrease in the temperature regime of the GPU. In 2D, the temperature of the GPU was 78 degrees, and in 3D it was 85-87 degrees.
What is the reason for this? The thing is that the manufacturer has slightly deviated from the currently accepted standards. Now the concept of "cooling" is not so as to do it as efficiently as possible, but is to maintain the temperature within the specified limits at which the device operates without problems. In fact, this is the case that the temperature of the video card is kept within certain limits. For video cards Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200b/ 4870, they are indicated near the 86 degree mark. In 2D the cooler operates on the principle that "everything below 86 is excellent" and therefore works at low rpm. In 3D, the temperature quickly reaches this mark and the cooler slightly increases its speed. But the task is not to cool it as much as possible, but only to keep the temperature at this level. In this connection, the cooler of the Radeon HD4870 video cards turned out to be very quiet, but at the same time not very productive, although it was sufficient for cooling this video card.
However, for most users such high operating temperatures of the card have become an "unpleasant expectation". Using the Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200bas an example, it became clear that the new AMD video cards turned out to be quite hot (I wanted to write hot Finnish) "pies" and many will think about changing the reference cooling to something more productive. In my case, the Radeon HD 4870 video card, like its younger sister HD4850, was tortured with an installed Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 Rev.2 cooler, which consisted of two fans from the Arctic FAN Turbo Module kit. This tandem was able to significantly reduce the temperature of the GPU, but overclocking did not show any dividends.
The installation of the cooler on the Radeon HD4870 video card came almost without incident. Problems arose only in one case, when it was necessary to replace the heatsink for the memory chip with a low extreme to the PCI-E 16x connector. With the AC Accelero S1 cooler, the RV770's idle GPU temperature was 44 degrees, rising to 57 degrees in 3D.
The conclusions on the cooling system of the Radeon HD4870 video card can be made as follows. The cooler definitely has a much greater margin of safety than the reference cooling system on the 4850, but due to the manufacturer's new policy, this potential is locked into the corridor in which a certain temperature regime of the card is maintained at which a compromise is reached in terms of efficiency and silence. Changing the cooling to a more efficient one will significantly improve the temperature regime, but for the most part it will not bring the much expected increase in the overclocking potential of the video card :(
Overclocking software.
AMD Overdrive - the utility is part of the Catalyst Control Center (CCC).
Capabilities. The utility allows you to change the GPU / Mem frequencies, has a built-in stability test, monitors the temperature and GPU load, and can also monitor the frequencies of the card.
Of the minuses, we can highlight the low overclocking limit for the GPU frequency of only 790 MHz (+ 40 to the nominal value, while on the HD4850 \u200b\u200b+ 75).
Riva Tuner 2.09 - this utility at the time of this writing does not have support for video cards based on RV770, and a new version with support for these cards will appear towards the end of July.
AMD GPUClockTool - the latest version of this utility, 0.9.8.0, has support for Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200b/ 4870/4870 X2 video cards. There is the possibility of overclocking and monitoring the temperature of the card.
ATITool 0.27b4 - there is no support for video cards of the Radeon HD4800 series, but you will be able to warm the card with a "cube".
Overclocking.
The Gigabyte Radeon HD4870 512 mb video card ran up to 790/4400 for GPU / memory, respectively, when using the Overdrive utility (maximum for both GPU and memory) and up to 800/4400 when using the AMD GPUClockTool utility. However, testing the video card with overclocking was carried out at 790/4400 frequencies, since AMD GPUClockTool came out of the shadows only at the final chords of my testing and I did not start tests again with GPU frequencies of only 10 MHz.
The video card was overclocked with both the "red" reference cooler and the AC Accelero S1 cooler. In 3D, when overclocked on the "red" cooler, the GPU temperature stayed around 85-86 degrees, and when using the Accelero S1 Rev2 cooler with AC Turbo Module hinged fans, the GPU warmed up to only 59.
Radeon HD4870 video card + reference cooler + AMD GPUClockTool 0.9.8.0 \u003d 800/4400
System configuration.
Software.
Windows Vista Home Premium x86 Eng SP1
Motherboard Driver - NForce Driver 15.17
Rivals.
***** stands for the video card.
GeForce 8800GT 512 mb - Club3D GeForce 8800GT 512 mb 600 (1500) / 1800
GeForce 8800GTS 512 mb - Club3D GeForce 8800GTS 512 mb 650 (1620) / 1940
SLI GeForce 8800GTS 512 mb - 2x Club3D GeForce 8800GTS 512 mb 650 (1620) / 1940
Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200b512 mb - Gigabyte Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200b512 mb 625/2000
Radeon HD4870 512 mb - Gigabyte Radeon HD4870 512 mb 750/3600
Video card drivers.
GeForce 8800GT 512 mb - ForceWare 175.16
GeForce 8800GTS 512 mb - ForceWare 175.16
SLI GeForce 8800GTS 512 mb - ForceWare 177.41
Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200b512 mb - AMD Catalyst 8.7beta
Radeon HD4870 512 mb - AMD Catalyst 8.7beta
Driver settings - Default, all optimizations are enabled!
Futuremark synthetic tests.
The video cards used in the tests were tested with 3Dmark 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006 in two modes:
3Dmark_Default - pre-installed settings and default resolution,
3Dmark_Hard_1920 - permission 1920x1200 when engaging AA4x and AF16x
In addition, the video cards were tested in the recently released 3Dmark Vantage test in three modes:
Performance - 1280x1024 resolution without AA and AF
High - resolution 1680x1050 with AA2x and AF8x
Extreme - 1920x1200 resolution with AA4x and AF16x
With default test settings, AMD products have an advantage.
In heavy test modes 3Dmark 2001-2006 to compete with the overclocked 8800GTS-512 HD4850 \u200b\u200brunning at nominal is enough. Overclocked HD4870 is not much slower than a pair of 8800GTS-512 operating in SLI
All single-chip Nvidia graphics cards are beaten with a crushing score.
* With the release of the Catalyst 8.7beta driver, the performance of the Radeon HD4800 line of video cards compared to version 8.6hotfix slightly increased in this increasingly popular test. With the release of official Catalyst 8.7, it dropped again to 8.6hotfix.
Testing in games.
All games are given at maximum detailing, without, and using AA4x coupled with AF16x... Games were run 3 times after which calculated the average FPS based on the results of ten identical places in the game where the results were filmed, or threefold by running the benchmark built into the application.
Game applications:
Unreal Tournament 3 V1.2 DX9
Assasin`s Creed V1.0 DX10
Crysis V1.2.1 DX9 Medium
Crysis V1.2.1 DX9 High
Crysis V1.2.1 DX10 Very High
Call Of Juarez DX10 Benchmark 1.1.1.0
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts V2.301 DX10
A strange thing is happening with this game. As it turned out, in the mode with AA4x and AF16x the performance is slightly higher than without them. What is the reason for this remains a mystery, but as it turned out in the resolution of 1920x1200 HD4850 \u200b\u200b/ 4870 video cards can not compete with the GeForce 8800GTS-512 solution (keeping in mind the slightly faster 9800GTX / GTX +), while in pure performance mode they are very much behind ...
Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare V1.5 DX9
The Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200bat par competes with the overclocked 8800GTS-512. The HD4870 loses quite well to the SLI 8800GTS-512 in modes without image enhancement and turns out to be a little slower in modes with AA4x and AF16x.
World in Conflict V1.007 DX10
In non-AA and AF modes, Nvidia graphics cards lead, and with AA4x and AF16x, the Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200b/ 4870 take over. At 1920x1200 with AA4x and AF16x anti-aliasing, Nvidia's reputation is not saved by SLI based on two 8800GTS-512, a combination of which plays a couple of frames from the overclocked HD4870.
Unreal Tournament 3 V1.2 DX9
In pure performance mode, the Radeon HD4870 video card demonstrates performance equal to the SLI combination of two 8800GTS-512. With the use of 4x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering, the performance of AMD products evaporates much more than that of Nvidia video cards, as a result of which the HD4850 \u200b\u200bcompares in performance with the 8800GTS-512.
Assasin`s Creed V1.0 DX10
The game is very supportive of AMD products. Notice how little performance drops when AA4x and AF16x are activated. It can be assumed that anti-aliasing does not work, but in fact it works, it is checked. It's just that the performance decrease from using it is very small.
PT Boats: Knights of the Sea DX10 Benchmark 1.0
In this benchmark, while a failed game, the victory is celebrated by Nvidia video cards. HD4850 \u200b\u200b/ 4870 show performance at the level of 8800GTS-512, while SLI 8800GTS-512 has extremely low performance degradation when going from 1280x1024 to 1920x1200.
Total.
So. We reviewed a Middle-End product from AMD based on a new GPU from AMD - RV770. Let's see all Per and Vs video card Gigabyte Radeon HD4870 512 mb based on the reference design.
Per:
- excellent performance in a number of modern games for a $ 299 MSRP
- quiet two-slot cooling system
- DX10.1 support
- moderate power consumption ~ 160W
- no serious compatibility problems with drivers at the announcement stage for a single card
- full-featured HDMI support
Vs:
- the efficiency of the cooling system is strongly limited by the manufacturer - the card's stability is complete, and the temperatures are outrageous
- high idle power consumption
- lack of VIVO
Like the Gigabyte Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200b512 mb tested a little earlier, the faster representative of the Radeon HD4800 line, the Gigabyte Radeon HD4870 512 mb video card left only positive memories of itself.
Let's start with performance. We can state a very strong advantage of the single-chip AMD flagship over the second representative of the line - 4850. The gap in performance in percentage terms is about the same as in the case of 3870 and 3850, which speaks first of all about the continuity of the lines. The 4870 video card showed a significant lead over Nvidia's competitors represented by the 8800GTS-512 (practically 9800GTX) and 8800GT, which could have been bought for the current retail price of 4870 some three or six months ago.
On the whole, the Radeon HD4870 video card was able to outperform the "old" single-chip solutions of the competitor based on the G92 in performance, and at the price it turned out to be much cheaper than the new GeForce GTX260. The Radeon HD4870 was initially positioned in the $ 299 niche, while the GTX260 was aimed at $ 399. But due to the fact that the performance of the GTX260 and HD4870 video cards turned out to be more or less equal, the product from Nvidia was in a deliberately losing position. The only way to keep the competition going was a serious price cut for GeForce GTX 2xx graphics cards.
A month after the start of sales, the TOP GTX280 lost more than $ 200, and the GTX260 about $ 100, dropping to 449 and 299 dollars niches. But the recommended prices sometimes differ greatly from retail prices. At the time of the purchase of the 4870 video card, the cost of competing GTX260 solutions in the price lists was approximately 80-100 dollars higher. Three weeks later, prices slightly corrected and the average gap narrowed to $ 40-50. between competitors, but prices are not equal. Only in the first half of August will the sale of video cards Radeon HD4870 and GeForce GTX260 with approximately equal purchase prices. But now the situation is such that you can still find GeForce 9800GTX more expensive than 4870 and it will last long enough, maybe even a month.
The overclocking of the HD4870 pleased and disappointed at the same time. Initially, the video card could be overclocked with just one utility Overdrive, which had a fairly low overclocking threshold for the GPU. If in 4850 the core could be added to the nominal +75 MHz, then in the case of 4870 only +40 MHz. But as it turned out, for my video card the maximum core frequencies were only 800 MHz. A closer look at memory overclocking by almost +800 MHz added another 0-5% to the result of a card with an overclocked GPU. So if the question is about how much memory overclocking from 3600 to 4400 will add to the total basket, then the answer will be - much less than GPU overclocking.
I really want to finish our testing with a couple of clever phrases. At the moment, after quite long and exhausting battles on the price front, there has been a slight lull. AMD, having set prices for Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200b/ 4870 video cards at $ 199/299, is in no hurry to reduce them even after Nvidia brought the prices of GeForce GTX260 / 280 to a level adequate to their performance, having significantly reduced them. In my opinion, this means that a decrease in prices is not exactly expected in the near future. Some shifts can only be in the uppermost segment after the release of Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200bX2 / 4870 X2 video cards. But these products are not going to replace any of the current ones, but will open up new price niches in the $ 450 + segment. So the current owners of Radeon HD4870 video cards can be congratulated on a profitable investment.
For this let me take my leave. Your GadkY-Utk, aka Gl4 :)
The cost of the video card Gigabyte Radeon HD4870 512 mb at the time of publication of the material in local Estonian retail is 220 euros.
Gigabyte Radeon HD4870 512 mb video card for testing provided by Arvutikeskus.
And again “Crysis”, but this time using DirectX 10. As you can see, only in low resolution the Radeon HD 4870 can compete with the competitor GeForce, but in 1600x1200 it is already noticeably inferior. Playing at maximum settings in DirectX 10 consumes a lot of video memory, and it looks like the GeForce GTX 260 benefits from its "extra" megabytes.
Conclusion
In this article, we got acquainted with the modern flagship from AMD and compared it with the younger model on the same graphics chip and with a competitor from NVIDIA. Although the GeForce GTX 260 can hardly be called a direct competitor, the price of this video card is still slightly higher. Initially, when new models began to appear on the market, the price difference was even greater. But AMD's pricing policy forced NVIDIA to reduce the cost of its new products. And it is no coincidence, because in many tests the Radeon HD 4870 is only slightly inferior to the GeForce GTX 260, and sometimes even overtakes. But more memory and good overclocking potential help the GeForce GTX 260 to confidently hold its place of the leader in many applications. Additional benefits of the Radeon HD 4870 include lower power consumption.
As for the ratio between the Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon HD 4870, sometimes we observe a significant gap between the older model and the younger one. And if the difference in the frequency of the chip is not so great, then, no doubt, faster memory helps to achieve such indicators. On the other hand, with a performance difference of 20-30%, the junior card is much cheaper. Such a situation was at one time with the Radeon HD 3850 and Radeon HD 3870, and then gradually the difference in price between these cards decreased to a very insignificant amount. So the Radeon HD 4850 is without a doubt a pretty good model in its price range.
The Radeon HD 4870 also outperforms its closest competitor on price. Although if the GeForce GTX 260 is replaced by a new, slightly cheaper and more economical board, then all the minimal advantages of Radeon will fade into the background. But so far there are no such options, and the Radeon HD 4870 occupies its own price niche. And the answer to ultra-fast and hot NVIDIA graphics cards at an exorbitant price will be the Radeon HD 4870 X2 based on two RV770s. And this card will probably rightfully take the place of the leader, because the RV770 has potential, as we have already seen.
To understand how the new RV770 graphics chip qualitatively differs from the representatives of the two previous generations, just look at its schematic representation.If we compare the new circuit with the one used in the R600 / RV670 chip, the differences are obvious. Texture units in the new chip are tied to stream processors, AMD has seriously reworked the L1 and L2 cache memory built into the GPU, ROP units have been improved and the number of stream processors has been increased to 800.
The anti-aliasing system has undergone major changes, as a result of which its speed has significantly increased, and anti-aliasing 2x / 4x MSAA is now completely free! In the next articles, we plan to dwell on this point in more detail, as well as compare the anti-aliasing quality of AMD and NVIDIA video cards. For reference, here is a table with the technical characteristics of new video cards and compare them with the previous generation:
| ATI Radeon ™ HD4870 | ATI Radeon ™ HD4850 | ATI Radeon ™ HD3870 | |
| Number of transistors, million | 965 | 965 | 666 |
| Those. process, nm | 55 | 55 | 55 |
| Number of stream processors | 800 | 800 | 320 |
| Number of texture modules | 40 | 40 | 16 |
| Number of ROP units | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| GPU clock frequency, MHz | 750 | 625 | 775 |
| Video memory type and effective frequency | GDDR5, 3600 MHz | GDDR3, 2000 MHz | GDDR4, 2250 MHz |
| GPU computing power, TFlops | 1,2 | 1,0 | 0,497 |
| Bus type | PCI Express 2.0, x16 | PCI Express 2.0, x16 | PCI Express 2.0, x16 |
| DirectX support | 10.1 | 10.1 | 10.1 |
| Tessellation block | yes | yes | yes |
| Built-in video decoder | ver. 2.0 | ver. 2.0 | ver. 1.0 |
| ATI PowerPlayTM support | yes | yes | yes |
We will study the Radeon HD4870 using the example of a video card provided to us for tests by HIS.
HIS Radeon HD4870
The packaging from the HIS Radeon HD4870 video card is small, made in blue tones. On both sides of the box are key information about the video card. The video card package contains:- adapter DVI\u003e D-sub;
- adapter DVI\u003e HDMI;
- s-video adapter\u003e tulip;
- s-video\u003e component out adapter;
- crossFire bridge;
- CD with drivers;
- user manual, reminder of available Steam games;
- body sticker;
- proprietary screwdriver-flashlight-level;
The Radeon HD4870 uses the same RV770 graphics chip as the Radeon HD4850.
The GDDR5 video memory chips are manufactured by Qimonda. The nominal effective clock frequency according to the passport for this memory is 4.0 GHz, the nominal one at which this memory operates on the Radeon HD4870 video card, as we have already said, is 3.6 GHz.
Under load in 3D mode, the graphics chip of the Radeon HD4870 graphics card runs at 750 MHz, and when idle, its frequency drops to 500 MHz.
Cooling system efficiency and overclocking
Since neither Riva Tuner, nor any other program that overclocks ATI / AMD video cards still does not support the new Radeon HD4000 family, we will tell you about the measurement of temperature and other indicators in words. When idle, the GPU hovers around 78 degrees, with the fan spinning at 1,075 rpm, which is 22% of its maximum possible speed. Under load, that is, during 9 Firefly Forest tests from the 3DMark'06 test suite at 1600x1200 resolution with 4x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering, the graphics chip warmed up to 84 degrees. The fan speed increased to 1886 rpm, which is 30% of the maximum possible speed. Note that at this speed, the noise from the cooling system became noticeable. As for overclocking, the only available tool for its implementation at the moment is the utility ATI Overdrive built into the control panel of the video card. Alas, this utility provides practically no freedom of action, allowing you to increase the frequency of the graphics chip by only 40 MHz, and the memory by 200 "real" MHz. As a result, the Radeon HD4870 video card was overclocked to 790/4400 MHz, which is not serious. However, we still tested the overclocked Radeon HD4870 in Crysis, and you can read the results of this little experiment at the end of this article.Testing
We will conduct testing on a test bench with the following configuration:The competitors for the new Radeon HD4870 video card from HIS and the drivers for them will be as follows:
- GeForce GTX280, ForceWare 177.34 drivers;
- GeForce GTX260, ForceWare 177.39 drivers;
- Radeon HD4850, Catalyst 8.6 drivers;
Testing in standard resolutions
In 3DMark tests, the new product from HIS scored a noticeably higher number of points than its budget sister Radeon HD4850, which allowed it to compete on an equal footing with competitors from NVIDIA. But, as we said in our previous articles, 3DMark benchmarks don't show the whole picture. Game tests are a completely different matter, and let's move on to them. As usual, we ran these tests with 4x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering.
The first gaming test, and the Radeon HD4870 immediately "flexed its muscles." In the game Call of Duty 4, the novelty was able to bypass the GeForce GTX260. But, as we will see later, this will not always be the case.
Here you are. Crysis game running on Windows XP. The results of the Radeon HD4870 video card are close, but still slightly less than the results of the GeForce GTX 260.
Under Windows Vista, the situation has not changed much, the Radeon HD4870 is slower here than the GeForce GTX 260.
In Need for Speed \u200b\u200bPro Street Racing the situation is a little different, in two out of three resolutions the new product turned out to be faster than the GeForce GTX 260. The loss at 1600x1200 can be explained by the lower video memory of the Radeon HD4870.
In Call of Juarez, the results of the Radeon HD4870 video card are located between the results of the GeForce GTX 260 and the GeForce GTX 280. This game has always been demanding on the performance of the shader unit and is “supportive” of AMD video adapters.
After switching to Windows Vista, the situation changes in favor of the GeForce GTX 260, although at 1600x1200 the new Radeon HD4870 is still faster. Since the load on the video memory in the game Call of Juarez under Windows Vista increases, it is logical to assume that the GeForce GTX 260 owes its victory at low resolutions to its wide 448-bit memory bus, but with the increase in the resolution it lacks the power of the shader unit and therefore the Radeon HD4870 turns out to be faster.
We see a similar picture in the game Need for Speed \u200b\u200bCarbon, where with the increase in resolution the Radeon HD4870 video card turns out to be even faster than the GeForce GTX 280!
The Prey game shows the same picture: the resolution grows, and the Radeon HD4870's loss to rivals from the NVIDIA camp decreases. However, in our previous reviews, we noticed that new video cards from AMD feel very comfortable in high resolutions. However, the relatively small amount of video memory in AMD video cards can play a cruel joke with them, which will be discussed later.
Testing in high resolutions
In the game Crysis with high quality settings, the video card Radeon HD4870 lags behind the GeForce GTX 260 as the resolution grows, which is caused precisely by its small amount of video memory by modern standards.
When switching to the highest possible quality settings, in the first two resolutions the Radeon HD4870 is at least no worse than the GeForce GTX 260. However, at the maximum resolution of 2048x1536, the results drop noticeably. And again, insufficient video memory is to blame. Perhaps the 1 GB versions of the Radeon HD4870 (if any) will perform better. The lag of the Radeon HD4870 from the "younger" sister of the Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200bis possibly due to the peculiarities of the GDDR5 memory, but we will deal with this issue in detail in the following materials.
It's funny, but in Windows Vista, which is more demanding on the amount of video memory than Windows XP, the Radeon HD4870 video card feels better, and there is no drop in speed at 2048x1536 resolution. But the video cards Radeon HD4870 and Radeon HD4850 \u200b\u200bhave a problem with a resolution of 1920x1200, at which the game runs, but there is no image. This is most likely caused by a bug in the drivers.
When switching to the maximum possible settings, the speed decreases, but the overall balance of forces does not change.
In Call of Juarez on Windows XP, even when switching to high resolutions, the Radeon HD4870 graphics card is faster than the GeForce GTX 260.
After the transition to Windows Vista, the GeForce GTX 260 is faster only in the lowest of the presented resolutions, and in higher resolutions the Radeon HD4870 leads. This once again points to a more powerful shader unit in the AMD video card.
In Call of Duty 4 at high resolutions, the Radeon HD4870 is on par with the GeForce GTX 260. The situation was almost the same at lower resolutions.
In Race Driver: GRID, the new Radeon HD4870 is inferior to its rival GeForce GTX 260 only in the highest resolution. Most likely, the reason for this was the relatively small amount of video memory.
Crysis tests of an overclocked Radeon HD4870
And finally, as we promised, the results of the Radeon HD4870 overclocked to 790/4400 MHz in the Crysis game:The performance gain is obvious. It can be seen that a further increase in the clock frequency could make the novelty noticeably faster. But, alas, there are no utilities yet capable of doing this.
conclusions
The Radeon HD4870 video card turned out not in words, but in fact, the most that neither is a real competitor for the GeForce GTX 260 video card from NVIDIA. We haven't seen this for a long time, because the "top" representatives of the two previous families of video cards from AMD could compete with NVIDIA products only in words, but in reality they were too slow. Obviously, the new shader unit with an increased number of stream processors and a modified architecture turned out to be more powerful than the shader unit in the GeForce GTX 260. True, the new product does not reach the GeForce GTX 280, but it provides comfortable "gameplay" in almost all modern games.With a suggested price of $ 299, the Radeon HD4870 can already be found for 10,663 rubles. At the same time, the GeForce GTX 260 video card costs a couple of thousand rubles more. For such a sum, you can buy a pair of Radeon HD4850s and put them in a CrossFire bundle, which should be faster in performance than the GeForce GTX 260. And the CrossFire bundle from the Radeon HD4870 can be opposed to the GeForce GTX 280. By the way, AMD promised significant improvements in the performance of its multi-GPU configurations, but this is already a topic for our next article.
Video card ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870 from AMD - DirectX 10.1 standardized graphics adapter for Hi-End notebooks. It is technically based on the HD 4850/4870 desktop GPU, but has lower clock speeds to minimize power consumption. Like the desktop one, this HD 4870 can be equipped with GDDR5 memory.
Performance ATI Mobility Radeon HD4870 in games it is comparable to the desktop HD 4850, which is already an achievement. A large number of shaders and a 256-bit bus allow you to run any game under DirectX 9 at high resolutions and details. Games requiring DirectX 10 such as Crysis can also run in high detail.
Mobility HD 4870 chip-based RV770 and assumes an 800-thread processor (160 5D shader cores). These cores perform the graphics computations that were done by shader and pixel pipelines on older GPUs. Stream processors are also called ALUs and are grouped into five-way VLIW modules. Each of the five VLIW component instructions must be independent from the others, and that is why the speed of operation depends on driver optimization.
Mobility Radeon HD 4870 includes Avivo HD - the so-called video technology consisting of a 7.1 channel sound chip over HDMI, or DisplayPort and UVD (Unified Video Decorder) of the second generation. This UVD 2 supports full bit-to-bit decoding of H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1 streams. In addition, dual video streaming and Picture-in-Picture are supported, making UVD fully BD-Live compatible. Simply put, Avivo HD technology intercepts all video computations and uses the GPU to decode HD video.
AMD has published some specifications for which power consumption is HD 4870 is somewhere in the 65W region. It is still not known whether this figure is consumed exclusively by the chip itself, or whether this is the consumption of the entire board as a whole, including memory (which will require another 5 W). Compared to desktop ATI Radeon HD 4870, the mobile 4870 shows a slower core frequency and, therefore, should be at about the same level as the desktop version is now.
| Manufacturer: | ATI |
| Series: | Mobility Radeon HD 4800 |
| The code: | M98-XT |
| Streams: | 800 |
| Clock frequency: | 550/680 * MHz |
| Shader frequency: | 550 * MHz |
| Memory frequency: | 888/700 * MHz |
| Memory bus width: | 256 Bit |
| Memory type: | GDDR5 |
| Maximum memory: | 1024 MB |
| Common memory: | no |
| DirectX: | DirectX 10.1, Shader 4.1 |
| Transistors: | 956 million |
| Technology: | 55 nm |
| Additionally: | OpenGL 2.0, PCI-E 2.0 x16, Powerplay, DisplayPort support up to 2560x1600, HDMI support up to 1920x1080 (along with 7.1 AC3 audio), 1x Dual-Link / Single-Link DVI, 1x Single-Link DVI support (all display ports must supported by laptop manufacturers) |
| Laptop size: | Large |
| Release date: | 09.01.2009 |
| Manufacturer link: | http://ati.amd.com/products/mobilityradeonhd4800/index.html |
Leadership in the Hi-End class of graphics accelerators for the companies that produce them is a matter of prestige. Despite the relatively low demand for the fastest video cards, the cost of which in the last two or three years is almost always higher than the $ 600 or even $ 700 mark, they are a kind of benchmark for most users who are more or less interested in games. It is video cards of this class that demonstrate a kind of reference performance in modern games. And if products based on graphics processors from ATi or from NVIDIA occupy this "throne", then the company itself is considered a leader in a certain period of time, which undoubtedly affects the sales growth of video cards in all price segments and the manufacturer's rating rise.
In my opinion, from the moment the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX / Ultra appeared on the market and up until the release of the GeForce GTX 260/280 line, the leadership in the top class of video cards belonged to NVIDIA. For its part, ATi (and later AMD) made an attempt to regain the first place by releasing a two-chip Radeon HD 3870 X2. However, this was not done in full measure: problems with drivers, the AFR rendering mode that had no alternative for ATi, the presence on the market of the GeForce 9800 GX2, and the new GPU from NVIDIA G200, which arrived very quickly, did not allow HD 3870 X2 to win the fame of the fastest graphics card.
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Nevertheless, having released the certainly successful mid-range video cards Radeon HD 4850 and HD 4870, ATi's graphics division, now owned by AMD, announced on August 12, 2008 a dual-chip Hi-End video card - Radeon HD 4870 X2 with a suggested value of $ 549 and clear claims to absolute leadership. A little later, its younger sister, the Radeon HD 48, should appear on the market. 50 X2 with a recommended cost of up to $ 400, which we will also study and test later. Well, today we present to your attention a review and "speed test" of the Radeon HD 4870 X2, released under the Hightech Information System Limited (HIS) label.1. Review of HIS Radeon HD 4870 X2 2x1 GB
The design style and dimensions of the box in which the HIS Radeon HD 4870 X2 is supplied have not changed in comparison with the earlier reviewed Radeon HD 4850 and HD 4870 from the same manufacturer. Unless the color scheme is now predominantly green:
On the front side of the box, you can find information about the video card model, its interface, volume and type of installed video memory. The reverse side is replete with lines of motherboard specifications, a description of system requirements, as well as information about the features of graphics technologies embedded in the GPU. It also lists the awards for print and electronic publications (of which there are already more than 600) received by HIS products. The video card is produced in China.
