4870x2 at 190$??

J

johndh1

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Hey guys,


I'm looking for an advice on next upgrade for my GTX 275. Do you think it that a 4870x2 at that price worth it? It's 190$ shipped to my canadian door.

I don't really care of the heat, power consumption and DX11. Should I wait for something or overall I should go for it.
 
I know you say you don't care about those other things, but if it was me, and that was my budget, I'd get a 6850/6870. I believe the 4870x2 performs right around the stock 6870, and avoids the x2 headaches and adds lots of other features.

What resolution are you playing at?
 
Katalysis said:
I know you say you don't care about those other things, but if it was me, and that was my budget, I'd get a 6850/6870. I believe the 4870x2 performs right around the stock 6870, and avoids the x2 headaches and adds lots of other features.

What resolution are you playing at?
Click to expand...

actually a 4870x2 is considerably faster than a stock 6870.
 
Close call I'd say. The 4870X2 should perform better than the 6870 most of the time, but you'll lose out on DX11 and possibly some other stuff. You'll also have to deal with any possible multi-GPU issues, which means your performance might be unpredictable in newer games. Personally I'd just wait for the 69xx series, but even the 6950 probably won't be below 300$.

If you don't need DX11 and that stuff though, why are you considering upgrading? The GTX275 is a decent card and you wouldn't really be looking at a huge performance increase going to a 4870X2 except for the games with very good CFX support. Which games are you having performance issues in?
 
Not a bad card at all, a 4870x2 will give you performance comparable to a 5870, with it actually being faster than a 5870 more often than not and in some cases it is even competitive with the GTX480. Given that the 5870 generally still outperforms the 6870, the 4870x2 should beat a 6870 easily.

As long as you're going into it with full knowledge of the heat output and power consumption of the card (the ONLY card that is worse than a GTX480 in both of those areas) then I don't think you will be disappointed. They really haul ass.

Regarding DirectX11, there should be no issues running any DirectX11 game on 10.1 hardware via the down-level paths built directly into the API. You would miss out on tessellation and you would be using shader model 4.1 instead of 5 but beyond that you'll be good to go.

All that being said maybe you could try to talk him down to more like $150 or $160? The fact is that there ARE a lot of newer cards out now, which might not beat a 4870x2 in performance but sure do when it comes to efficiency. That in itself isn't enough reason not to get a 4870x2 but it's reason enough for him to sell it to you cheaper... I bought both of mine for about $200 each but that was over a year ago.
 
If I use those two pics the diffence seems not marginal, like 10%. Also for a retail price of 240$, it's 50$ more for 10% less. The features and the consumption is great anyway, but it's not really my priority.

perfrel_1920.gif


perfrel_1920.gif
 
@GotNoRice

Thx for the buying advice, I'll probably get the 4870x2. I know CF is not perfect, but I want to try it. I like to try funny ways to get the most perf for the bucks.
 
im the guy with the 4870x2. i just sent you another PM john. imo, the 4870 is THE best card out right now. imo. i really dont care about heat and power consumption, because my room is always cold and i dont pay my electrical bill. the noise was a big problem for me, but after replacing the thermal pads and TIM i cut it in half at least. as far as price and performance, this chart says it all. about even with a 480 that costs over $400 for less than $200? thats insane value. i dont personally care for dx11, as i play shooters almost exclusively at 2560x1600, and for me framerate is way more important than tesselation and realistic water and that nonsense. i loved this card, as it was just so freaking powerful for a price that i can afford even though im currently unemployed. unfortunately, im also a small form factor freak and the sweet sfx psu from silverstone is only 450W, not enough to power the 4870x2. i had to downgrade to a 5850 which is regrettable, but necessary.
 
johndh1 said:
@GotNoRice

Thx for the buying advice, I'll probably get the 4870x2. I know CF is not perfect, but I want to try it. I like to try funny ways to get the most perf for the bucks.
Click to expand...

If you have issues with the drivers try the 10.3. The seem to be as good as it got for this card.
 
ekuest said:
im the guy with the 4870x2. i just sent you another PM john. imo, the 4870 is THE best card out right now. imo. i really dont care about heat and power consumption, because my room is always cold and i dont pay my electrical bill. the noise was a big problem for me, but after replacing the thermal pads and TIM i cut it in half at least. as far as price and performance, this chart says it all. about even with a 480 that costs over $400 for less than $200? thats insane value. i dont personally care for dx11, as i play shooters almost exclusively at 2560x1600, and for me framerate is way more important than tesselation and realistic water and that nonsense. i loved this card, as it was just so freaking powerful for a price that i can afford even though im currently unemployed. unfortunately, im also a small form factor freak and the sweet sfx psu from silverstone is only 450W, not enough to power the 4870x2. i had to downgrade to a 5850 which is regrettable, but necessary.
Click to expand...
Hell yeah!!
4870x2's FTW!!
My old girl tosses games around at ease @ 1920x1200, and it really isn't that loud to me. It may suck power but atleast I have money in my wallet, and a better video card than most of what's out today. The 295 needs to come down to like $220 to since it's marginally better and marginally more efficient.
 
also try 10.5a drivers if you are having problems. this is the most stable driver ive used personally.
 
The 6870 is slightly faster than the 5850. On new games like Civ 5, the 6870 will absolutely crush the 4870x2. But on older games the 4870x2 might win as long as the crossfire support for the game was fairly good. Honestly, I'd recommend single fastest gpu every time if possible. Some games just do not offer good CFX or SLI scaling.
 
vjcsmoke said:
The 6870 is slightly faster than the 5850. On new games like Civ 5, the 6870 will absolutely crush the 4870x2. But on older games the 4870x2 might win as long as the crossfire support for the game was fairly good. Honestly, I'd recommend single fastest gpu every time if possible. Some games just do not offer good CFX or SLI scaling.
Click to expand...

This isn't the first time you've implied that games such as Civilization V will run slower on older hardware, but where is the proof? Throwing around unsubstantiated theories only adds to people's confusion.

Here are some Civilization V benchmarks:
http://www.techspot.com/review/320-civilization-v-performance/page9.html

Notice the performance of the 4890 compared to the 5770. Performance appears to be exactly where it should be between the two cards (as in, no significant performance penalty on the 4890 just because it isn't DX11). So why would you think the 4870x2 would perform slower than normal compared to other games?

You can take it even further, and look at what happens when you disable tessellation:
http://www.techspot.com/review/320-civilization-v-performance/page8.html

The 4890 ends up stomping even the 5850. Seems to me that the game runs just fine on older hardware. If you want to make a big deal over not having Tessellation then fine, I personally think tessellation is overrated, but don't pretend like a DX11 card is going to be magically faster for no reason.
 
GotNoRice said:
This isn't the first time you've implied that games such as Civilization V will run slower on older hardware, but where is the proof? Throwing around unsubstantiated theories only adds to people's confusion.

Here are some Civilization V benchmarks:
http://www.techspot.com/review/320-civilization-v-performance/page9.html

Notice the performance of the 4890 compared to the 5770. Performance appears to be exactly where it should be between the two cards (as in, no significant performance penalty on the 4890 just because it isn't DX11). So why would you think the 4870x2 would perform slower than normal compared to other games?

You can take it even further, and look at what happens when you disable tessellation:
http://www.techspot.com/review/320-civilization-v-performance/page8.html

The 4890 ends up stomping even the 5850. Seems to me that the game runs just fine on older hardware. If you want to make a big deal over not having Tessellation then fine, I personally think tessellation is overrated, but don't pretend like a DX11 card is going to be magically faster for no reason.
Click to expand...


Here are the graphs for 1920*1200, 4xMSAA for both tessellation on and off


With Tessellation
http://www.techspot.com/review/320-civilization-v-performance/page6.html

Without Tessellation
http://www.techspot.com/review/320-civilization-v-performance/page7.html

I'm not sure why you chose the two that you did to draw a comparison...
 
none of these graphs have a 4870x2 on them, so theyre really no help to the OP. also, he hasnt even said what resolution it will be used at.
 
6870 would be better I think, if Crossfire doesn't scale then you basically will have 4870 performance. Then again for $190 that's a lot of bang for your buck. Maybe you can get the seller to throw in a radiator to cool this beast to sweeten the deal.
 
The 4870x2 is actually a terrific upgrade at that price. I have one and am thinking of adding another if I can find a good deal.

My problems are the 620W corsair power supply which I probably need to upgrade before I add another and the fact that if I add another Pcie video card then this mother board reverts to 8x 8x speed.

I want to see what the new 69 series does-and see what the price of 2 of them will be. I would never get the 6870 though as that does not feel like a large enough upgrade for the price.
 
jzodda said:
The 4870x2 is actually a terrific upgrade at that price. I have one and am thinking of adding another if I can find a good deal.

My problems are the 620W corsair power supply which I probably need to upgrade before I add another and the fact that if I add another Pcie video card then this mother board reverts to 8x 8x speed.
Click to expand...

Just trust me on this one, don't bother getting a second 4870x2. Radeon Quadfire scaling blows chunks.
 
vjcsmoke said:
Just trust me on this one, don't bother getting a second 4870x2. Radeon Quadfire scaling blows chunks.
Click to expand...

FACT. wait for 6950 xfire. the 58XXs scale great, so if thats any indication then 69XX xfire should be awesome. sucks for those of us with only one pcie slot. :/
 
ekuest said:
FACT. wait for 6950 xfire. the 58XXs scale great, so if thats any indication then 69XX xfire should be awesome. sucks for those of us with only one pcie slot. :/
Click to expand...

Not if you plan to get the 6990. :-P
 
vjcsmoke said:
Radeon Quadfire scaling blows chunks.
Click to expand...

It's really not that bad. It's certainly not perfect but it's better than a baseless throw-away claim would imply.

For one, you have to keep in mind that benchmarks of quad crossfire configurations are nearly always done using the fastest card that is out at the time (dual GPU solutions such as the 4870x2 and the 5970) and getting two of them. In these situations you're already talking about a LOT of GPU power even with just one card. The only way you would ever have great scaling in that situation is if you were somehow in a situation where you could make sure no other component was the bottleneck as you added that 2nd card.

Most systems would already be very close to or already CPU limited with just one 5970 so adding a 2nd is of course going to give less than optimal results. Then you see reviews of 5770's in tri-fire for example, and everyone is raving about how they somehow have better scaling than the top end cards. No it's not that they scale better, it's that they are individually less powerful and you won't hit the CPU bottleneck as fast thus allowing them to scale better. I mention those cards mainly because reviews of 4870x2 in quad crossfire all date back to 2008.

Fortunately the same is true when you're talking about older configurations like 4870x2 quad crossfire. They really come alive with a faster processor yet even with my Q9650 @ 4.4ghz I still feel like I'm holding back their full potential at times.

Almost every game I play has scaling in quad crossfire that is just fine. In newer games like Battlefield: Bad Company 2, 4870x2 quad crossfire will give you performance surpassing that of the 5970. It even works in older games that you wouldn't even expect to work like World of Warcraft and anything based on the source engine (Counter-Strike: Source, TF2, etc). The games that have scaling issues that aren't actually CPU bottneck or other issues really are few and far between. If one of those games happened to be a game you spent all your time playing I could understand that being a show-stopper but the chances of that are slim.

jzodda said:
My problems are the 620W corsair power supply which I probably need to upgrade before I add another and the fact that if I add another Pcie video card then this mother board reverts to 8x 8x speed.
Click to expand...

8x/8x shouldn't be a problem at all as long as you're talking about a reasonably modern board with PCI.E 2.0 slots.

But that 620w would probably shoot fire out the back trying to power two 4870x2's. If there is any reason NOT to get two of these cards it's because of heat and power reasons, not performance reasons.

powerkaw.jpg
 
Hopefully I'm not late to the party on this thread, but I would avoid the 4870x2. I had previously run 2x4890s in Crossfire and the headaches associated with the dual GPU set up were not worth it.

I ultimately ended up switching to a single (but heavily overclocked) 5850, and while yes, performance is down in benchmarks, the real world gameplay differences are nominal at best.

However, I now have a much quieter/cooler system that performs well in virtually any game I throw at it. With the 4890s, when they worked, it was fantastic, but 25% of the time I ran into crossfire issues.

Personally, I would pony up the extra $50 and pick up a 6870 at ++++.
 
Brampton_Boy said:
Hopefully I'm not late to the party on this thread, but I would avoid the 4870x2. I had previously run 2x4890s in Crossfire and the headaches associated with the dual GPU set up were not worth it.

I ultimately ended up switching to a single (but heavily overclocked) 5850, and while yes, performance is down in benchmarks, the real world gameplay differences are nominal at best.

However, I now have a much quieter/cooler system that performs well in virtually any game I throw at it. With the 4890s, when they worked, it was fantastic, but 25% of the time I ran into crossfire issues.

Personally, I would pony up the extra $50 and pick up a 6870 at ++++.
Click to expand...

what about the hundreds of people on this forum who love their xfire setups and dont have any problems? the "problems" are the heat and power consumption, and moderately good scaling. there was a problem earlier this year where the fan speeds were all messed up, but that was fixed a couple months ago with a driver release.
 
I owned a 4870x2 and was pleased with the performance although the driver support was subpar. Some games showed great framerates while most others seemed to only utilize one core. It was a beast as far as power consumption was concerned. I would recommend a newer card, it just always felt buggy to me. I moved on to a 4890 and am much happier not having to tweak my settings before loading any game. Just my 2 cents.
 
There's a 5870 for $50 more on Newegg, I'd get that as it supports DX11 and you don't have to mess with CF. The Zotac 470 for around $200 is nice, overclocked it should be better than an overclocked 5870.
 
Brampton_Boy said:
Hopefully I'm not late to the party on this thread, but I would avoid the 4870x2. I had previously run 2x4890s in Crossfire and the headaches associated with the dual GPU set up were not worth it.
I ultimately ended up switching to a single (but heavily overclocked) 5850, and while yes, performance is down in benchmarks, the real world gameplay differences are nominal at best.
However, I now have a much quieter/cooler system that performs well in virtually any game I throw at it. With the 4890s, when they worked, it was fantastic, but 25% of the time I ran into crossfire issues.
Personally, I would pony up the extra $50 and pick up a 6870 at ++++.
Click to expand...
What headaches??

That's_Corporate said:
Take it from a 4870x2 owner; Wait for the 6970.
I won't be buying another dual chip card again.
Click to expand...
Do you know how to install drivers right?? The first advice is good, since there's nothing out right now that's worth getting over a 4870x2 for the money (and almost at all)


infin@ said:
I owned a 4870x2 and was pleased with the performance although the driver support was subpar. Some games showed great framerates while most others seemed to only utilize one core. It was a beast as far as power consumption was concerned. I would recommend a newer card, it just always felt buggy to me. I moved on to a 4890 and am much happier not having to tweak my settings before loading any game. Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...
lolwut, I bought a 4890 and it couldn't touch my 4870x2.
Even if the 4870x2 had bad scaling, I never saw it because in those situations even the one and a half 4870 was MORE than enough power.

PersonalJ said:
There's a 5870 for $50 more on Newegg, I'd get that as it supports DX11 and you don't have to mess with CF. The Zotac 470 for around $200 is nice, overclocked it should be better than an overclocked 5870.
Click to expand...
This is good, just sucks as if you ever want SLI another you're going to need a new PSU for the 9/10 people with only a 750W or lower.
 
As another poster aptly said, my experience with CF was "buggy".

Metro 2033, Starcraft 2, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood had issues utilizing the second card. In other games, I would experience random crashes that I had originally attributed to my CPU being heavily overclocked.

However, once I switched to the single 5850, all those issues vanished. Don't get me wrong, majority of the time, the CF setup was amazing, but I just don't think it is worth investing money in technology from 2008.
 
iviyth0s said:
What headaches??
lolwut, I bought a 4890 and it couldn't touch my 4870x2.
Even if the 4870x2 had bad scaling, I never saw it because in those situations even the one and a half 4870 was MORE than enough power.
Click to expand...

I never said it outperformed my 4870x2. In many games however, my 4890 was close performance wise due to lack of crossfire support, or just strange issues that many driver refreshes couldn't remedy. Sure my 3dmark score dropped sharply but my overall gaming experience improved. I was merely stating that in my experience dual chip cards were a headache, and buying this particular card over a never better single chip card would be an ill advised venture.
 
You guys are not going to convince him. He is set on buying the 4870x2.

Put up some more cash and buy 2 6850s

or just buy 1 6870 and overclock it. The 4870x2 is a great card, but its also an old card and it doesnt make sense to spend money on it just because its crossfire. Its just not worth it at this time to spend 190 on old technology.
 
Yeah I always keep drivers up to date.

It's not the performance I minded, it was the heat, crashing due to over-temps, having to open it up and clean out the dust frequently, power usage, insane fan noise, etc.

I'd do a dual GPU setup, just not on the same card.
6970 in crossfire I think is where the money is at. But we'll see what the 6990 looks like.
 
I have a 4870x2 and was wondering if anyone playing FFXIV also has low FPS? Does the game utilize the second GPU
 
infin@ said:
I never said it outperformed my 4870x2. In many games however, my 4890 was close performance wise due to lack of crossfire support, or just strange issues that many driver refreshes couldn't remedy. Sure my 3dmark score dropped sharply but my overall gaming experience improved. I was merely stating that in my experience dual chip cards were a headache, and buying this particular card over a never better single chip card would be an ill advised venture.
Click to expand...
So what about the games that do need the extra performance, I never know if I'm getting bad scaling or not because I've always had smooth gameplay so far.
The 4890 may be equal with the 4870x2 in the crossfire unfriendly games (and if you're lucky those games will be less intensive) but when something intensive comes along (usually crossfire works great here), then you can actually crank the detail.

Brampton_Boy said:
As another poster aptly said, my experience with CF was "buggy".
Metro 2033, Starcraft 2, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood had issues utilizing the second card. In other games, I would experience random crashes that I had originally attributed to my CPU being heavily overclocked.
However, once I switched to the single 5850, all those issues vanished. Don't get me wrong, majority of the time, the CF setup was amazing, but I just don't think it is worth investing money in technology from 2008.
Click to expand...
Idk, maybe I jumped on it right at the right time. I bought my 4870x2 when it came down to like $230 maybe a year or so ago and have loved every bit of it. (I'm no lab rat ;) )

2wiced said:
You guys are not going to convince him. He is set on buying the 4870x2.
Put up some more cash and buy 2 6850s
or just buy 1 6870 and overclock it. The 4870x2 is a great card, but its also an old card and it doesnt make sense to spend money on it just because its crossfire. Its just not worth it at this time to spend 190 on old technology.
Click to expand...
old technology that competes with the top dogs :rolleyes:

That's_Corporate said:
Yeah I always keep drivers up to date.
It's not the performance I minded, it was the heat, crashing due to over-temps, having to open it up and clean out the dust frequently, power usage, insane fan noise, etc.
I'd do a dual GPU setup, just not on the same card.
6970 in crossfire I think is where the money is at. But we'll see what the 6990 looks like.
Click to expand...
the heat's fine, I run mine on auto fan setting and under normal load it gets up to like 85C. I don't mind, the GPU can handle temperatures in excess of 105C without ever damaging anything. The fan was never loud or annoying to me, the 460 my cousin owns, however, does ;)

Sounds like you had a bad card, mine has never crashed due to overtemps.

Power usage is a worthy argument but then again people still buy 470s and 480s right??

Sky15 said:
I have a 4870x2 and was wondering if anyone playing FFXIV also has low FPS? Does the game utilize the second GPU
Click to expand...
judging how the game has nvidia's logo on it, I'd expect to wait a little bit before you get more performance. I remember my card didn't like the pre-release's demo benchmark.
 
iviyth0s said:
So what about the games that do need the extra performance, I never know if I'm getting bad scaling or not because I've always had smooth gameplay so far.
The 4890 may be equal with the 4870x2 in the crossfire unfriendly games (and if you're lucky those games will be less intensive) but when something intensive comes along (usually crossfire works great here), then you can actually crank the detail.
Click to expand...
You make a valid point. Games that are crossfire friendly the x2 competes with most current single chip cards. I just don't see why you would want to go with a card that may only compete with current single chip options in games that are "crossfire friendly." I'd take a minor drop in framerates any day for consistent framerates in any game.

Don't get me wrong, the 4870x2 was and is a great card.....when it works. It just frustrated me seeing my framerates in certain games.
 
infin@ said:
You make a valid point. Games that are crossfire friendly the x2 competes with most current single chip cards. I just don't see why you would want to go with a card that may only compete with current single chip options in games that are "crossfire friendly." I'd take a minor drop in framerates any day for consistent framerates in any game.

Don't get me wrong, the 4870x2 was and is a great card.....when it works. It just frustrated me seeing my framerates in certain games.
Click to expand...
Yeah but why would you downgrade, I could see your case for say, getting a 5850 or an extreme case of 5770 (aka roughly one 4870 with Dx11). But to goto a 4890 from a 4870x2 doesn't make sense because it's like playing with bad scaling 4870x2 except the one core is slightly overclocked (and you don't gain anything but possibly some overclocking headroom). Ya know what I mean?
 
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