4870X2 Compared to Newer Cards

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hazexban

2[H]4U
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Oct 20, 2004
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Hi,

Sorry if this a dumb question. I have tried searching and referencing TomsHardware charts but it seems all the comparisons are against cards in SLI or CF.

My question is the 4870X2 still pretty awesome comparatively speaking? I have been running it for about 2 years now and I think it might be acting up so I was thinking of replacing it with something "better." But is there anything out there that is predominantly better?

Also as far as my card goes it always seemed that since day 1 the card always sagged a bit under its own weight towards the back. I think this is the cause of my current problem where the fan speed would just drop and the video output would stop. I think I have remedied this by creating a temporary support brace that holds the rear of the card up. If I don't experience any trouble for a couple of weeks I will assume that was the problem and I fixed it.

But anyway, is there any worth while upgrades to the 4870x2 or should I just hold tight. I should mention I only play League of Legends and SC2 and both games seem to look and play smooth and great. I am probably more processor limited than anything, Q6600 at 3.2 ghz.

Thanks!

Pete
 
4870x2 ~ 5870 for the most part. Just look at benchmarks with that in mind. If you're happy with what you have, don't upgrade. The longer you wait the better the upgrade will be. And if you wait a bit longer, you'll most likely want a new processor at the same time so you'll maximize your upgrades.
 
if the game scales, its pretty much on the level of the 5870. But you dont have DX11 and you have higher power consumption.
 
I'm in the exact same boat. Haven't seen any real reason (other than no scaling issues and less power usage in the 5870, or slightly more performance but similar heat and power consumption in the gtx480) to upgrade. Even tho those are real benefits, I just don't see them being worth the cost as of yet. I could look at a SLI or Xfire setup but that's one of the main reasons I want to "upgrade", I'm tired of dealing with it.

I'm really hoping the 6xxx cards from ATI really impress performance wise and come out relatively soon as it seems nvidia's refreshes are still quite a bit away.
 
All the games still play great with crossfired 4890s for me. Even the new medal of honor beta is pretty smooth still. Just keep your setup until something twice as fast comes out.
 
OP what drivers are you using? I'm having a terrible time playing SC2 with catalyst A.I enabled, crippling performance down to 20 fps.
 
When I get home tonight I will let you know. I'll also list full specs for you to get a comparison though I am not rocking anything cutting edge right now.

Thanks for all the replies, making me feel better that as long as my card is not crapping out on me I have something to stick with for a while.
 
I'm currently sporting a 4870X2, and I hate it, not taking anything aware from the card I most likely got a bad one but it seems 90% of the games I play I have to disable catalyst AI, and when I don't it stutters to all hell, extremely high temps even with a fully cable managed antec 1200 and the fan is just blistering loud
We built a computer today for a friend that had a 5850 and I swear, even at the same resolution (1920x1200) it ran twice as smooth as I have ever ran it, waiting for the the 6XXX series upgrade of the 5870, one bad experience with a dual GPU card is enough for me!
 
Its quite odd to have those issues with HD 4870X2, while microstuttering is evident with any current multi GPU solution in the market, its quite easy to avoid it by simply turning on V-Sync and Triple Buffering, also the HD 4x00 series has better scaling than current HD 5x00 series, so it shouldn't be an issue with current games, try to update your drivers, chipset drivers (Some Intel chipset drivers may cause stuttering), and if you have a game that doesn't scale with Crossfire, use RadeonPRO tool, works like a champ.
 
Here are my specs, will get driver info tonight

Running Windows 7 64
MB:ASUS P5Q-E LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
CPU: Q6600
RAM: OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066
PS: CORSAIR CMPSU-1000HX 1000W
Video: VisionTek 900250 Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
Cooling: XIGMATEK HDT-RS1283 120mm CPU Cooler
 
I would love to know the difference between IQ of the 4 series to the 5 series. I plan on upgrading soon and need something more to get me excited.
 
Zaner said:
extremely high temps
Click to expand...

What do you consider extremely high temps?

WaTaGuMp said:
I would love to know the difference between IQ of the 4 series to the 5 series. I plan on upgrading soon and need something more to get me excited.
Click to expand...

Nothing that I've been able to observe, unless you're talking about a specific feature that the 5-series has that the 4-series does not such as tessellation.
 
GotNoRice said:
What do you consider extremely high temps?



Nothing that I've been able to observe, unless you're talking about a specific feature that the 5-series has that the 4-series does not such as tessellation.
Click to expand...

Nope just overall better IQ. I am sure DX11 will look better, but then again also depends on the game.
 
For now, the games that are currently using DX11 is Metro 2033, Dirt 2 and Battleforge, and the quality difference is because it uses Tessellation, nothing else. DX11 is basically a superset of DX10.1, a more lean, efficient and faster API with Tessellation support, that's it.

Plus in general IQ, both shares similar IQ, while the HD 5x00 series has angle independant AF, there has been some fuss around of the horrible mip map transitions due to a bug related to its smaller texture cache which is about 8kb compared to the 16kb the HD 4x00 has.
 
if you are having problems with your 4870x2 card, you should be on driver 10.5a. ive had problems aswell if cat AI is enabled, or crossfire (i have 2 x2's) and the only fix was to run 10.5a. anything newer is busted imo for this card.
 
Seems a little strange to have a hot fix driver for a card that's been out for so long. This is the kinda thing people who love to bag on ATI drivers must drool over.
 
GotNoRice said:
And you've tried the 10.9a hotfix drivers released specifically for these cards?

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/ATICatalyst109Hotfix.aspx

I'm using these right now and they work great.
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I was using 10.4A, SC2 was running great, but I thought I'd try the newer 10.9A. SC2 performance went to crap with those drivers. I would get intermittent severe stuttering. Went back to 10.4A and SC2 runs great again.


I like 10.4A over 10.5A because 10.5 they added a change that makes memory clocks run at full speed all the time if I overclock my GPUs, which I don't really care for.
 
I like my 4870x2 as far as the hardware goes but the drivers are crap, and a new ATI (AMD) card isn't going to improve that situation. I am on the 10.3 drivers and a lot of people agree that the 10.4a is about the last usable driver released for it. I personally feel no need to upgrade and don't think anything currently available is worth the money to replace it. Maybe another generation or 2 from now.

And to the OP yes a Q6600 at 3.2 is a bit limiting. It you can get it over 3.5 then it wouldn't be too bad. I used to run mine at 3.6. Wasn't a huge difference over 3.5 but a nice boost over 3.2.
 
Well I do think my card is in the shitter. Playing LOL it did the whole stopping video output and the fan throttles down a to a crawl. I am going to take the card out, and clean it real well and try reapplying thermal paste and see if that helps.

I'd rather not have to replace it now so I can wait till better things come out.

Also I am running 10.8 drivers.
 
Please share your results with us, I recently bought an used HD 3850 256MB for my spare Athlon 3800+ PC and it uses the single slot cooler reference, and it used to reach up to 97C on Furmark, I removed the cooler, removed some dust bunnies that it had (Wasn't really that dirty), removed the thermal paste and placed some Shin Etsu TIM, and now never exceeds the 94C threshold with Furmark, if I was able to get some gains with such single slot crappy solution, you should be able to have better results, just make sure to put a slightly smaller than pea sized amount of the TIM on the center of the GPU, enough to cover the whole die area once you reinstall the cooler.
 
At 1900x1200, my GF's 5850 single or dual, just works better than my 4870x2 in single, dual or quad GPU configs. I've made some posts in the FFXIV areas regarding benches and such. Smoother and prettier are both seen on the 5850. As you can see by my sig, our systems are the same minus SDD flavor and GPU flavor.

I've found that the 10.5's still perform better than the 10.9a. Using RadeonPro from Radeonpro.info and configuring Alternate Frame Rendering works.

I have also found that renaming the game.exe file to 3DMark06.exe and making an mklink to the renamed file helps.

I'm ready to dump my X2's for the 6xxx series as soon as the performance cards are out.
 
Obviously, the HD 4870X2 will be slower than a pair of HD 5850, theorically, two HD 4870X2 are faster than two HD 5850 cards, but due to driver, scaling and micro stuttering issues, that's not gonna happen. You can see games running at over 80fps, but the microstuttering is quite noticeable in some scenarios, something that triple buffering can fix.

PS: RadeonPRO is a very nice tool.
 
Just got Dirt2 and Metro2033 and still looks pretty damn good on my 4850x2 2gig. Dirt2 i can max out but metro I cant go past 1600x1200 4xaa :(

Guess ill wait till people sell their used GTX480 or something.
 
I had problems with my 4870X2 as well, though I think mine was defective. Bought it when they were released and just sold it two months ago. Mine would hang on boot every now and then at the windows splash screen (about once every 10 boots or so). Once into windows it was solid in everything I threw at it. The boot issues and the heat the thing produced finally led me to sell it and upgrade. Guess it did last me a while though.
 
Well the card really shit the bed last night, my pc would just be acting up like crazy.

So I just said WTF, I took the card out, took it completely apart down to the bare PCB and cleaned everything. Redid thermal paste on the GPU's and put it back together again.

And what do you know, card seems to work like new. Been thinking about watercooling my rig so I might get full block for the card. I already have some WC parts, so maybe I will take the plunge..

Thanks again for all the info, hope the rest of you get your cards going ok.
 
hazexban said:
Well the card really shit the bed last night, my pc would just be acting up like crazy.

So I just said WTF, I took the card out, took it completely apart down to the bare PCB and cleaned everything. Redid thermal paste on the GPU's and put it back together again.

And what do you know, card seems to work like new. Been thinking about watercooling my rig so I might get full block for the card. I already have some WC parts, so maybe I will take the plunge..

Thanks again for all the info, hope the rest of you get your cards going ok.
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glad to hear it. but I would not WC that card, its already two years old and the 6900 are coming out (or the 6800 if the rumors of the number change isn't true). even if you don't upgrade there isn't a lot of point to getting a specific water block for it given its age. (if I recall the blocks for the 4870X2 does not work with any other or future cards, you should not take my word for that though)
 
Valset said:
glad to hear it. but I would not WC that card, its already two years old and the 6900 are coming out (or the 6800 if the rumors of the number change isn't true). even if you don't upgrade there isn't a lot of point to getting a specific water block for it given its age. (if I recall the blocks for the 4870X2 does not work with any other or future cards, you should not take my word for that though)
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I was having the same thought actually and the blocks are all very pricey. To WC and than possibly upgrade would be a waste of money. I also am led to believe that the blocks would be 4870x2 specific. I will probably just WC my processor for now.

Good insight there.
 
If you do want a block for the x2 I'd try the forums, do a wtb post. I know when I usually upgrade my full coverage blocks rarely sell and just end up sitting around (like my 4870x2 block most likely will once I upgrade this next round).
 
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