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4870: Specs & Performance Questions (& Feedback)

I

Infaustium

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 16, 2008
Messages
166
Alright, I just installed the 4870 just over an hour ago, replacing my 8800GTX, and I've got some questions.

1) Incorrect reading of specs?
Why is GPU-Z reading the memory clock at 900 when it should be 1800? Is it actually "doubled" due to the bandwidth on the 4870 (or something to that effect, which I think I remember seeing somewhere) and just not reading it as such?

Can someone clarify this for me?

Right now, RivaTuner does not work with the 4800 series, so I cant see what clocks etc. it would show for the moment.

2) GPU-Z readings (are these specs correct?):
ROPs: 16
Shaders: 320 Unified
Pixel Fillrate: 681.6 GPixels
Texture Fillrate: 681.6 G Texels
Bandwidth: 57.6
GPU Clock: 42,599 MHz
Memory: 900 MHz
Default Clock: 750 MHz
Memorey: 900 MHz

3) Visuals
Using AA and AF settings via the CCC produces far better results then using in-game settings. I don't know why, but I remember that always being the case. Maxed AA/AF in-game in HL2, for example, there's a ton of shimmering/crawling and aliasing. Maxing it via the CCC, and those things are gone.

F.E.A.R., however, AA & AF are a bit lessened using the CCC settings, but there's still a bit of tearing (regardless of v-sync) and no shimmering/crawling, but definitely still some aliasing.

TF2 has some crawling and slight tearing (again, regardless of v-sync enabled in-game) but looks relatively the same, from what I can tell. FRAPS never shows above 60 FPS, so it's still maxed at 60, just as in HL2 and Episodes.

4) Performance
I know F.E.A.R. is just a buggy game, as someone even mentioned to me again recently, but performance-wise, something is "wrong" here.

Why is my FPS dropping into the 30's when the action gets heavy?
I'm also getting to slight pausing at/in-between some action, turning some corners etc.

That's not much better than my 8800GTX, if any, and that should definitely not be the case, considering the 4870 is somewhere between the GTX 260/280 in performance, which trounces the 8800GTX.

I'm running 22" widescreen (1680x1060 res), with 8xAA and 16xAF, no soft shadows in F.E.A.R., but everything else maxed, as was with my 8800GTX.

I haven't tried Crysis to see the comparison from my 8800GTX because I no longer have it installed, and find it a pointless game to use as a test, because it's so buggy. But, I might attempt it, though after seeing what's happening to my FPS is F.E.A.R., there might be no point.

5) Temps
Perfect, once adjusting the fan speed. 50 @ idle and max of 58-60 @ load.

Feedback?

My wife was sitting here while I was testing some things (she's a gamer as well) and was also a bit shocked at some of the performance "issues", because she's seen me (and what I've run for her) many different GPUs and their performance.

I have to say, thus far, aside from some of the increase in visuals (which I expected from ATi), that I'm a little confused and annoyed here at some of the performance.

If the 4870 truly offers between 70-80% of the performance of the GTX 280, then it should be trouncing my 8800GTX, or at the very least, a decent improvement in FPS over what I'm seeing so far.

I've been greatly looking forward to moving back to ATi, but am a little "worried" over what I'm seeing here so far, in terms of performance, anyway.

Any feedback/info/ideas on all of my questions and experiences thus far would be appreciated. Mature and in-depth only, please ;).

Thanks all, and looking forward to some good responses.

P.S.
Is there any prog that actually shows the amount of Stream Processors, of which there are supposed to be 800? GPU-Z doesn't, and I never remember RivaTuner showing such.
 
8.7.2
Something has to be HUGEly wrong with the 4870 specs.
The Texture fill rate at 681GTps HAS to be impossible. A more realistic value is 25GTps
The 9800gx2 was 76.8GTps and the 9800gtx was 43.2GTps; the older 3870 was 12.4 and the 8800gts 512MB was 41.6; the newest 280gtx is 48GTps... so OBVIOUSLY the 4870 can NOT be nearly FIVETEEN times the 280 texture fill rate!

Even if one accepts the 25GTps value, how can the 4780 at about half the texture posting power of the 280, how can it compare so well, even surpass the 280 in the many web sites evaluating these gpu? That is like a 250hp car (the 256bit 4870) stomping a 480hp racecar (the 512bit 280!)

I have not noticed the Tflop capability of the 280 yet, but the 4870 is 1.2Tflop, the 3870 was 496Gflop.
 
Well then I think your 25GTps value is wrong.
And the bus doesn't make all that much of a difference on the 4870 because it has 3.6GHz memory (Multiply it by four since it's GDDR5)
 
"4) Performance
I know F.E.A.R. is just a buggy game, as someone even mentioned to me again recently, but performance-wise, something is "wrong" here."

There is without a doubt something very wrong with your set up,I ran FEAR for a few hours last evening at 1920X1200 everything maxed out, soft shadows etc. and FPS were 65-200 + the whole time no matter how intense the fighting got.The game felt smoother and faster than it did with both my last two cards wich were a 8800 Ultra and till a couple days ago a 9800 GX2 SSC,it also never looked as good as it does now.Once you get this card set up correctly you wont be disappointed with it's performances beleive me,it does perform better than I expected even after reading all the reviews wich were for the most part extremely positive.
 
OK, I'm sort of following you here.

So, this version of GPU-Z obviously isn't reading things right.

There really is nothing to "set up" on a GPU to increase performance, and I'm not inexperienced, but I'm not getting what the problem is here.

The GPU is "set up" fine/properly, with the 8.6 driver, cooling etc.

I don't know why the mem clock is only reading as 900 (unless the OC of the mem makes up for it, if I'm understanding) and, here's a more surprising result:

Crysis, the worst game of all to bench: I'm getting minimum of 26FPS (only drops to about 19 in some outside areas very briefly) and all the way up to a constant of between 32-40! Runs faster and smoother than my 8800GTX by miles.

Yet, FEAR is running like garbage...? Makes no sense, and Crysis is shocking the hell out of me... a big difference in numbers even from the [H] review.

I have AA/AF cranked in the CCC.
I also have (just to see what would happen) AA up to 8x in Crysis... no lag.
Don't know which is controlling it, but it's smooth and looks incredible.

However, I think I forgot to turn off the AA/AF in-game in FEAR, and have it cranked in the CCC... maybe that's causing the lag? I'll go experiment right now and see if that's the problem.

Maybe it's like Nvidia, where some games you can only use one or the other or risk problems. Cranking it in the CCC did make FEAR look better, but the FPS... don't know what's up with that.

Other than that, my system is completely fine, otherwise I wouldn't be running Crysis the way I am right now, which is totally shocking the hell out of me.
 
OK, well... turned off the AA in-game, and my FPS is now jumping upwards of 60+FPS, so having it on while having it on/maxed in the CCC must have been an issue. However, I'm still getting some "jerking" slight "pausing" here-and-there. Cant explain it.

I'm shocked though... after some reading, the mem clock is effective 3600MHz, and not the 900 MHz actual! Due to how DDR5 mem works. It's Didn't realize that, hence just one of the reasons why Crysis must be running like a banshee.

FEAR is better now, though (and I find this hysterical) not quite as good as Crysis is running. Heh. That's one for the books, I suppose.

Well, back to testing this beast out.
 
Ok, I'm still having problems here.

Jerkiness/slight lag in F.E.A.R. that I was not getting with my 8800GTX. It's nothing else in my system, as it's been fine until now. Crysis is running better, which is bizarre to me, but the lag I'm getting in F.E.A.R. is just bizarre.

Could this be a driver issue? Something with my specific GPU?

It's not a heat issue either, as I'm not hitting above 62C under load.

I'm about ready to call it quits with this thing and slap my GTX back in and either put this in my wife's system to upgrade from her x1900xtx or just return it and wait to get either a GTX 280 or see what the 1GB version of this GPU can do.

This is really frustrating, because I'm not seeing/hearing anyone else having this problem, and with Crysis running faster than on my GTX, I'm friggin' stumped. I think I'm going to slap my GTX back in and check the performance against this again directly now and see what happens, but it's obvious the 4870 should be performing better than the GTX.

I'm running the following (which hasn't been a problem with the GTX): Intel D975XBX mobo, 2GB Corsair Dominator, C2D E6700, Corsair HX620 PSU and 1680x1050 res.

If anyone has any other/specific ideas as to why this would be happening, please let me know. I'd like try any possible before giving up on this GPU, but there's not a hell of a lot for me to do here.

Thanks.
 
Have you cleaned out your old drivers? Old driver remnants can cause all kinds of issues.
 
You need to download the newest GPU-Z's for the right values. Old versions do not detect the 4800s properly
 
why has no one mentioned that 900 is correct for the memory? its quad rated so 900x2x2=3600.
 
Used the 8.6 hotfix driver, as suggested by many.

Old drivers completely cleaned out.

Odd, but something with the drivers and/or CCC running in background was making certain things on my system lag, like typing periods but no other letters (even here on the forums). Make sense out of that... heh. Also made things like the splash screen for my a/v (ESET, which is a very light prog) last upwards of six times longer upon booting.

All of this stopped now after reinstalling my GTX and Nvidia's drivers.

Think it's been a mix between the ATi drivers and the load of the CCC in the background, with both the problems with F.E.A.R. and certain things on my system. Back to normal now.

Ah, well... thanks for the suggestions, but nothing has resolved this. Too bad. I'd have liked to stick with ATi and seen what this thing can really do, but the driver situation (and perhaps something with the CCC) is just too much of a hassle.
 
I feel ya, I'm just trying to get a 4850 card that flew by the QA process (swapping mine to see if it's a hardware issue I'm having).
 
Miscommunication said:
I feel ya, I'm just trying to get a 4850 card that flew by the QA process (swapping mine to see if it's a hardware issue I'm having).
Click to expand...

You mean to see if the GPU is your hardware problem?

Yeah, I'm really frustrated at this point.

Could this be a driver issue? I just installed the 8.6 hotfix driver. This thing should be trouncing my 8800GTX, but alas, except for the visuals, the performance is not where it should be, and I'm not sure what to do here.

The GPU itself seems to be fine, physically and with temps (with the "hack").

I just tested Crysis with my GTX again, and actually, the FPS is close, just with the 4870 looking a bit better.

Perhaps a total reformat/install? Different driver if that having the same issues after?

Any other suggestions appreciated (and could use rather quickly) as I'm on the verge of RMA'ing this either today or Monday.

Curious though... what about the ATi drivers is actually causing lag on my system, such as I explained in my above post? The CCC isn't that much of a hog, but something was definitely up with that, and it was definitely related to ATi.
 
Yeah the problem I'm having is a slight shadow texture corruption(?) in Crysis. I think I tried a very minor OC and it might have fried the memory. Hopefully I just got a weak sample, because if not, they need to make higher quality cards. However, most people aren't having these problems so I'm going to swap for a new 4850. This could be a driver issue, the 8.6 driver gives better peformance than the hotfix one overall. Pop in Crysis, with semi-high settings and I was averaging a steady 40-45fps in MULTIPLAYER. I can't imagine what SP would be, like 55/60+, probably 50 on all High.

Personally man, I'd RMA the card. I know it's annoying and you're sick and tired of being sick and tired. This is the first time I've had problems with a card ever. That goes for Nv (3) and ATi (1) cards in my history. I'm swapping mine for another at BB thank God.
 
when i installed my 8800gts for the first time, it made my TF2 take like 10 min to load up...it was really wierd, put the old card back in, and it loaded right up

i think reinstalling windows solved the problem

either way...i dont think you should RMA it quite yet
if you dont want to reinstall...then..umm maybe wait for the next driver update
 
Thanks for the feedback, and here's the situation now:

- I used DriverCleanerPro and blasted out every remaining particle of both Nvidia and ATi drivers.

- Reinstalled the 4870 and the 8.6 drivers (just the dd & ccc this time), not the hotfix drivers.

- Temps good, fan "hack" still working fine and CCC working fine.

- Using the CCC to control AA/AF, both of which I have maxed.

- Every time I type a "." (period) as I'm typing here, it lags as I type - bizarre, but only happening with this GPU and it's drivers installed. How weird is that... (oh, there's the "dot lag" again)

- F.E.A.R. (christ, with the "." lag in between letters!) is still dropping into the 30's and high 20's in terms of FPS, and getting lag/jerking when turning corners in the game.

No better than my GTX, except worse, due to the jerkiness/lag around corners and FPS drop during slightly bigger fights, which doesn't occur with my GTX to that degree.

- Crysis averaging about 28 FPS in some outdoor areas, less in others, sometimes a bit more, around 30 FPS, but not really great performance.

- HL2, of course, runs perfect. However, I noticed (very, very occasionally) a drop to 46-48 FPS for very brief moments. With the HL2 engine that definitely should not be happening.

I've a feeling that reformatting, though I planned to anyway with this drive, is not going to help this issue. I don't know what the problem is, but I'm starting to think it's some hardware on the GPU, though as for the lag on my system (like typing periods!) is more driver/CCC related.

I know others who are getting cards that passed QC correctly, apparently, aren't having these problems. I'd say it's a driver issue all around, and I think that's part of it, but maybe something is screwed in terms of some hardware issue with this GPU.

I've tried everything, literally, and getting the same results.

I guess this thing is getting RMA'd. I wouldn't even pass this to my wife with here currently smaller res, with the way this thing is (or should I say, is not) performing.

Extremely disappointing, as I would have liked to have the performance increase over my GTX, along with the visuals, as the 4870 should technically trounce my 8800GTX.

Man, I'm friggin' aggravated.

This GTX is aging and I need the performance boost without running SLi/CF, and I'm getting to the point of dropping the ridiculous amount of money on a GTX 280 just to be able to max everything and get that performance boost.

You've all been helpful though, so thanks much for that.
 
cannondale06 said:
why has no one mentioned that 900 is correct for the memory? its quad rated so 900x2x2=3600.
Click to expand...

see post #3
And the bus doesn't make all that much of a difference on the 4870 because it has 3.6GHz memory (Multiply it by four since it's GDDR5)
Click to expand...


To the op...
Install a new windows on a spare hard drive and see if the same problems occur.
 
tried the card in some other board?

might be a conflict somewhere that shows its ugly face.
 
Well either go for a CF 4850s or a single 4850 (still a decent boost over the 8800GTX). You could also get a GTX260, OC it, and get close to 4870/GTX280 performance while saving you some cash.. if you're going to give up on the 4870. GL man!
 
Uberbob102000 said:
Well then I think your 25GTps value is wrong.
And the bus doesn't make all that much of a difference on the 4870 because it has 3.6GHz memory (Multiply it by four since it's GDDR5)
Click to expand...

Ok this is making me sick theres no technical meritt behind calling GDDR5 "QDR", thus there's no reason to multiply anything by four. The HD4870 runs its memory at 1800MHz (3600 effectively). Its fast, but its not QDR... if it was it would be called GQDR5. GPU-z annoys me for using 900MHz "QDR" speeds. Its like people who say 3nπ... no its 3πn damnit π is constant.

Anyways, here are the actual stats of the HD4870. As you can see its based on the RV770, which has 800 Stream processors, not 320, and has 40 TMUs clocked at 750MHz for 30,000 Mtextels/sec, aka 30GTps.

Now on to solutions: I'd suggest a reformat. I do one ever 8 months but then I'm obsessive. Even if you don't have spyware I can almost guarantee you you've got some badware (as in crappy software) floating around on your system somewhere... Bioshock's rootkit comes to mind. Back your stuff up and reformat if its at all possible.

What are the rest of your system specs? CPU, ram, PSU, etc? Remember the HD4870 does draw more power than the 8800GTX (surprisingly).
 
"You've all been helpful though, so thanks much for that."

I was worried I would find myself in a situation similar as yours before swapping video cards a few days ago,I built this computer about 15 months ago and have only ran NVIDIA cards in it till last Tuesday.I uninstalled my GX2 through the control panel 1st and then ran Guru3d driver sweeper in safe mode before installing the Catalyst 8.6 drivers,everything went as smooth as could be and still does, I guess I was lucky.
 
Thanks again for the feedback. Some good suggestions from everyone.

I don't have another mobo to try the 4870 in, and I've not heard of any conflicts with this mobo.

I think I listed my specs elsewhere, but I'll toss 'em here again, since asked:

mobo: Intel D975XBX2
PSU: Corsair HX620 (620W) - (this is actually enough to run a GTX 280, so the 4870 shouldn't be a problem)
CPU: C2D E6700 (stock)
RAM: Corsair Domintaor (2GB)

I used Driver Cleaner to blow out all drivers twice, but that was before reformatting.

I just reformatted this drive, but have two others, one already reformatted, but already has Nvidia drivers on it. It's totally clean of anything else (well, except that one has ZoneAlarm on it, which I can uninstall), but I'm really not sure if it's worth the hassle of reinstalling it again on a different drive, or this reformatted one, as the problem seems like it might be something wrong with the GPU itself. My GTX (and everything else) runs perfectly.

I don't have Bioshock's "rootkit" on my system, as I've never played it, though I suppose you could call Crysis' DRM a "rootkit" as well, since it's caused more problems for people then, say, F.E.A.R.'s DRM. Though I despise DRM's, I've never actually had a problem with 'em, personally. Though I wish they'd stop with all of that.

So... suppose I could try on one of these reformatted drives, reinstall F.E.A.R. and Crysis, and see what happens.

Another thing to keep in mind, though, is the weird lag that I believe the ATi driver was causing on my system. As example, the "dot lag" I was getting even typing here, where every time I would type a "period", it would lag. That's just crazy... very bizarre... so something with the ATi driver was actually messing with something on my system. Honestly, I hadn't noticed anything else, but then again, I was so busy working with the GPU and posting here, I didn't take the time to open/use any other progs with the ATi driver/CCC installed.

I'll give it some thought, trying it on one of my reformatted drives, but I think there's something up with the GPU, and definitely something with the drivers/CCC.

Otherwise, I might be sticking with Nvidia.
 
Try using the in game menu to control your settings like AA and stuff. I am not quite sure why fear would play so terrible, not that id have that pos game even in my garbage can outside. I think somehow your conflicting with settings in CCC. Google for a reviewer that might have ran fear on it and see if they mention anything. If fear is the only game having the problem then I wouldnt worry much. Try something like Cod 4 or TF2 or Assasins creed, or bioshock, mass effect pretty much flail your arms around and hit any game other than fear and install that.


Edit* Here I will save you the trouble. In the following Link the 4870 wins 7 out of 9 benchmarks. Guess what one of the ones it looses is. Fear and Lost planet. But both of those loses appear to be driver issues. I would expect those to be resolved. Nvidias driver has had many months of revision.

http://en.expreview.com/2008/06/24/first-review-hd-4870-and-hd-4850/
 
Infaustium said:
OK, I'm sort of following you here.

So, this version of GPU-Z obviously isn't reading things right.

There really is nothing to "set up" on a GPU to increase performance, and I'm not inexperienced, but I'm not getting what the problem is here.

The GPU is "set up" fine/properly, with the 8.6 driver, cooling etc.

I don't know why the mem clock is only reading as 900 (unless the OC of the mem makes up for it, if I'm understanding) and, here's a more surprising result:

Crysis, the worst game of all to bench: I'm getting minimum of 26FPS (only drops to about 19 in some outside areas very briefly) and all the way up to a constant of between 32-40! Runs faster and smoother than my 8800GTX by miles.

Yet, FEAR is running like garbage...? Makes no sense, and Crysis is shocking the hell out of me... a big difference in numbers even from the [H] review.

I have AA/AF cranked in the CCC.
I also have (just to see what would happen) AA up to 8x in Crysis... no lag.
Don't know which is controlling it, but it's smooth and looks incredible.

However, I think I forgot to turn off the AA/AF in-game in FEAR, and have it cranked in the CCC... maybe that's causing the lag? I'll go experiment right now and see if that's the problem.

Maybe it's like Nvidia, where some games you can only use one or the other or risk problems. Cranking it in the CCC did make FEAR look better, but the FPS... don't know what's up with that.

Other than that, my system is completely fine, otherwise I wouldn't be running Crysis the way I am right now, which is totally shocking the hell out of me.
Click to expand...

I just ran FEAR and my min frame rate was 52 max was 156 and average was 131 at 1680*1050 with max in game settings
 
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