If we compare the new scheme with the one used in the R600/RV670 chip, the differences are obvious. The texture units in the new chip are tied to stream processors, AMD has seriously redesigned the operation of the L1 and L2 cache memory built into the GPU, the ROP units have been improved and the number of stream processors has been increased to 800 pieces.
The anti-aliasing system has undergone major changes, as a result of which its speed has increased significantly, and 2x/4x MSAA anti-aliasing is now completely free! In the following articles, we plan to dwell on this point in more detail, as well as compare the quality of anti-aliasing for AMD and NVIDIA video cards. For reference, here is a table with the technical characteristics of the 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 rasterization blocks | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| GPU clock frequency, MHz | 750 | 625 | 775 |
| Type and effective frequency of video memory | GDDR5, 3600 MHz | GDDR3, 2000 MHz | GDDR4, 2250 MHz |
| GPU computing power, TFlops | 1,2 | 1,0 | 0,497 |
| Tire 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 |
| Integrated video decoder | ver. 2.0 | ver. 2.0 | ver. 1.0 |
| ATI PowerPlayTM support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
We will study the Radeon HD4870 on the example of a video card provided to us for testing by HIS.
HIS Radeon HD4870
The packaging of the HIS Radeon HD4870 video card is small in size, made in blue tones. Both sides of the box contain key information about the video card. The video card package contains:- DVI > D-sub adapter;
- DVI > HDMI adapter;
- S-video adapter > tulip;
- adapter S-video > component out;
- bridge CrossFire;
- CD with drivers;
- user manual, memo about available Steam games;
- body sticker;
- branded screwdriver-flashlight-level;
The Radeon HD4870 uses the same RV770 graphics chip as the Radeon HD4850.
GDDR5 video memory chips are manufactured by Qimonda. The nominal effective clock frequency according to the passport for this memory is 4.0 GHz, while the standard one, at which this memory functions 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 operates at a frequency of 750 MHz, and during idle time, its frequency drops to 500 MHz.
Cooling efficiency and overclocking
Since neither Riva Tuner nor any other program that overclocks ATI/AMD video cards still supports the new Radeon HD4000 family, we will talk about measuring temperature and other indicators in words. During idle, the GPU temperature fluctuates around 78 degrees, while the fan rotates at a speed of 1075 rpm, which is 22% of its maximum possible speed. Under load, that is, during the run of 9 Firefly Forest tests from the 3DMark'06 test package at a resolution of 1600x1200 with 4x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering, the graphics chip heated 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 ATI Overdrive utility built into the control panel of the video card. Alas, this utility does not provide almost any 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 video card Radeon HD4870 was overclocked to 790/4400 MHz, which is not serious. However, we still tested the overclocked Radeon HD4870 in Crysis, and you can see the results of this small experiment at the end of this article.Testing
We will conduct testing on a test bench with the following configuration:Competitors of the new video card Radeon HD4870 from HIS and drivers for them will be as follows:
- GeForce GTX280, ForceWare drivers 177.34;
- GeForce GTX260, ForceWare drivers 177.39;
- Radeon HD4850, Catalyst 8.6 drivers;
Testing at standard resolutions
In 3DMark tests, the new product from HIS scored a much higher number of points than its budget "sister" Radeon HD4850, which allowed it to perform on an equal footing with competitors from NVIDIA. But, as we have said in our previous articles, 3DMark tests do not show the whole picture. Game tests are a completely different matter, so 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 Windows XP. The results of the video card Radeon HD4870 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 Pro Street Racing, the situation is a little different, in two out of three resolutions the new product was faster than the GeForce GTX 260. The loss at 1600x1200 can be explained by the smaller amount of video memory in the Radeon HD4870.
In the Call of Juarez game, the results of the Radeon HD4870 video card are located between the results of the GeForce GTX 260 and GeForce GTX 280. This game has always been demanding on the performance of the shader unit and "favorable" to AMD video adapters.
After switching to Windows Vista, the situation changes in favor of the GeForce GTX 260, although at a resolution of 1600x1200 the new Radeon HD4870 is still faster. Since the load on video memory increases in Call of Juarez under Windows Vista, 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 increasing 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 Need for Speed Carbon, where as the resolution increases, the Radeon HD4870 is even faster than the GeForce GTX 280!
The game Prey shows the same picture: the resolution is growing, and the loss of the Radeon HD4870 to rivals from the NVIDIA camp is decreasing. However, in previous reviews we noticed that the new video cards from AMD feel very comfortable at 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.
High resolution testing
In the Crysis game with high quality settings, the Radeon HD4870 video card lags behind the GeForce GTX 260 as the resolution grows, which is caused precisely by its small video memory by modern standards.
When switching to the highest possible quality settings, the Radeon HD4870 turns out to be at least as good as the GeForce GTX 260 in the first two resolutions. However, at the maximum resolution of 2048x1536, the results drop noticeably. And again, the lack of video memory is to blame. Perhaps the 1 GB versions of the Radeon HD4870 (if any) will show better results. The lag of the Radeon HD4870 behind the "younger" sister of the Radeon HD4850 may be 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 it is in Windows Vista, which is more demanding on the amount of video memory than Windows XP, that the Radeon HD4870 feels better, and there is no drop in performance at a resolution of 2048x1536. However, the Radeon HD4870 and Radeon HD4850 video cards have a problem with a resolution of 1920x1200, at which the game works, but there is no image. Apparently, this is caused by a bug in the drivers.
When switching to the maximum possible settings, the speed decreases, but the overall balance of power does not change.
In Call of Juarez running Windows XP, even when going to high resolutions, the Radeon HD4870 is faster than the GeForce GTX 260.
After switching to Windows Vista, the GeForce GTX 260 is faster only at the lowest of the resolutions presented, and at higher resolutions, the Radeon HD4870 leads. This once again points to a more powerful shader unit in the video card from AMD.
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 the game Race Driver: GRID, the new Radeon HD4870 is inferior to its rival GeForce GTX 260 only in the highest resolution. Most likely, the culprit of this was the relatively small amount of video memory.
Tests of overclocked Radeon HD4870 in Crysis
And finally, as we promised, the results of a Radeon HD4870 overclocked to 790/4400 MHz in Crysis:The increase in performance 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 that can do this.
conclusions
The Radeon HD4870 video card turned out to be not only in words, but in fact the most real competitor for the GeForce GTX 260 video card from NVIDIA. We have not 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 changed architecture turned out to be more powerful than the shader unit in the GeForce GTX 260 video card. True, the new product falls short of the GeForce GTX 280, but at the same time it provides comfortable "gameplay" in almost all modern games.With a recommended price of $299, the Radeon HD4870 video card can already be found for 10,663 rubles. At the same time, the GeForce GTX 260 graphics card costs a couple of thousand rubles more. For this amount, you can buy a pair of Radeon HD4850 and put it in a CrossFire bundle, which should be faster in performance than a GeForce GTX 260. Well, a CrossFire bundle from a Radeon HD4870 can be quite opposed to a GeForce GTX 280. By the way, AMD promised significant improvements in the performance of its multi-chip configurations, but this is a topic for our next article.
Just a couple of weeks ago, the nVidia world was quiet and peaceful. The largest manufacturer of video cards has just released new models GeForce GTX 260 and 280, which, despite a delay of six months, further pushed the unified architecture introduced with the GeForce 8 to the very limits of the 65nm process technology with a huge number of transistors. The performance compared to the previous (now old) generation of video cards was not particularly impressive (an increase of 59% on average relative to the 9800 GTX), but the appearance of CUDA applications was an interesting step forward, and nVidia had no real competitor. Meanwhile, AMD seemed increasingly frustrated with the graphics division, which was no longer able to compete in the high-end market as it once was, and existing high-end graphics cards were rapidly becoming obsolete. Then followed the high-profile release of the video card Radeon HD 4850, which appeared in test labs before the announcement, and the retail price was announced at $199.
Yes, a miracle happened in the AMD camp. The performance of the Radeon HD 4850 surprised everyone, including nVidia. Despite the hasty launch of the GeForce 9800 GTX+, which won't hit retail channels until mid-July, Nvidia still couldn't get the same great price/performance ratio as the new Radeon, as we've already demonstrated in Radeon HD 4850 benchmarks. Usually, marketing arguments such as efficiency optimization and die yield, which always sounded lame, have taken on a new meaning given the results of the Radeon HD 4850 benchmarks. The novelty has raised hopes for even higher performance in the future. Having (probably even to their own surprise) a good opportunity to increase the number of stream processors from 320 to 800, despite a 43% increase in the number of transistors and the same process technology, AMD decided not to stay at the bottom, and for the better. The Radeon HD 4870 GPU was announced, based on the same architecture, but providing higher performance (of course, at a higher price), but it appeared in test labs very slowly, and not everything was clear until the last moment. At least on paper, this video card was a direct competitor to the new high-end models of nVidia, but at a significantly lower price. But what did we actually get?
For a long time, nVidia has been a pioneer in introducing the latest memory technologies. After using DDR memory for GeForce in 2000, the Santa Clara company was the first to introduce GDDR2 memory with the GeForce FX, then GDDR3 with the GeForce 5700. But then ATI took over the lead: GDDR4 first appeared with the Radeon X1950 XT, Today, two years later, ATI introduced the first graphics card with GDDR5 memory: the Radeon HD 4870.
With increasing memory bandwidth, everything is clear: there are two ways. The first is to expand the memory bus, and the second - to increase the frequency of operation. The first method has several obstacles. A wider bus is difficult to route on a PCB, and the packaging requires more pins. All these contacts must be brought to the chip, which needs a larger number of interconnects along the periphery of the crystal. Therefore, a wide bus requires that the core be a certain size - this is the reason for a long time entry-level GPUs were limited to a 128-bit bus, while their high-end variants used a 256- or 384-bit bus. Another disadvantage is the increased power consumption of the chip.
Therefore, such a method was resorted to very carefully. In fact, a 128-bit bus has been used for high-end GPUs for a long time, from Riva 128 to Matrox Parhelia, and the ATI Radeon 9700 used it four years ago as well. Likewise, the 256-bit bus didn't get wider until the introduction of the nVidia GeForce 8800 in late 2006. Yes, GPU memory bandwidth requirements are constantly increasing, despite bandwidth-saving technologies that are optimized with each generation.
The second solution is to speed up the memory. But this is easier said than done, because, as with any chip, there is a limit to the clock speed at which memory chips can operate. To circumvent these restrictions, manufacturers resort to various tricks. DDR memory allows data to be transmitted on the rise and fall of the clock pulse, doubling the effective memory bandwidth at the same frequency. To do this, DDR memory uses the so-called two-bit prefetch - with each memory access, instead of transferring one bit from the prefetch buffers, DDR memory transfers two. Subsequent developments of DDR technology involved the transfer of more and more data at the same physical memory frequency, increasing the width of the prefetch. DDR2 uses 4-bit prefetch, just like GDDR3. With GDDR4 came 8-bit prefetch.
GDDR5
GDDR5 uses an 8-bit prefetch like GDDR4, but has several innovations. For the first time, GDDR5 uses two clock speeds, CK and WCK, the latter twice the former. Commands are transmitted in SDR mode (standard clock rate) at the CK frequency; address information is transmitted in DDR mode at CK frequency; and data is transmitted in DDR mode at the WCK frequency. In the case of the Radeon HD 4870, which uses GDDR5 memory at 900 MHz, commands are transmitted at 900 MHz SDR, addresses at 900 MHz DDR (1800 MHz effective), and data at 1800 MHz DDR (3600 MHz effective). ).
This approach reduces signal quality problems during command and address transmission by allowing very high data rates. Unfortunately, higher frequencies also mean a higher chance of error. Therefore, to ensure reliable data transmission, GDDR5 uses the error detection mechanism that is used in networks. If the memory controller detects an error, then the command with which it appeared will be re-executed.
So, AMD and nVidia have chosen very different paths to increase memory bandwidth for their GPUs, and these choices involve different ways of looking at GPUs. Nvidia, committed to the principle of a huge monolithic die, can afford a 512-bit memory bus, avoiding the chip supply problems that inevitably come with the introduction of advanced memory technology. On the contrary, with the advent of the RV770, AMD is focusing its efforts on GPUs with a reduced die size for high-end graphics cards. According to AMD engineers, the first version of the RV770 was supposed to be equipped with no more than 480 stream processors (ALUs), but the GPU at the same time limited the number of interconnects for memory interfaces.
So AMD was able to offer a GPU that everyone is already familiar with, with 800 stream processors that are almost "free" in terms of core area. With the previous generation of GPUs, nVidia had to forget about the 384-bit bus when moving from the G80 (80nm) to the G92 (65nm). Therefore, there is every chance that the same step will happen with the 512-bit bus. However, this time around nVidia may be relying on GDDR5 to make up for the bandwidth loss.
| Video card specifications | ||||
| HD4850 | HD 4870 | GTX 260 | GTX 280 | |
| GPU frequency | 625 MHz | 750 MHz | 576 MHz | 602 MHz |
| Frequency of stream processors (ALU) | 625 MHz | 750 MHz | 1242 MHz | 1296 MHz |
| Memory frequency | 1000 MHz | 900 MHz | 999 MHz | 1107 MHz |
| Memory bus width | 256 bits | 256 bits | 448 bits | 512 bits |
| Memory type | GDDR3 | GDDR5 | GDDR3 | GDDR3 |
| Memory | 512 MB | 512 MB | 896 MB | 1024 MB |
| Number of stream processors (ALUs) | 800 | 800 | 192 | 240 |
| Number of texture units | 40 | 40 | 64 | 80 |
| Number of ROPs | 16 | 16 | 28 | 32 |
| Theoretical performance | 1 TFlops | 1.2TFlops | 715 GFlops | 933 GFlops |
| Memory Bandwidth | 64 GB/s | 115.2 GB/s | 111.9 GB/s | 141.7 GB/s |
| Number of transistors | 956 million | 956 million | 1,400 million | 1,400 million |
| Process technology | 55 nm | 55 nm | 65 nm | 65 nm |
| Crystal area | 260 mm² | 260 mm² | 576 mm² | 576 mm² |
| Generation | 2008 | 2008 | 2008 | 2008 |
| Shader model support | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.0 | 4.0 |
The difference between the Radeon HD 4870 and the "younger" 4850 model can be boiled down to two characteristics: theoretical performance, which is up 20% thanks to higher clock speeds (the number of stream processors has not changed, unlike nVidia's approach), as well as memory bandwidth, which almost doubled (more than 80%). The reason for this change lies, as we have seen, in the use of GDDR5, with an effective frequency almost doubled compared to the GDDR3 used on the Radeon HD 4850. However, GDDR5 memory is expensive, although it is not as expensive as switching to 512- or even 448-bit bus, which is necessary to achieve the equivalent memory bandwidth on GDDR3, as nVidia decided to do. Not to mention the higher power consumption (memory chips + controller). The result turned out to be that the bandwidth of the Radeon HD 4870 is almost the same (in fact, 3% more) compared to the GeForce GTX 260.
The theoretical performance advantage of the 4870 over the GTX 260 is impressive considering the 4870 GPU's die area is only 45% that of an nVidia GPU!
On the other hand, we can't help but mention the obvious limitation that comes up after reading the specs - the amount of memory, which is limited to 4870,512 MB. That's just over half that of the GTX 260, and even though the Radeon suffers less than the GeForce from RAM hits on PCs in framebuffer bound situations, we need to pay close attention to how performance changes as resolution increases. It should be noted that some manufacturers, such as PowerColor, have already announced 1GB versions of the Radeon HD 4870, but they won't be available before the end of July.
Like the Radeon HD 3870, but unlike the Radeon HD 4850, the Radeon HD 4870 is a dual-slot cooling card. This should allow it to more easily handle the heat generated by the RV770, or at least push the heat out of the case. But the similarity ends there. The HD 4870 no longer requires one, but two six-pin PCI Express power plugs, and the length of the card has increased significantly - up to 9.5 "(24.1 cm) compared to 9" (22.8 cm) for the Radeon HD 3870 and 10 .5" (26.7 cm) on the GeForce GTX 260. In addition, a more traditional model is used instead of the straight-bladed cooler from Arctic Cooling.
For tests, we used a video card manufactured by Sapphire. The package includes a 2GB USB stick in branded colors, a PowerDVD 7 OEM player with six-channel audio support, Cyberlink DVD Suite 5 and a full version of 3DMark06. A USB stick is a nice bonus, but it would be nice to get a game in the package, since video cards are aimed at the gamer segment.
We used the same test configuration as in Radeon HD 4850 article .
| Motherboard | Asus P5E3 Deluxe (Intel X38) |
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Quad QX6850 (3 GHz) |
| Memory | Crucial 2 x 1GB DDR3 1333MHz 7-7-7-20 |
| HDD | Western Digital WD5000AAKS |
| optical drive | Asus 12x DVD |
| Power Supply | Cooler Master Real Power Pro 850W |
| Software | |
| OS | Windows XP, Vista, Vista SP1 |
| nvidia drivers | ForceWare 177.39 beta (9800 GTX+) ForceWare 177.34 beta (GTX 260 and 280) ForceWare 175.16 WHQL (9800 GTX, 9800 GX2, 8800 Ultra) |
| ATI drivers | Catalyst 8.7 beta (HD 4850, HD 4870) Catalyst 8.6 WHQL (HD 3870) Catalyst 8.5 WHQL (HD 3870 X2) |
Test results
Unsurprisingly, the Radeon HD 4870 performs at the same level as the 4850 in Flight Simulator (the cards use the same driver). Both cards outperformed the HD 3870 and even the GeForce GTX 200, but fell behind most GeForce 8 and 9 models. Flight Simulator X is barely playable on the 4870 and current drivers.
This is the first real test for the Radeon HD 4870, and the graphics card did not disappoint us. She took third place in the ranking, behind the GeForce GTX 280 and 9800 GX2, but overtaking the GTX 260! The average lead over the GTX 260 was 10% even at 2560 x 1600. And the Radeon HD 4850 is ahead of the ATI leader by 17%.
Test Drive Unlimited confirmed the very strong impressions we had with the Radeon HD 4870 after Call of Duty 4. Not only did the card outperform the GTX 260 at all resolutions, it also finished slightly behind the GTX 280 at 1,920 x 1,200 with anti-aliasing, and even outpaced the leader nVidia at 2560 x 1600 with anti-aliasing (and it was still playable at that resolution). The performance is impressive, especially since the 4870 only has half the memory of the GTX 280. We think anti-aliasing is back on track with the Radeon 4800 line.
Crysis is no exception, with the Radeon HD 4870 once again slotting between the GeForce GTX 260 and GTX 280. What's more, it's less than 11% behind the latter on average (excluding 2560 x 1600 + anti-aliasing), although HD 4870 costs twice as much.
Running a resource-hungry World in Conflict, we found that the Radeon HD 4870 came close to the GeForce GTX 280, and the gap to the GTX 260 widened to an average of 17% - a clear advantage. Performance after turning on anti-aliasing again proved to be amazing. The 4870 caught up with the GTX 280 at 2560 x 1600 with anti-aliasing, despite the limited 512MB memory (and despite the fact that it was still impossible to play at those settings).
The Radeon HD 4870 did a little worse with Supreme Commander. However, the difference can still be considered relative, the card was slightly ahead of the GeForce GTX 260 on average, and although the new ATI lagged behind the GTX 260 at a resolution of 1680 x 1050, the frame rate is quite suitable for gaming.
Unreal Tournament III is one of the first games where the Radeon HD 4870 had problems. As you can see, it fell behind the GeForce 9800 GTX at 1680 x 1050. And although the video card rose in the rating after the resolution increase, it systematically lost to the GeForce GTX 260 in this game (by 13% on average).
The Radeon HD 4870 is having trouble playing Mass Effect again. The gap from the overclocked Asus Radeon HD 4850 was 33%, but it was not enough to beat the GeForce GTX 260. And even the GeForce 9800 GTX+ at 1680 x 1050 and 1920 x 1200 resolutions.
On the other hand, the Radeon HD 4870 won GRID beautifully, delivering the best results at 1680 x 1050 and 1920 x 1200 resolutions. Only at 2560 x 1600 did the video card take second place behind the GeForce GTX 280! We were impressed. It seems that the new AMD can easily cope with the race.
We were disappointed by the Radeon HD 4850's high idle power consumption, although it was quite normal under load. Let's see how the Radeon HD 4870 performs in this respect.
Unfortunately, the Radeon HD 4870 power consumption was more than 4850 in idle mode - by 22 W in total (measurements were made on the power supply). When the computer displays the Windows desktop (idle mode), the GPU speed drops to 550 MHz. And after launching a 3D application, the video card runs the GPU at a maximum frequency of 750 MHz. Compared to the Radeon HD 3870, the difference under load is 47 watts, which means we get a 40% increase in PC power consumption! So the low power consumption efficiency of the Radeon HD 4800 line is confirmed in practice. Another problem: unlike the HD 4850, the power consumption of the Radeon HD 4870 in games is not as low. In fact, the power consumption is even higher than that of the GeForce GTX 260. High performance can justify this, but what about the low number of transistors and the high-end process technology?
The Radeon HD 4850 is very quiet at idle, but the "older" model cannot provide the same performance - despite the switch to a dual-slot cooling system, the Radeon HD 4870 is louder at idle, judging by our measurements, although in practice the difference is small. At a speed of 1,045 rpm - only 12% of the maximum - the fan can still be considered quiet.
Under load, the situation changes. Although the HD 4870 is clearly not as quiet as the Radeon HD 3870, the graphics card runs quite tolerably (the fan speeds up to 1600 rpm) and is much quieter than the noisy GeForce GTX 260.
While not beating the Radeon HD 4850's temperature record, the HD 4870 runs quite hot at idle, with the GPU reaching 70°C. But this does not lead to any problems, and do not forget that due to the dual-slot design of the cooling system, hot air is thrown out of the computer (unlike the Radeon HD 4850), which is always good.
Under load, the heatsink copes with its work, the temperature does not rise much - at least not as much as on the "younger" Radeon HD 4850.
Finally, our conclusion about the new Radeon HD 4870 will be simple: we have a great high-end graphics card! With the same architecture and most of the strengths of the Radeon HD 4850, it sits in the top category for both performance and price. It's only 6% faster on average (in most tests) than the GeForce GTX 260, but the MSRP is $299 - $150 less than the nVidia card! Even the top model nVidia GeForce GTX 280, equipped with more transistors, twice as much memory and higher clock speeds, did not advance much. It shows only 13% more performance than the Radeon HD 4870, although it costs twice as much.
However, there are a number of points that make the situation not so ideal. First, the Radeon HD 4870 suffers somewhat from AMD's other "delicious" card, the HD 4850, which delivers a better price/performance ratio (only 23% less performance for a 60% lower price). AMD has completely changed its strengths and weaknesses compared to the previous generation, in particular with the Radeon HD 3870 - the performance of the Radeon HD 4870 with anti-aliasing enabled is quite good (despite 512 MB of memory), but the card consumes much more power in idle mode, and also under load (more than the GeForce GTX 260). And the new model can hardly be called quiet, although the card is much quieter than the GeForce GTX 260, and nothing heats up inside the case.
Now Nvidia will have to react and drop the price of the GeForce GTX 260 quickly, which is also good news - although we haven't seen any price cuts yet. As for AMD, it needs to take a few more steps for the next generation to be fully successful - to release a high-end card (presumably on two RV770s) that will receive an equally enthusiastic reception. And this will not be so easy to do.
With the same qualities as the Radeon HD 4850, but at a higher price, the Radeon HD 4870 was able to directly compete with the GeForce GTX 260 - it is slightly faster and much cheaper than the nVidia offer, and without excessive noise. Despite the high energy consumption, if the promised prices become a reality, you are unlikely to find a better choice on the market.
Advantages.
- 6% faster performance than GeForce GTX 260;
- much lower price than the GeForce GTX 260;
- lower noise level compared to the GeForce GTX 260.
disadvantages.
- High power consumption under load, but especially when idle;
- The price/performance ratio is not as good as the Radeon HD 4850.
For all merits, the Radeon HD 4870 receives the "Recommended Purchase" award.
The graphs show the average results for each video card and each game. If the card could not output the game at some resolution or with anti-aliasing, it would get a zero result, which seriously affected video cards with 512 MB of memory (or less) at a resolution of 2560 x 1600 with anti-aliasing (except for the Radeon HD 4870), as well as on the Radeon HD 3870 X2, which does not have anti-aliasing in Mass Effect. It should be noted that our sample 4850 from Asus had a drawback: it could not work normally in Race Driver: GRID, which raised the results of other video cards.
video card ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870 from AMD - a graphics adapter standardized for DirectX 10.1 for Hi-End laptops. It is technically based on the HD 4850/4870 desktop GPU, but has lower clock speeds to minimize power consumption. Just 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 that require DirectX 10, such as Crysis, can also run in high detail.
Mobility HD 4870 based on a chip RV770 and assumes an 800-thread processor (160 5D shader cores). These cores perform graphics calculations that were done by the 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 instructions of a component must be independent of 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 via HDMI, or DisplayPort and UVD (Unified Video Decorder) second generation. This UVD 2 supports full bit-by-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 compatible with BD-Live. Simply put, Avivo HD technology intercepts all video calculations and uses the GPU to decode HD video.
AMD has published some specifications for which power consumption HD 4870 is somewhere in the region of 65 watts. It is still not known whether this figure is consumed exclusively by the chip itself, or whether it is the consumption of the entire board, including the memory (which will have about 5 more watts). Compared to desktop ATI Radeon HD 4870, the mobile 4870 shows a slower core clock 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 |
| Threads: | 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 (with 7.1 AC3 audio), 1x Dual-Link/Single-Link DVI, 1x Single-Link DVI support (all display ports must supported by laptop manufacturers) |
| Notebook size: | Big |
| Release date: | 09.01.2009 |
| Link to the manufacturer: | http://ati.amd.com/products/mobilityradeonhd4800/index.html |
For a gaming computer, a good graphics card plays an exceptional role. However, this computer component is also important for a regular PC. It is this part of the system unit that is responsible for displaying the image on the monitor screen. The image quality directly depends on the quality of the video card. And there is no escape from this fact. Therefore, the choice of a video card is a very important stage in assembling a computer. In the category of budget video adapters, a product called Radeon HD 4870 is of interest. This product is interesting, first of all, for its low price. Now it is worth considering the parameters of this video card in order to understand whether it is worth the money spent.
It is worth noting that AMD (the developer of this video card) has long pleased users with its productive and moderately expensive solutions. Now many know this company as a sworn enemy of Intel. But it was not always so. There was a time when no Intel could keep up with AMD. And now the manufacturer is trying with might and main to regain the leader's jersey. But it gets harder every year to do so. Nevertheless, AMD looks at things optimistically and simply delights its loyal fans with new "goodies". And the video card in question is one of them.
Positioning
The 4870 chip was released by AMD a long time ago. After that, who just did not modify this video card. Almost no one has achieved outstanding success in this field. Only ASUS got at least something adequate. ATI Radeon HD 4870 at the time of release was positioned as an inexpensive video card for gamers. However, since that moment a lot of water has flowed under the bridge and now this card is not particularly powerful. There is nothing interesting in it. That's why it's worth every penny.
Potential buyers of this video card are those users who do not need modern games at all. For all other tasks, the Radeon HD 4870 will do just fine. In this case, you do not have to pay extra. For reasonable money, the user gets a good video card and several branded "buns" in the kit. The accessories that come with the accelerator may differ depending on which company released the video card. Some modified models were produced by such giants as ASUS, Palit and Gigabyte.
Contents of delivery
It all depends on the specific manufacturer. But there are some components that remain unchanged. This is a sine qua non for AMD. Thus, the presence of a CrossFire connector and a complete set of adapters for various interfaces is strictly regulated. The completeness of these components must be provided by any manufacturer. The Radeon HD 4870 comes in the required branded packaging. But the contents of the kit may change. However, manufacturers still did not dare to particularly upset the fans of the brand, so they put in the kit almost everything the same as in the original package of the video card.
For example, ASUS supplies its video cards with a 2 GB key fob, a branded leather mat and a full set of instructions (including electronic ones). The delivery package from Palit is similar to Taiwanese, but there is no USB key fob. The kit includes all kinds of adapters and connectors. So there will be no connection problems. Some manufacturers supply their cards with special connectors for HDMI, DVI, and so on. Naturally, in this case, the number of adapters in the kit increases.
Main characteristics
The main characteristics of the video card Radeon HD 4870 almost do not change from modification to modification. It's just that some manufacturers supply it with slightly different components that change its minor characteristics in one direction or another. Therefore, the characteristics of the original ATI Radeon HD 4870 can be considered reference. The original accelerator has on board 512 MB of GDDR5 video memory, a 256-bit bus and an operating core frequency of 750 MHz.
Modifications from ASUS and Palit are similar to the original. Only the memory in them is 1028 megabytes. They also have chips from Hinyx, which have more memory and better performance. The cooling system has also been slightly changed. Third-party products also provide the ability to overclock the video card, which is not in the original. However, in both modifications, it is possible to implement the Radeon HD 4870 X2 variant using SLI CrossFire, which comes with the video card.
An important factor is the fact that the video card processor is made according to the 55 micron process technology. This means that performance has been improved with fewer cores. Such video cards are usually many times more powerful than conventional ones, which can have much more "tasty" characteristics. In addition, this video accelerator has support for Shaders Model 4.1 and easily handles almost any game. Though not with the highest graphics settings.
ASUS mods
ASUS Radeon HD 4870 1GB differs from the original in increased memory capacity, a slightly different chipset and a completely different cooling system. If laptops from this manufacturer heat up like pans, then the same cannot be said about video cards. Thanks to a powerful cooling system, the accelerator from ASUS is gigantic in size. But the security of the chip is worth it. The cooling system is doing its job.
Also in this product there is the possibility of overclocking. Unlike the standard ATIRadeon HD 4870, the driver does not have this very nice feature. A special utility is responsible for overclocking, which comes with the software package for the video card. You should not be afraid of overheating, since the accelerator will still not be able to overclock above certain frequencies. And with those overloads that are "programmed" the cooling system will cope without problems.
The manufacturer from Taiwan artificially limited the overclocking capabilities of this video card, but this in no way could stop enthusiasts. With the help of specialized programs, they have achieved a good increase in productivity. However, some "inept" completely forgot about the cooling system. And as a result, we got a "fried" video card. Don't repeat their mistakes. And remember that the video card works stably only at the frequencies provided by the manufacturer. Everything else you do at your own peril and risk. And yes. Overclocking is a non-warranty case.
Modifications from Palit
This company is well known for its graphics cards. They are always productive and beautiful. Palit's Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 features a Hinyx chipset, more memory, and an upgraded cooling system. At the same time, the set of connectors for connecting to monitors and TVs has also been slightly changed. Now the whole kit is here, including the outdated VGA connector. Nevertheless, this did not affect the performance of the chip in any way.
The overclocking possibilities here are not as wide as those of the accelerator from ASUS, but there is a special mode switch: turbo and normal. It is located in the same place as the connectors for connecting to the monitor. In turbo mode, the frequency of the memory and core increases sharply. This fruitfully affects the performance of the graphics subsystem as a whole. The video card Radeon HD 4870 by Palit got a "second wind".
Now a few words about the "Turbo" mode. Although it increases the core and memory frequencies, you won’t expect much performance gain from it. But it is very easy to shorten the life of a video card with the turbo mode on all the time. And if you can not see the difference, then why kill the video accelerator ahead of time. When watching movies, this mode is recommended to be turned off. Yes, and in games it is not very useful.
Mods from Gigabyte
This manufacturer is also well known for its quality computer components. There is nothing surprising in the fact that this company decided to release a modification of the successful AMD Radeon HD 4870 video card. However, it turned out to be a tandem of two such accelerators connected using CrossFire. This made it possible to double the memory and performance of the graphics subsystem.
The advantage of the product from Gigabyte is that it looks much more elegant than the brainchild of ASUS and Palit. The hand of the master is immediately felt, because all the components of this manufacturer attract attention with a catchy and beautiful appearance. And it does not affect performance in any way. For example, the Radeon HD 4870 prototype from this company is several times more powerful than its "colleagues" based on the same chip.
A graphics accelerator from this manufacturer based on ATI "Radeon" is by far the most adequate on the market. It has everything you need: performance, quality, adequate price. At the same time, it is completely devoid of overclocking capabilities. And this is good, because the "crazy hands" of some especially curious users will have less opportunity to break this video accelerator. And the acquisition of this particular video card looks like the most acceptable solution, based on the respectable price-quality ratio.
Features of use
Almost all modifications of the Radeon HD 4870, the characteristics of which are described just above, do not require almost any special approach during use. However, some features will be useful to know. For example, if you have a Palit accelerator, then do not abuse the turbo mode. The video card, of course, will not burn. However, such overloads negatively affect its service life. Therefore, if you want your accelerator to "live happily ever after", you should not load it unnecessarily.
In the case of video cards from ASUS, do not experiment too much with overclocking. The cooling system in these accelerators is, of course, good, but it can also fail. And the increased frequencies considerably increase the temperature. If the cooling system fails, then the video card will burn out in a split second. It's not worth the risk. Moreover, the Radeon HD 4870, the characteristics of which were analyzed in this material, can work quite well at standard frequencies.
If you use a tandem of video cards using a CrossFire connector, then you should download the appropriate drivers from the manufacturer's website that will fully support this technology. Otherwise, only one video card will be able to work. The capacities of the second will not be used. Therefore, always update the software for the hardware. That will be much better.
Operating rules
Even the most reliable equipment has certain operating rules that must be observed in order not to kill your equipment ahead of time. This also applies to video cards from Radeon. First, carefully monitor the condition of the cooler of the cooling system. Since the video card is quite powerful, it constantly needs high-quality heat dissipation. The minimum delay - and you get a burned video card. Regularly clean the cooler from dust and dirt. Secondly, in the case of the Radeon HD 4870, the drivers must be of the latest version, because it is in them that all the shortcomings have been eliminated. the slightest failure can destroy the accelerator. And no one here will be to blame.
Thirdly, never use this video card in old computers equipped with outdated components. Since the accelerator is quite powerful, you run the risk of losing all other components. Not even a high-powered power supply will help. This video card needs the appropriate conditions for normal operation. Fourthly, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB is not designed to work with constant overloads. This is fraught with the loss of not only the video accelerator, but also many other system components.
Introduction The way to increase the performance of the graphics subsystem of the modern PC gaming platform through the use of multi-GPU technologies, which allow combining several graphics processors into a single high-performance complex, has always been considered marginal. In a historical perspective, none of these attempts has become truly successful and has not become widespread, and this statement can be attributed not only to prehistoric artifacts, such as 3dfx Voodoo2 SLI or ATI Rage MAXX, but also to fairly modern ATI and Nvidia. At some stage, the use of such technologies made it possible to obtain some, sometimes quite a solid increase in performance (often accompanied by a number of technical and software problems), but time passed, and the new generation of single-processor video cards invariably overlapped the achievements of multi-GPU systems built using the processors of the previous generations.
However, nothing can go on forever. As it turned out relatively recently, the appetites of modern game engines are growing much faster than progress is being made in the field of creating monolithic graphics chips capable of satisfying these appetites. The appearance of the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 can be considered the first call, although in many respects it was caused by the lack of competitive graphics chips for the upper market segment in ATI's arsenal at that time. This dual-processor card showed good results in real conditions and demonstrated that, in addition to the classic, there is an alternative way to create high-performance high-end video adapters. The irony of fate, because it was precisely the absence of a powerful monolithic core at ATI's disposal that helped the company see this path, which in the future, perhaps, is destined to become the main one. Yes, the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 review said that relying on multiprocessor graphics systems can only be a tactical move, that it provides less freedom of maneuver, that it is a forced step on the part of ATI, but the verdict on ultra-powerful monolithic cores has already been pronounced.
Nvidia also tried to create a high-end dual-processor solution, but the attempt was not very successful - the GeForce 9800 GX2 did not get rid of all the problems, and the company again focused its main efforts on creating another monolithic monster chip. The latter was eventually created, but soon, immediately after the announcement of new ATI solutions, it turned out that, despite its huge size, monstrous complexity, and high power consumption, the Nvidia G200 not only does not provide a cardinal breakthrough in performance, but in some cases doesn't outperform the much simpler ATI RV770 or even outperform it! The verdict came into effect, and Nvidia was forced to sharply reduce the prices of the GeForce GTX 200 family in order to at least ensure its competitiveness.
The graphics division of Advanced Micro Devices, formerly ATI Technologies, maintained an Olympian calm, relying on its new strategy. Its officially priced $200-300 solutions provided great performance and were well-deservedly popular, while the company was preparing to strike the final blow and finally remove Nvidia from the throne of the king of 3D graphics, preparing the release of a new generation of ATI Radeon HD X2. Its announcement was delayed to August 12: despite the fact that the RV770 saw the light of day on June 25, there was no hurry, because in any case, Nvidia could not respond to such a step. With such a solid time head start, ATI has every chance to bring the new generation of dual-processor cards to perfection, and now it's time to find out how well it took advantage of them.
Since the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 was originally aimed at the over $500 price segment, it was decided to release the less expensive ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 to avoid a gap between it and the sub-$400 segment.
Thus, ATI managed to cover all price ranges, from $199 to $549 inclusive, and give Nvidia a fight where the latter until recently remained in the lead. To what extent AMD's graphics division managed to win this battle is what this review aims to find out. Meet ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2!
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2: specifications and innovations
From the point of view of the general concept, ATI's new development, which should confirm its championship as the developer of the world's fastest graphics card, differs little from the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2, except that it uses the new generation RV770 graphics cores instead of RV670 and GDDR5 memory instead of GDDR3. Its technical characteristics in comparison with rivals and younger brother are as follows:
First, twice the amount of video memory than the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 catches the eye - it is 2 GB for both two-chip models based on the RV770, although, of course, for technical reasons, applications will only be able to operate with half the amount, equal to 1 GB. Here we have a formal parity with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280, and taking into account the more efficient use of the available amount of local memory by ATI solutions, there is even some advantage. ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 should show itself in full measure in new generation games and/or extreme resolutions above 1920x1200, but this statement will be subjected to practical verification below. The total bandwidth of the memory subsystem of the older model exceeds 200 GB / s, but the younger one also boasts a good figure at 128 GB / s, although this is slightly less than the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280.
Secondly, the computational capabilities of the new products inspire involuntary respect for the sheer number of ALUs - 1600. According to ATI, the top model of the new family is capable of developing performance over 2.4 teraflops, which is an absolute record in the industry. It should be noted that in double precision calculations the performance of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 will be about half as low, but this is also much more than what the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 can offer. anti-aliasing - the numbers given in the table show parity with the flagship solution from Nvidia, however, in practice, the texture processors of the latter are not so efficient, therefore, even here we should expect higher achievements from the new products.
All of the above improvements are not so interesting, since they are, in fact, a simple increase in capacity, in which, of course, there is no revelation. But ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 also has something new. The first indication is the type of interface - while the previous generation of ATI dual-processor cards only supported PCI Express 1.1, the current one is fully capable of taking advantage of PCI Express 2.0 due to the use of an updated switch chip. This alone doubles the "communication" channel between two GPUs (from 2.5 to 5 GB / s in each direction), which is not useful in modern conditions, when many rendering techniques used in games require data transfer between graphics cores running in multi-GPU mode.
But ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 also has something that ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 did not have. This is an additional data transmission channel, the so-called Sideport interface. It directly links both graphics cores and provides an additional 5 GB / s. in each direction, theoretically bringing the total throughput of ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 internal interfaces to 21.8 GB/s, effectively eliminating all possible bottlenecks and improving the scalability of CrossFireX technology. However, in modern games, an additional communication channel is unlikely to give serious advantages to the ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2, according to ATI, and this is probably why Sideport is disabled at the software level for now, but in the future it may well be in demand.
At the time of the announcement, the new family included two ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 models, differing in clock speeds and the type of memory used, with a recommended price of $549 for the older model 4870 X2 and $399 for the younger 4850 X2 (the real retail price of the older model in Moscow stores at the time of preparation of the article was about 17 thousand rubles, the youngest has not yet appeared on sale). Our test lab got an older version equipped with GDDR5 memory, which is of the greatest interest, since it is the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 that is designed to take the crown from the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 and fans of ATI products place all their hopes on it. A sample of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 was provided by Tul, which supplies graphics adapters under the well-known "PowerColor" brand. Before moving on to the anatomy of the novelty, let's evaluate its packaging and equipment.
PowerColor HD 4870X2 2GB GDDR5: packaging and bundle
The PowerColor HD 4870X2 2GB GDDR5 video adapter (model AX4870X2 2GBD5-H, hereinafter simply PowerColor HD 4870X2), despite its belonging to the class of high-end graphics solutions, is shipped in retail in a medium-sized box, so that the buyer does not have to pay additional costs warehouse supplier. The design of the box is nothing extraordinary - its front side is decorated with another girl (or boy?) with a sword. Frankly speaking, such a pattern is one of the design stamps that have managed to become boring to buyers, which graphic card manufacturers love to abuse so much, and therefore almost does not attract attention.
From the point of view of information content, the packaging is not bad, although PowerColor did not fail to mention the presence of 2 GB of video memory, which, as you know, in the case of homogeneous multi-GPU solutions, which include the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, is not true - 3D applications can only half the amount of memory from the total, that is, in this case, 1 GB. This is not a cause for concern, since Nvidia's flagship solution, the GeForce GTX 280, has a similar amount of local video memory, and this is a normal amount for a modern graphics adapter claiming a place in the niche of high-end high-end cards.
Inside the box there is a cardboard tray, in the compartments of which the contents are placed - the video adapter itself and its accessories. The latter includes the following components:
DVI-I→D-Sub adapter
DVI-I→HDMI adapter
Adapter mini-DIN→YPbPr
mini-DIN→Composite adapter
Connecting Bridge CrossFire
Quick Installation Guide
Driver disk
The bundle is strange not only for a product worth more than 15 thousand rubles, but also for 2008 as a whole - for example, it is not clear why the kit contains two adapters for connecting in analog YPbPr formats and, especially, Composite. If the first one still provides acceptable image quality, then the second one is hopelessly outdated and is practically not used in modern TVs, with the exception of very cheap models. Alas, there is also no power adapter for an 8-pin connector - although it is physically compatible with 6-pin power supply connectors, the card will not work with this connection. Many power supplies, even very powerful models produced in recent months, do not have 8-pin connectors.
As, alas, often happens, there is also no software for playing HD video that supports the advanced features of the ATI UVD 2 video processor. Of course, such a player can retail for $50 or more, but the OEM version intended for graphics card manufacturers was would be much cheaper and unlikely to have a significant impact on the retail price of the final product. Moreover, for a modern card with a similar price, we consider the presence of such software in the kit to be necessary - a buyer who pays such a significant amount has the right to be sure that he will be able to use all the features of the purchased product without additional financial costs.
On the whole, the packaging of the PowerColor HD 4870X2 does not raise any complaints: although it cannot boast of original design, it has acceptable dimensions and can easily fit into an ordinary plastic bag. But the equipment, given the high cost of this solution, could be richer. In any case, a software player that supports HD video and the hardware capabilities of ATI graphics cores for its decoding and processing would not be out of place.
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2: PCB design
The ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 is an extremely complex design, due to the need to install two GPUs, their associated memory kits, power subsystems, and a PCI Express switch on a single printed circuit board. Designing such a graphics adapter is extremely difficult, but the ATI development team has experience in creating the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2, and they did an excellent job. Despite the fact that the new product carries two RV770 cores on board, it does not exceed the single-processor Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 in size - the length of both printed circuit boards is 27 centimeters:
Of course, 27 centimeters is a lot, and the novelty can not be installed in any case, but since it belongs to the most productive class of graphics cards, hardly anyone will try to install it in a microATX system. At the same time, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 does not look as massive as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280, because, unlike the latter, it is not enclosed in a blank metal casing. It is interesting to note that, unlike other ATI solutions, the dual-processor flagship uses a black board rather than red. Most likely, this was done to make it as impressive as possible - a kind of hint that the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 belongs to the 3D graphics elite.
Unlike the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280, the cooling system of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 can be easily dismantled, giving access to the "guts" of the new product, which is of the greatest interest from a technical point of view. The layout of the PCB as a whole is very similar to the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2, which is not surprising given the close relationship of these graphics cards. Actually, the novelty is an evolutionary development of the latter.
Although the back of the board is still empty, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2's power system has been significantly redesigned and strengthened, which is logical given the increased power consumption of the RV770 compared to the RV670. It includes two three-phase regulators with the well-known Volterra VT1165MF controllers, often used in high-frequency graphics card power converters. Each set of memory chips is powered by a separate regulator; unlike the ancestor, there is no room for further capacity building of the power supply system.
It is known that the peak power consumption level of a single ATI Radeon HD 4870 can reach 130 W, respectively, for the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, which, in fact, combines two such cards in one printed circuit board, this figure should be multiplied by at least two, and 260 W is a very serious number. In this light, the presence on the board of one eight-pin PCI Express 2.0 power connector looks more than justified. Apparently, it will take the main load, which is evidenced by a simple fact: unlike its ancestor, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 requires the obligatory connection of the eight-pin PSU cable to the corresponding connector, otherwise the card will not start, displaying a message about problems with food.
As practice has shown, the card can be made to work with two six-pin power connectors - to do this, it is enough to close the remaining “legs” of the 8-pin connector to the “ground” (in fact, the adapter from 6- to 8-pin connector does the same ), but of course, the stability of such work is not guaranteed and depends on the quality of both specific connectors and the power supply as a whole. The location of the connectors also causes some criticism - they are directed downwards, which makes it difficult to connect the power cables to the card already installed in the system.
The function of managing data exchange between the two RV770 cores is assigned to the PLX Technology PEX8647 chip. This chip is a 2nd generation 3-port PCI Express switch that supports the PCIe 2.0 standard, which means twice the data transfer rate. Like its predecessor, the PEX8547, the new switch features peer-to-peer communication capability, which allows the graphics cores to communicate directly, bypassing the PCI Express root controller included in the system chipset. Despite the improved specifications, the switch has an extremely low power consumption of only 3.8W, while its predecessor used about 5W at lower data rates; Moreover, the new chip also has significantly smaller dimensions.
In addition to using the capabilities of the switch, GPUs can communicate directly using the ATI CrossFireX interface or an additional data transfer channel, the so-called Sideport, operating at the same speed - 5 Gb / s in each direction, however, at the moment Sideport support is disabled by software. Since the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 is, in fact, a bundle of two ATI Radeon HD 4870s, the traditional CrossFire channel also connects the cores, so the board has only one external connector of this interface to support four-processor configurations. More than two ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 as part of a single complex cannot be used for purely technical reasons, and even if it were possible, the power consumption level of such a graphics system would be truly monstrous.
The RV770 graphics cores are located to the right and left of the switch, and, unlike the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2, the developer decided not to increase their frequency, apparently for reasons related to power consumption. As a result, the operating frequency of the chips is the same as in a single ATI Radeon HD 4870, and is 750 MHz. Core configuration is standard: 800 ALUs grouped into 160 superscalar compute units, 40 texture processors and 16 RBEs. Thus, the total configuration of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 is as follows: 1600 ALUs, 80 texture processors and 32 RBEs - theoretically, this is more than enough to put any existing Nvidia video adapter on both blades, including the GeForce GTX 280 and GeForce 9800 GX2. Unlike the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 has no bottlenecks, at least at first glance. Insufficient software support for CrossFire in drivers can be the only such place, but this is typical of any modern multi-GPU system, whether it's developed by ATI or Nvidia (suffice it to recall the results of testing a Quad SLI system). In the worst case, only one graphics chip will work, and the RV770 even on its own can seriously compete with solutions based on the Nvidia G200.
The titanic computing power of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 is only half of its future gaming success. The other half is the memory subsystem, a component that has a significant impact on performance at high resolutions. From this "board" the novelty is armed no worse, since it carries two sets of GDDR5 chips (2x8 chips) with a total volume of 2 GB - 1 GB for each graphics core. Unlike the usual ATI Radeon HD 4870, which is equipped with Qimonda IDGV51-05A1F1C-40X memory, the dual-core ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 is equipped with Hynix H5GQ1H24MJR-T0C chips with a capacity of 1 Gbit (32Mx32). They are designed for a supply voltage of 1.5 V and are capable of operating at a frequency of 1000 (4000) MHz, but the actual frequency of their operation is 900 (3600) MHz. Since this is a dual-processor, homogeneous-type graphics system, the total amount of video memory available for 3D applications is 1 GB. Thus, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 should not suffer from a lack of video memory, especially since ATI solutions use the amount of local memory available to them more efficiently than Nvidia solutions. The total bandwidth of the new memory subsystem is 230.4 GB / s, much more than what Nvidia can offer today - at least when it comes to single graphics cards. Indeed, ATI's main rival should consider its new solution from the "armed and very dangerous" position, since, as already mentioned, it has practically no weak points.
The connector configuration complies with the established standard and includes two dual-link DVI-I ports with support for resolutions up to 2560x1600, and, unlike Nvidia SLI solutions, multi-monitor configurations are fully supported. In addition to them, there is also a universal seven-pin mini-DIN connector, which in our time of HDMI dominance is practically not in demand. As mentioned above, the card is equipped with one CrossFire connector, which allows it to be used as part of a four-processor graphics system by combining it with another ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2.
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2: design of the cooling system
Even the removal of 170 W of heat is a rather serious task, especially considering all the restrictions imposed on the design of the graphics adapter cooling system, and the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 should have a significantly higher level of heat dissipation than its predecessor, the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2. In this light, the design of its cooling system is of particular interest.
Oddly enough, ATI did not consider the problem significant and did not seriously change the design of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 cooling system. It is still based on two solid-milled heatsinks, however, unlike the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2, both of them are copper. Such radiators are quite efficient, since their fins form a single whole with the base, and, unlike composite radiators, there is no additional thermal resistance at the place where the fins are attached to the base - but still it is very unusual to see the virtual absence of heat pipes (except for full-fledged tube thermal chamber on one of the radiators) in a product with a predicted level of heat dissipation of 260 watts. The heatsinks contact the GPU dies through a layer of classic dark gray thermal paste.
With this design of the cooling system, ATI takes quite a risk, even if it decided to sacrifice comfortable noise levels in favor of increased cooling efficiency. The heatsinks are attached with four screws and a spring-loaded cross plate on the back of the PCB. Although they are not rigidly connected to the base, they still have a fairly tight contact with it, and it seems that they can transfer part of the heat flux to it. Theoretically, this should increase the overall cooling efficiency somewhat.
The base itself acts as a heat sink for the power elements of the power system, memory chips located on the front side of the printed circuit board, and the PCI Express switch chip. It also serves as a mounting point for the fan. To ensure reliable thermal contact, elastic rubber-like gaskets are used; their efficiency is low, but the heat dissipation levels of the above elements are not as high as those of graphics cores. At the top of the base, there are a number of needle protrusions that increase its effectiveness as a radiator. The base is attached to the board separately, using 8 screws. The memory chips located on the reverse side of the PCB are cooled by a separate aluminum plate.
The fan used is the same as in the ATI Radeon HD 4870 cooling system - NTK Technologies CF1275-B30H-C004. This radial turbine has a maximum current of 1 A, that is, with a supply voltage of 12 V, it can consume up to 12 watts. With such power, it will surely cope with blowing even two radiators, the only question is at the price of what noise level this will be achieved. Hot air is ejected through the slots in the video adapter mounting plate, and with a power consumption level of around 260 W, it can quite claim the role of an additional heat source in the room, which can come in handy in winter, but hardly anyone will be happy in summer. The profiling casing is made of dark brown smoky translucent plastic, and in the area of the needle radiator it is equipped with a sticker warning about the high temperature of the latter.
In general, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 cooling system is surprisingly simple for a card with a heat dissipation level of around 260 watts. It remains to be hoped that it will cope with its task, at least at the cost of some deterioration in noise characteristics.
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 Power Consumption, Thermals, Noise and Compatibility
Information about the power consumption level of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 is of great interest, if only because it is the first video adapter whose power consumption level should certainly exceed 200 watts. As our readers know, so far none of the single graphics cards have been able to overcome this barrier, despite the statements of development companies. To carry out the necessary measurements, a specially equipped test bench with the following configuration was used:
Processor AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 (2.6 GHz)
EPoX EP9-NPA+ SLI Motherboard (Nvidia nForce4 SLI)
Memory PC3200 (2x512 GB, 200 MHz)
Western Digital Raptor WD360ADFD Hard Drive (36 GB, SATA-150, 16 MB Buffer)
Power supply Chieftec ATX-410-212 (Rated power 410 W)
Futuremark PCMark05 Build 1.2.0
Futuremark 3DMark06 Build 1.1.0
As usual, in order to create a load in 3D mode, the first SM3.0 / HDR test of the 3DMark06 package was used, run in a loop at a resolution of 1600x1200 with MSAA 4x and AF 16x boosted. The test is excellent for this purpose, and, as practice shows, it loads the GPU even better than the tests of the more modern 3DMark Vantage, so there is no particular reason to refuse to use it yet. Emulation of the "peak 2D" mode was carried out by the 2D Transparent Windows test, which is part of PCMark05. This test is relevant because it emulates active windowing, and the Windows Vista Aero windowing system is known to use 3D features. It is possible that in the future this test will be replaced by an HD video playback test, as a more pressing task for the average user.
As a result of the measurements, the following data were obtained:
The peak power consumption level of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 indeed reached the calculated value, which was predicted earlier, thus winning the title of the most wasteful graphics card. The results in 2D and Peak 2D modes are, of course, quite high, but not too different from those of the regular ATI Radeon HD 4870, but the result in 3D is simply monstrous and surpasses everything we've seen before. This card really needs a powerful power supply, and the presence of a "native" eight-pin PCI Express 2.0 connector on the block is highly desirable, since it is it that accounts for the main load, which almost reaches the limit value - 150 W.
Of course, such a high level of power consumption had a corresponding effect on the level of heat dissipation of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2. Unfortunately, RivaTuner does not yet support the new product, but even according to the Catalyst Control Center, the card operates in a rather intense thermal regime, the temperature of GPUs fluctuates from 64 °C in idle mode to 86-90 °C during active work in 3D applications. At first glance, the numbers are low, but it is not known what exactly the corresponding CCC panel displays, since the board has two GPUs, and both of them contribute equally to the level of heat dissipation. We only know that in idle mode the clock frequency of the master core drops to 500 MHz, and the slave core is likely to turn off completely or almost completely, which is confirmed by the results of measurements of the power consumption level. The high-temperature warning symbol flaunts on the casing of the cooling system for a reason - subjectively, the card heats up very much, and after any long work in 3D mode it is almost impossible to pick it up, since the temperature of the metal parts clearly exceeds the pain threshold.
Noise level measurements carried out using the Velleman DVM1326 sound level meter showed the following picture:
The results are not very comforting: although the card makes little noise in 2D mode, the fan speeds up under load in order to cope with blowing through two radiators, which generate a total heat flow of 260 W, and the noise level increases significantly, almost reaching the values demonstrated by the ATI cooling system. Radeon HD 2900XT. Subjectively, the spectral composition of the noise is quite favorable, the main contribution to it is the noise of the air flow passing through the radiators, and not the sounds emitted by the turbine, but, unfortunately, the card suffers from the same drawback as the single ATI Radeon HD 4870. fan speeds behaves unnecessarily "intelligently", periodically changing its speed, and the noise level fluctuations caused by this are very irritating to the ear.
Despite the use of a PCI Express switch chip, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 does not experience any compatibility problems with various motherboards and chipsets - both modern ones with PCI Express 2.0 support, and older ones that support only PCI Express 1.0a or 1.1.
Test platform configuration and testing methodology
To study the practical potential of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, test platforms with the following configuration were used:
Processor Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (3.0 GHz, FSB 333 MHz x 9)
DFI LANParty UT ICFX3200-T2R/G (ATI CrossFire Xpress 3200) Motherboard for ATI Radeon HD
Motherboard Asus P5N32-E SLI (Nvidia nForce 680i SLI) for Nvidia GeForce
Memory Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5 (2x1 GB, 1066 MHz, 5-5-5-15, 2T)
Maxtor MaXLine III 7B250S0 hard drive (250 GB, SATA-150, 16 MB buffer)
Enermax Galaxy DXX EGX1000EWL Power Supply (1000W Max)
Dell 3007WFP Monitor (30", 2560 Max Resolution [email protected] Hz)
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit
ATI Catalyst 8.7 for ATI Radeon HD 4800
ATI Catalyst 8.52.2.0 Sample for ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
Nvidia GeForce 177.41 WHQL for Nvidia GeForce
The drivers have been tuned according to a standard procedure to provide the highest possible quality of texture filtering with minimal impact of default software optimizations. Anti-aliasing for transparent textures has also been enabled. As a result, the ATI and Nvidia driver settings look like this:
ATI Catalyst:
Catalyst A.I. Standard
Mipmap Detail Level: High Quality
High Quality AF: On
Wait for vertical refresh: Always Off
Enable Adaptive Anti-Aliasing: On/Quality
Method: Multi-sampling
Temporal Anti-Aliasing: Off
NVIDIA GeForce:
Texture filtering – Quality: High quality
Texture filtering – Trilinear optimization: Off
Texture filtering – Anisotropic sample optimization: Off
Vertical sync: Force off
Antialiasing – Gamma correction: On
Antialiasing - Transparency: Multisampling
Other settings: default
The test package included the following set of games and applications:
3D First Person Shooters:
Battlefield 2142
bioshock
Call of Juarez
Call of Duty 4
crysis
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
Half Life 2: Episode Two
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
Three-dimensional shooters with a third-person view:
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
Tomb Raider: Legend
RPG:
Hellgate: London
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Strategies:
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
world in conflict
Synthetic tests:
Futuremark 3DMark06
Futuremark 3D Mark Vantage
Each of the games included in the set of test software was tuned to the highest possible level of image detail using the tools available in the game itself to any uninitiated user. This means a fundamental rejection of manual modification of any configuration files, since the user is not required to be able to do this. The exception is the shooter Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, which had its built-in average performance limiter disabled, fixed at around 30 frames per second. Games that can take advantage of DirectX 10 features have been tested in this mode.
In addition to the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, the following single graphics cards were tested:
ATI Radeon HD 4870 (RV770, 750/750/3600 MHz, 800 SP, 40 TMU, 16 RBE, 256-bit 512 MB GDDR5)
ATI Radeon HD 4850 (RV770, 625/625/2000 MHz, 800 SP, 40 TMU, 16 RBE, 256-bit 512 MB GDDR3)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 (G200, 600/1300/2200 MHz, 240 SP, 80 TMU, 32 RBE, 512-bit 1024 MB GDDR3)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 (G200, 576/1242/2000 MHz, 192 SP, 64 TMU, 28 RBE, 448-bit 896 MB GDDR3)
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2 (2xG92, 600/1500/2000 MHz, 256 SP, 128 TMU, 32 RBE, 2x256-bit 2x512 MB GDDR3)
In addition, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 and ATI Radeon HD 4850 were tested in a CrossFire configuration.
Since the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 belongs to the highest price category, the standard list of modes has been supplemented with resolutions of 2560x1600 and 2048x1536; the latter is intended for games that do not support the 16:10 screen format. In almost all cases where the use of MSAA 4x is possible without disabling SM3.0/4.0/HDR effects, anti-aliasing supplemented the standard 16x anisotropic filtering, which is used by default in all tests except 3DMark. Activation of anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering was carried out either by the means of the game itself, or, in their absence, was forced using the appropriate settings of the ATI and Nvidia drivers.
To obtain performance data, either the tools built into the game were used, with the obligatory recording of original demos, if possible, or, in their absence, the Fraps 2.9.1 utility in manual mode. Whenever possible, data were recorded not only on the average, but also on the minimum productivity.
Playtests: Battlefield 2142
The game does not officially support the 16:10 screen format, so it uses classic 4:3 aspect ratio resolutions.
Such a powerful video adapter as the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 has nowhere to prove itself, but even despite the disabled Sideport interface, it demonstrates a slightly higher minimum performance compared to the ATI Radeon HD 4870 CrossFire tandem. This is probably the merit of the PCI Express switch, which allows GPUs to communicate directly, bypassing the root bus controller, which means avoiding additional delays in data transfer.
Playtests: BioShock
BioShock does not support FSAA when running under Windows Vista in DirectX 10 mode, so the game is tested without anti-aliasing.
Despite the fact that the game runs on the relatively undemanding Unreal Engine 3 and does not use full-screen anti-aliasing, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 performs excellently, showing over 100 frames / s at 2560x1600 and almost 75% faster than Nvidia's fastest solution, GeForce GTX 280. At the same time, unlike the classic pair of ATI Radeon HD 4870, the new product is completely stable in operation and does not experience any problems with the functioning of CrossFire technology.
Playtests: Call of Juarez
The game does not support resolutions above 1920x1200, so we couldn't get results for 2560x1600.
The average result of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 unexpectedly turned out to be slightly lower than the similar result of two separate ATI Radeon HD 4870s operating in the CrossFire mode, but the minimum performance remained almost unchanged, and nothing prevents the card from being used at resolutions up to 1600x1200/1680x1050 without sacrificing gaming comfort. Given that Call of Juarez actively uses modern rendering techniques, it makes sense to expect a noticeable performance boost for the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 after the software blocking of the Sideport interface is removed.
Playtests: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
The main advantage of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 in this case is the higher minimum performance compared to the ATI Radeon HD 4870 CrossFire, especially at 2560x1600, where, apparently, twice the amount of local video memory has a beneficial effect on the result. The ATI solution loses only 6% to the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280, which does not affect the comfort level in any way - both cards can be successfully used at 2560x1600 with MSAA 4x enabled.
Gaming Tests: Crysis
The game is tested at High detail settings, with the Shaders option set to Very High. This achieves a compromise between image quality and performance.
Alas, the expected breakthrough in performance never happened, and the inclusion of Sideport is unlikely to make it possible. Nevertheless, the results of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 are not bad at all, and it is noticeably ahead of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280. The gap is especially large at 2560x1600, where the advantage of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 in average performance reaches an impressive 45%. ATI should also be credited with excellent stability, which the classic CrossFire tandem cannot boast of.
Playtests: Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
Since the performance in the game is officially fixed at 30 fps, and the physical model on the server is also updated at a frequency of 30 Hz, this is the minimum acceptable figure for Quake Wars.
At normal resolutions, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 is barely noticeably inferior to the ATI Radeon HD 4870 CrossFire, but in general, their results can be called equal, without sinning against the truth. However, at 2560x1600, ATI's new development resolutely breaks ahead, leaving behind all rivals and confirming its title of the new king of 3D graphics. The reason is obvious - the MegaTexture technology used in this game operates with textures with a resolution of 32768x32768 and an uncompressed volume of about 3 GB, so the presence of 1 GB of local video memory is just right here.
Playtests: Half-Life 2: Episode Two
Combining two RV770 chips on one board via a PCI Express switch does little in Episode Two, and only at a resolution of 2560x1600 does the advantage of a single-board dual-chip card over a classic tandem of two single-chip cards reach 5%.
At the same time, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 continues to prove its reputation as a champion, as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 demonstrates a noticeably worse level of average performance at the same resolution. However, do not forget about the monstrous level of power consumption of new items, exceeding 260 watts - such is the retribution for the first place.
Playtests: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
Since the game does not support FSAA when using a dynamic lighting model, and when you turn on a static model, it loses a lot of visual appeal, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. only tested with anisotropic filtering.
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 does not demonstrate anything new in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. either, since 1 GB of video memory is not in demand here, and other technical characteristics of the novelty coincide with those of the usual ATI Radeon HD 4870 CrossFire tandem. Nevertheless, the first place belongs to him, and at a resolution of 2560x1600 both the average and minimum performance are at a quite comfortable level.
Playtests: Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
There are no significant performance differences between ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 and two ATI Radeon HD 4870s operating in CrossFire mode, except for 2560x1600 resolution, where the former is 21-22% faster. However, this victory has no practical significance, since the average performance of 17 fps cannot be called comfortable under any circumstances. Since the result practically does not differ from the result of a single ATI Radeon HD 4870, the inevitable conclusion follows - either the support for CrossFire technology in this game does not work correctly, despite some increase in resolutions below 2560x1600, or its full-fledged work is impossible in principle due to the features of the game engine .
Playtests: Tomb Raider: Legend
With the advent of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, the superiority of Nvidia solutions was shaken, although not in all resolutions - for some reason, the new product was ahead of the GeForce GTX 280 only at 1600x1200 and 2560x1600, slightly losing to the latter at 1280x1024 and 1920x1200. Also, unlike the usual tandem ATI Radeon HD 4870 CrossFire, there were no problems with the multi-GPU mode; in the case of CrossFire, we never managed to activate it - despite all attempts, there was no performance increase.
Playtests: Hellgate: London
The game has an increased appetite for video memory, which is confirmed by the results of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280, but the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 has a similar amount of available local memory, and it manages to pull ahead at a resolution of 2560x1600, although at resolutions below 1920x1200 it lacks stars from the sky , noticeably inferior to the development of Nvidia. This is not a disadvantage, since in all cases the performance of the novelty remains at a comfortable level. We can say that the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 fulfills its cost.
Playtests: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Without HDR, the game loses a lot of its appeal, and although the opinions of the players differ on this point, the methodology we use involves testing TES IV in the mode with FP HDR enabled.
The ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 does not make a revolution, but in this case, there is no room for it - the performance ceiling in Oblivion has long been reached, and the game can no longer be considered "heavy" for modern graphics cards. Alas, in open areas at a resolution of 2560x1600 the minimum performance of the ATI solution may fall somewhat below an acceptable level, while this does not happen with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280. It is possible that activating Sideport will fix this shortcoming, but there is little chance of this.
Playtests: Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
The Company of Heroes add-on is tested only in DirectX 10 mode, as it achieves the maximum level of detail, and therefore the most complete visual experience of the game.
Another confident victory for ATI - its development managed to set a record at 2560x1600, and not only in average, but also in minimal performance. Although the latter never reached 25 fps, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 still deserves the title of the card that provides the most comfort in CoH: Opposing Fronts. This is not the limit, and the potential reserve provided by the additional data transfer channel between the RV770 cores should not be written off.
Playtests: Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath
Addition to C&C 3: Tiberium Wars did not bring technical changes. The game still contains an average performance limiter, so when comparing graphics cards, their minimum scores should be considered first.
Testing modern high-end graphics cards in Command & Conquer 3 games is no longer of significant interest, since they all show the same result. Soon this position in the list of test software will be replaced by something more relevant.
Game Tests: World in Conflict
As in the case of CoH: Opposing Fronts, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 was not able to provide a cardinal performance breakthrough, but rightfully took the first place at 2560x1600, becoming the solution that provides the highest possible level of comfort with MSAA 4x enabled. None of the single cards developed by Nvidia came close to the values demonstrated by the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2.
Synthetic benchmarks: Futuremark 3DMark06
The ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 did not become a record holder in 3DMark06, but this test package has not presented any difficulty for modern graphics cards for a long time; moreover, there is nowhere to deploy a solution with such an impressive potential as ATI's new development has. In all summary results, it is slightly inferior to the classic tandem ATI Radeon HD 4870 CrossFire, but their results are not indicative due to the use of a resolution of 1280x1024 without anti-aliasing.
The results of individual tests of the SM2.0 group repeat what we saw earlier - ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 is somewhat slower than ATI Radeon HD 4870 CrossFire, but the difference is small and completely uncritical.
In the SM3.0/HDR group of tests, a similar situation is observed only in the second test, while in the first test the results of ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 and ATI Radeon HD 4870 CrossFire coincide with an accuracy of 0.3 fps.
Synthetic benchmarks: Futuremark 3DMark Vantage
To minimize CPU impact, 3DMark Vantage uses the “Extreme” profile for testing, using 1920x1200 resolution, FSAA 4x, and anisotropic filtering.
Unlike 3DMark06, 3DMark Vantage not only actively uses the capabilities of modern graphics cards, it uses all resources, including the amount of video memory, to the maximum. The ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 has a twofold advantage over the ATI Radeon HD 4870 CrossFire system in the latter parameter, as a result of which its final result is almost 900 points higher. The gap from the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 is monstrous, and fully confirms the main strategic mistake of Nvidia, which, when designing a new GPU, made the main bet on the performance of texture processors with rather modest computing capabilities.
The performance of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 in the first test is 20% higher than the usual CrossFire tandem consisting of two ATI Radeon HD 4870s, even with the disabled Sideport. Apparently, the main contribution here falls on a larger amount of video memory, because the Extreme profile uses a resolution of 1920x1200 with MSAA 4x. In the second test, the advantage is smaller and amounts to only 12%, but this does not detract from ATI's victory.
Conclusion
Testing of ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 is over, and it's time to take stock. The results demonstrated by the novelty give rise to the most optimistic, with rare exceptions, estimates. In making the final verdict, as usual, summary charts will help:
From the very beginning, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 got off to a strong start, winning in 8 tests out of 16, moreover, in Call of Juarez, the advantage over the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 was over 80%, and in two more games it exceeded 15%.
In seven tests, the new product lost, but only in three, including World in Conflict, the gap was significant, and in both CoH: Opposing Fronts and Hellgate: London, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 card provided a comfortable performance level without any problems. In general, it's hard to imagine that someone will use such an expensive and powerful card as the Radeon HD 4870 X2 at 1280x1024, so the results shown by him in this mode are not decisive.
Already at 1600x1200 the number of games in which the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 loses to the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 is reduced to only three, and even in these cases its performance remains acceptable for practical use. In all other games, except for Command & Conquer, ATI's flagship outperformed the previous leader among single cards, and, in the minimum case, the advantage was only 1.7%, and in the maximum case it almost reached 100%.
Approximately the same picture was observed at a resolution of 1920x1200, but in general, the advantage of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 over the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 became more confident - the number of cases where it was more than 10-15% increased, and in Call of Juarez the gap even exceeded 100%, that is, more than doubled. To this we should add a convincing victory in 3DMark Vantage, since the Extreme profile used for testing implies precisely the resolution of 1920x1200.
Resolution 2560x1600 was the high point of ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2. This new product was carefully prepared for, and it did not let us down - the doubled amount of video memory made it possible to win in all tests, with the exception of Call of Duty 4, but even in it the gap from the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 did not exceed 6%.
Moreover, in almost all games, with the exception of Crysis, Lost Planet and World in Conflict, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 was able to maintain a comfortable or close to that level of performance, which allows us to call it the first graphics adapter that makes a resolution of 2560x1600 truly suitable for practical use. use!
In fairness, it should be noted that not everything is so rosy and the novelty is not without certain shortcomings. First of all, they include an extremely high level of power consumption, which for the first time in our practice exceeded the mark of 200 W, and exceeded it quite significantly. This automatically entailed an equally high level of heat dissipation, for which a comfortable noise level had to be sacrificed. As a result, the payoff for the record high level of performance was the need to use a really powerful power supply (for a system with a single card - at least 500 W, subject to high-quality workmanship and good voltage stability), the ability to use the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 for room heating, and also quite mediocre noise performance.
The classic disadvantage of homogeneous multiprocessor graphic systems has not disappeared anywhere - the lack of a significant increase in speed with insufficient quality software support. Although we must give credit to ATI, this problem has become much less common; based on the data we received, we can even talk about its eradication, but do not forget that there are many more games on the market than are included in our test set, and in some of them the eternal disease of modern multi-GPU technologies may again manifest itself. We can only hope that ATI will work promptly in cooperation with game developers.
In general, ATI's claim to be the leader in consumer 3D graphics should be considered completely legitimate - today ATI's Radeon HD 4870 X2 is indeed the performance champion. You should not just forget that it is not a direct competitor to the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280, and for the possession of such a monster you will have to pay a slightly larger amount. As for the PowerColor HD 4870X2 2GB GDDR5, it is a typical representative of the cohort of reference cards, which, moreover, cannot boast of an extraordinary bundle. However, by purchasing this product, for your money you get what you paid for, namely the fastest gaming video adapter to date.
PowerColor HD 4870X2 2GB GDDR5: pros and cons
Advantages:
Best gaming performance to date
Excellent performance at high resolutions
Beats Nvidia GeForce GTX280 in most benchmarks
Wide choice of FSAA modes
Industry-leading anti-aliasing with edge detect CFAA
Excellent quality anisotropic filtering
DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1 support
Full hardware support for HD video decoding
High quality HD video post-processing including upscaling
Integrated 8-channel audio core with support for HD audio formats
HDMI audio output support
No compatibility issue
Disadvantages:
The efficiency of the cooling system is questionable
High noise level in 3D mode
Extremely high power consumption and heat dissipation
Maximum performance depends on CrossFire software support
Poor equipment
Check Availability and Cost ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
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