2 4850 or 1 4870 ?

I say 2- 4850s for $340, instead of 1- 4870 for $315. the 4870 is only 20% faster as a single card, and definately slower than 4850cf. Although p45 is not ideal mobo for cf, it will only do 8x, 8x on pcie slots if you use 2 cards. you need a x38 or x48 mobo for best cf results.
 
ignoring that you just bought a p45 motherboard. i would say 2 4850's. but like dccmadams said you need x38/x48 board for best results.
 
Id say one 4870 the single card beats the crossfire 4850, always remember the 2nd card does not have full speed and also it only splits power so 1 card does not have to take it all but the single card is certainly enough to kill 2 4850s.
 
Orly?

They both have the same amount of stream processors. The 4870 has a significant memory bandwidth advantage and a decent clock speed advantage, but not enough to make it equal to two 4850s.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=20

According to this two 4850s beat one GTX 280. That's something the 4870 can't do by itself...

OP: If you're fast enough to hop on this deal, you can get two 4850s for the cost of a 4870 :D
 
your telling me a 4870 cant beat a GTX 280 according the everything besides maybe 1 thing the 4870 can beat the GTX280 itself and 2x 4850 cannot beat a gtx280 because its not double shader units its not 800x2 its 800+200 because the 2nd card on crossfire is either 1/4 the power or almost 1/2.
 
LstOfTheBrunnenG said:
Orly?

They both have the same amount of stream processors. The 4870 has a significant memory bandwidth advantage and a decent clock speed advantage, but not enough to make it equal to two 4850s.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=20

According to this two 4850s beat one GTX 280. That's something the 4870 can't do by itself...

OP: If you're fast enough to hop on this deal, you can get two 4850s for the cost of a 4870 :D
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it *totally depends*

what resolution do you game at and what is the Rest of your PC like

i am going to get a Single Most Powerful GPU .. so i can add a Second one later .. when prices drop

so i'd get a 4870 and perhaps a 4870x2 later .. but then i am probably getting a GT280 and perhaps a 290 later.

:cool:
 
4850 + P45 is fine, I don't trust the review that shows P45 bottlenecking CF 4850's. I suspect drivers/BIOS issues, also it only really kicked in at 25x16, 19x12 was pretty much fine.

@ OP CF 4850's will destroy a single 4870, CF 4850's beat any single card on the market ATM. Only one that gives them trouble is GTX 280, and it still usually smokes that.
 
This is the same question ive been asking myself. Im not building my new pc until next month, and i figured I could get 2 4850s for like $100 more than a 4870, and it should beat it in performance. I guess ill see where the prices are next month.
 
qwksi1 said:
Since you got a p45 and not an X38/48 get the 4870 so u dont take the serious performance hit. for having 8x/8x:( Heres an article for reference. http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1472/1/page_1_introduction/index.html
Click to expand...

Trust that review I do not, also you don't really take that big of a performance hit. If you read thru the reivew most of the time it's only a small amount, but when it's 25x16 with aa (and unplayable on either system anyways) it does take a hit. 4850 CF will destory a single 4870, even if it's only on an x8/x8 bus.
 
A pair of 4850's are sweet, but I ultimately decided to go for a single 4870. Depending on how the price/performance of 4870x2, I may replace the 4870 or pick up a second card to compliment it.
 
4870 I say, you could always get a second later if you decide to go Xfire.
 
4870. the crossfire is still getting the bugs worked out and does take a performance hit on the P45, though yours will not be as bad as it will do 8X by 8X, I think the hit really happened when they ran 16X by 4X. you should double check me on this one though
 
1/2 say 4850 xfire
1/2 say 4870

Considering i cant find any 4870 for sale right now, may have to go with the 4850's.
 
jdl said:
1/2 say 4850 xfire
1/2 say 4870

Considering i cant find any 4870 for sale right now, may have to go with the 4850's.
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4850 is the best price/performance, go to the hotdeals section, you can get an asus one for $150 and a sapphire one for $155, CF 4850's for $305 shipped AR :eek: That's the same as a single 4870 :D
 
jdl said:
I am building a new pc, and purchased this mb: ASUS P5Q-E LGA 775 Intel P45

would you buy 1 4870 or 2 4850 to go with it?

mainly gaming on a 22", once in a great while a 42"
Click to expand...

On a 22-inch monitor at 1680x1050 max resolution, you shouldn't really need more than one 4870 for current games. Personally, I would go with the 4870, and then you can still add another one in a year or two for cheap without having to sell off your 4850's.

Also, remember that some games don't support Crossfire correctly, so you will get better performance with a 4870 on those than you do even with Crossfired 4850's.
 
TheToE! said:
4870 I say, you could always get a second later if you decide to go Xfire.
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he he

that is what i said :p

and i just ordered one from NewEgg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102748

SAPPHIRE 100243L Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail [$309.95]
(limit 2 per customer)
Click to expand...

$340.05 shipped inc tax - 3 Business Day Shipping $7.59 to So Cal; it will be here this Friday; i live 100 miles away from them!
:p

AFTER i upgrade my MB to PCIe 16+16 and my LCD to at least 19x12; i will add a 4870X2 for a X-3 CrossfireX solution

it's way cheaper than anything Nvidia can offer and probably it will equal GTX280s in SLi
- i am an AMD fanboy again due to Nvidia's unrealistic and out-of-touch pricing
--and CUDA looks to be useless for gamers .. except for PhysX; and AMD has Havok

for the OP at 16x12, a single 4870 is enough for Crysis .. and you don't have to worry about 4850 crossfire scaling - or microstutter. Later you can add another 4870 or 4870x2 if you desire .. probably for cheap - by then

i just wanted my First Brand New GPU on launch day
[and i got my insurance settlement today!!]

UPDATE: i got it just in time:

Out of Stock (ETA:06/30/2008)
Click to expand...
 
I would choose a single 4870 at first and later add another 4870 for additional videogaming needs.
 
jxaznxk said:
your telling me a 4870 cant beat a GTX 280
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Yes, I am. The 4870 is a strong competitior to the GTX 260, not the GTX 280. However, almost every review I've seen that includes 4850 CrossFire shows the setup at least trading blows with the GTX 280, if not outright beating it. 4850 CF can, in some situations, beat a GTX 280 at first glance. I can't recall a single benchmark in which the HD4870 has beaten the GTX 280 (though not counting 3DMark - I skim past that part of any review).
jxaznxk said:
2x 4850 cannot beat a gtx280 because its not double shader units its not 800x2 its 800+200 because the 2nd card on crossfire is either 1/4 the power or almost 1/2.
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I never said all 1600 streaming processors would be in use. All I said was that a 4850 CF setup beats a single 4870 in both theoretical compute power (2x1 TFLOP) and real world performance (every review I've seen).
 
apoppin said:
i am going to get a Single Most Powerful GPU .. so i can add a Second one later .. when prices drop

so i'd get a 4870 and perhaps a 4870x2 later .. but then i am probably getting a GT280 and perhaps a 290 later.

:cool:
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If you want the "Single Most Powerful GPU," then you just missed the GT200 train, it went thataway :p

In all seriousness, the 4870 was really tempting, but when I saw that $150 deal on the 4850, I couldn't justify twice the price to myself - more than twice the price, actually, due to short supply. Besides, I'm on an uncertain budget at the moment. I know I won't regret buying a single 4850 at that price. If I get more money later, I can add the second card and sail right past you until you get your hands on that R700 :p
 
jxaznxk said:
Id say one 4870 the single card beats the crossfire 4850, always remember the 2nd card does not have full speed and also it only splits power so 1 card does not have to take it all but the single card is certainly enough to kill 2 4850s.
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what?????
 
for a long term investment, buy one 4870 now, and then buy another down the road when they're a little cheaper and run CF.

Much smarter choice.
 
I'm thinking in getting a new card but it seems to be impossible to decide wich one (maybe two) to get.
I simply can't believe in almosts all test I see around, the difference between them is incredibly high.
To me it seriously seems to be that the best choice now is a 9800GX2, that is been sold here in FS/T for around 350-380.
If I got a CF capable motherboard I wouldn't hesitate in getting two 4850 but I don't, so mounting a crossfire system now would cost above 500$.

And a 4870 single will never beat a 4850 CF.
 
jxaznxk said:
Id say one 4870 the single card beats the crossfire 4850, always remember the 2nd card does not have full speed and also it only splits power so 1 card does not have to take it all but the single card is certainly enough to kill 2 4850s.
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That's not true. It is completely dependent if the driver you are running has a profile for the game being played and how the game was developed. It is definitely possible to get two 4850s both running at 100%.

MaStaFLaSH said:
4850 + P45 is fine, I don't trust the review that shows P45 bottlenecking CF 4850's. I suspect drivers/BIOS issues, also it only really kicked in at 25x16, 19x12 was pretty much fine.
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If you do the math of the sheer processing the 4850 can put out across the PCIe bus, if both cards are running above 70% usage, you are bottlenecked...8x at 2.0 just isn't enough but he is right that even at 8x you will get better performance from two 4850 @ the same price as a 4870 but there is one catch...you have to be playing mainstream games to reap the benefits. If the software or game isn't compatible with crossfire, you're only running on one card, in which case the 4870 would have won.
 
LstOfTheBrunnenG said:
If you want the "Single Most Powerful GPU," then you just missed the GT200 train, it went thataway :p

In all seriousness, the 4870 was really tempting, but when I saw that $150 deal on the 4850, I couldn't justify twice the price to myself - more than twice the price, actually, due to short supply. Besides, I'm on an uncertain budget at the moment. I know I won't regret buying a single 4850 at that price. If I get more money later, I can add the second card and sail right past you until you get your hands on that R700 :p
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i missed it deliberately. it is overpriced by $150 now. it was my *intention* to buy one

However, i picked up a 4870 which should be here tomorrow. It will trade blow-for blow with a 260 and CrossfireX will allow me an upgrade to an "X3" for $500 more that will [no doubt] come very close to SLi'd GTX280s

i simply meant that a single 4870 will give the OP more *future options* than a 4850 series. If he is just looking for maximum "bang for buck" @ 16x10 resolution, then Crossfired 4850 is *sweet*
 
jdl said:
I am building a new pc, and purchased this mb: ASUS P5Q-E LGA 775 Intel P45

would you buy 1 4870 or 2 4850 to go with it?

mainly gaming on a 22", once in a great while a 42"
Click to expand...

Although performance wise, the HD 4850 Crossfire setup will be faster, I would go with a single HD 4870, since I like to avoid SLI/Crossfire headaches.
 
I think you should always go for the fastest single card you can afford. That way you can add in another if you need it, and you don't have to deal with so many driver related performance problems.
 
I'd go with a 4870 because I don't want to deal with X-Fire hassles and I'm willing to pay a premium for it. From a value standpoint though its definitely 2x 4850...
 
thanks for all the input: I went with the sapphire 4870 fom the egg. Found it last night and quickly placed it in my cart. Now it is stuck on stage 3 for 12+ hours :mad:....
 
From the reviews that I have seen, 4870 can't beat 280. At best, it could tie with 280 at 1920x120 with 8xAA 16xAF running Enemy Territories - Quake Wars. For less than half of price of 280, 4870 is awesome.

I would wait for 4870 1GB DDR5.

etqw_02.png
 
GenBanks said:
I think you should always go for the fastest single card you can afford. That way you can add in another if you need it, and you don't have to deal with so many driver related performance problems.
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The problem with that is most people don't get around to buying a second high-end card like the 4870 until the next gen cards are released and then there's like no point because everyone wants the next latest card which is even faster. You can get two 4850's for less thant he cost of a single 4870 right now and 2 CF 4850's are way faster than a single 4870. That's enough performance for most anyone unless they're driving some huge display at an insane resolution.
 
Even though 4850x2 CF is cheaper and faster than a single 4870, CF and SLI still have problems, so I would stay away from them. If you want a carefree system, get a single GPU card for now.
 
Without having read anything anyone else has said, I will say that I think all the fuss over P45 vs X38/48 is overdone. I believe that it's just a driver optimization issue and that dual 2.0 x8 on P45 should be more than enough bandwidth for crossfire. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. Only time will tell.

As to your original question, I would say that if you can get a pair of 4850's for close to the same money as a single 4870 (currently $309 + shipping possibly) then the 4850's are worth considering. Only you can decide for sure if the potential pitfalls of crossfire are worth it.

Honestly, I would probably vote for a single 4870 9 times out of 10 just because multi-gpu will always have gotchas, but if you manage to find an incredible deal on a pair of 4850's like I did ($317 out the door for the pair) then it's worth considering.
 
RB30 said:
Even though 4850x2 CF is cheaper and faster than a single 4870, CF and SLI still have problems, so I would stay away from them. If you want a carefree system, get a single GPU card for now.
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A single 4850 by itself is faster than an 8800 GTX or even the 9800 GTX and in areas where you might have an issue possibly with CF you could still get more than acceptable performance with a single 4850. Then in games where CF works great and makes a huge difference in performance you'll blow that single 4870 away. All while spending the same or less amount of money.
 
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