AMD Radeon HD 4800 Series @ [H]

I was really afraid every1 was dropping ati reviews, lately, there have been little reviews by ATI cards, but, great review, Bring on more reviews of 9800 GTX+,4870,4850 GTX260 GTX280, in more games.

Bring in World in conflict(seriously nice looking :D) and Cod4 perhaps, and another title perhaps, i thinks its too few games thats getting tested tho, but anyways, you guys @ [H] is as suprised as me, nvidia's prices are damn high, the 9800 GTX is much retailed higher than 4870 :p but is supposed to match the 4850, meaning, half the price then.

Anywayz, bring in CF and SLI performance. Due to ATI going the Paralell version, a 4850CF vs GTX280 should be the right to compare i guess, except that price is almost half for ati's offering.


And can you guys add fan noise comparison of the new series, and the 9800 GTX+ when it comes.

There is noooo doubt whats going to be the main players in town now.


9800 GTX+ GTX260 GTX280
4850 4870(only ones that rule atm, wait for NV to push prices down folx)
 
Another thing, no World in Conflict? Id imagine that in DX10 mode the game is pretty demanding on the gpu.Not complaining or anything, but WiC is one of my most played games and it kicked the crap out of my other cards.
 
good review, excellent editorializing. i was a little disappointed that you didn't compare CF and SLI with the new cards, but i'll live. i mean, i think it's a no-brainer this round, since two 4870s can be had for the price of one GTX 280 and should blow it out of the water.
 
Awesome review. I can't wait to see the reviews for the 1GB models and the x2 model.

shiznit said:
You might think its funny, but 125fps cod4 players have a serious advantage, look at the .cfg files of the pros, they are all set up for 125fps.
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lulz
 
Great to see AMD bring much needed fresh air and balance back to the world of high end PC hardware. I'm quite interested to see how the architecture evolves over several product cycles, and as to whether or not AMD fills the CF performance holes. The prospect of ditching nForce boards when Nehelem hits for a high end CF rig is tempting indeed.
 
It's really great to see so much excitement from everybody. I'm feeling a bit sad that I decided to bypass the $149 4850 deal from Best Buy.
 
Stoly said:
I don't think 3 or games showcase overall gpu performance, but I see your point. [H] puts a lot of work to make their reviews and although I'd really like to see more games tested, I realize that it would take more time and resources, and probably the end result might not be different.
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So do you think the research we have using real gameplay is insufficient to support our overall opinion about the 4800 series?
 
yea i agree with deadskull id like to see some oc with maybe an AC acellero s1 rev2

my experience with sapphire has not been good i question their thermal paste theres a chance it might just be paste

this should really help them recover the cost of amd buying ati and the intel x38/x48 chipsets not supporting sli should help some

great price for a card that will play new games with good settings on a resolution you could only get from a monitor that cost more then half of what you spent on your rig i wonder what they will release for performance between the 3870 and 4850 i game on 1680x1050 and most of my friends who game on their hp or dell use 1280x1024 people on that res would still have great performance with a 4850x.5 or a 4850x.75 400 or 600 sp's is pleanty

edit: im still very curious about how well the 4850/70 will do ppd wise in fah
 
Any particular reason the tests on the GTX 260 were done with with 177.26 drivers again? The 177.34 drivers have been available for quite a while and 177.35 WHQL drivers for Vista 64 have been available for a week. :(
 
Thanks for the review. The AoC results were very interesting.

Is there any chance you might add or do a follow up Image Quality comparison with side-by-side screenshots? I'd love to see how fine details are rendered on each card (4850, 9800 GTX, 4870 and GTX 260) in various games.

Thanks again.
 
james__bean said:
Any particular reason the tests on the GTX 260 were done with with 177.26 drivers again? The 177.34 drivers have been available for quite a while and 177.35 WHQL drivers for Vista 64 have been available for a week. :(
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Two reasons crop up in these cases. First and foremost is that a new driver release does not mean a performance advantage. If a new driver does not impact our gameplay testing, we generally do not retest if already have that data done. Second reason would be time restraints. We are not afforded easy retesting like the guys that use the canned benchmarks that take 60 seconds to run.
 
Silus said:
One thing though. In your conclusion, you mentioned that the GTX 280 has memory bandwidth of 169 GB/s while the GTX 260 has 141 GB/s. Aren't those values incorrect ?
Shouldn't they be GTX 280 = ~141 GB/s and GTX 260 = ~111 GB/s ?
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They made a mistake.

What you pointed out is correct.
 
shiznit said:
I forgot to specify, I was referring to Age of Conan. It's just a bit odd that the curves match up so perfectly in apples-apples and yet the GTX 260 gets to use 2xAA and longer distances, maybe the 4870 catches up at 2560x1600?


You might think its funny, but 125fps cod4 players have a serious advantage, look at the .cfg files of the pros, they are all set up for 125fps.
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Why do they set it up to 125fps? Does COD4 have same issues as CS:S as with in server registry for bullets?
 
onedestinazn2 said:
am i the only one that didnt get a masseffect with my visiontek 4850
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AFIAK, the VisionTek 4850 doesn't actually come with the game. The package is a cross-promotion and says "The Ultimate Visual Experience for Mass Effect," but it doesn't say anything about including the game.

This may be a mistake in the article.

Included in the bundle is a CrossFire connector bridge, DVI to VGA adapter, HDMI adapter, HDTV cable and you will also find the game Mass Effect.
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If I were running things, and I am not :p, I would reduce the price of the GTX 260 while bumping it's clock up to 620-640. I'd raise the GTX 280 to 670-690 and slightly reduce it's price.
 
I'm going to be a cheapskate and wait for $299 + free ship.

I liked [H]'s review only disappointment was to see the GTX260 still slightly beating the 4870 in Crysis. Still, faster than my 8800GTX and a lot cheaper.
 
I know that Radeon 4850's with stock cooling run obscenely hot. I mean like.. you touch it, get ready to run cold water and put ointment on your finger(s).

good cooling would likely yield great results... no way these things can overclock running as hot as they do.
 
Heat/Fan issues: Are the new bioses out yet?


DeadSkull said:
Why do they set it up to 125fps? Does COD4 have same issues as CS:S as with in server registry for bullets?
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CoD4 has a Quake 3 kind of thing going on, the higher your FPS, the higher and longer your jumps. A great player with 60 average is going to be screwed against a player of equal skill with 125 average, so if you can get that with higher graphical details? All the better.
 
Good review guys! :) I enjoyed it.

While I understand what you mean by "We want to get the games that stress the GPU the most", I'm more interested in games that I actually play. In a way, it's just like testing 3D mark, but with actual games, if nobody plays the games you test, right? It's like nobody can play 3D mark, but it's stressing, so you should test it? idk. I guess I would like to see some more multiplayer games, I know Quake 4 can get a bit heavy with shadows and a full server, Quake Wars can at times, too.

But other than the games, great review! :) I just with I had the money for these new cards! :p
 
Wonder how long until the BB stores get the cards. With a 10% off coupon that would be a screaming deal.
 
Now if only there were some games I wanted to play that demanded more video card oopmh :( I keep think OHHH I want one! but... wtf am I going to play that I can't already? lol. Stinkin console stifling computer gaming.
 
hmm, review looks good.

im gona get rid of my 8800GT and pick up a 4870 :D

ive always had a soft spot for ATI (from the 9700/9800 days), even though my last 3 cards have been nvidia
 
One thing I still don't get is with this new gpu testing is that all of the testing is done in single player mode but has any review site yet gone online in a game and tested how well the gpu performs in online multiplayer fps game in an average server. 100+ fps for COD4 in sp is nice but from my experience online gameplay pushes your gpu even further and sometimes you'll have trouble keeping your fps above 50 b/c the server is complete crap or the guy you're shooting at is running on an fx 5500 and he's jumping all over the place. You think your brand new 9800gtx or 4850 or even 4870 demolishes hl2, cod4 or cs:s in sp or stress tests just go into any average server and see how well your gpu performs when you're in the middle of 5 other guys unloading ak/m4 rounds into each other. Since now pretty much every pc game is built around online multiplayer why isn't anyone doing tests in online multiplayer environment. Just my little rant from online experience in bf2 / cs:s. Personally I think if [H] started including those tests in their future reviews, the site would gain even more following from average to hardcore online gamers who are looking to increase their edge in multiplayer gaming.
 
Kyle and Brent - This is the best review I have read in quite a while. Kudos and props to both of you! Just to echo a couple of the comments we've already seen - I'd like to see a little more variety in the games used for testing. Try and represent as many genres as possible given your time constraints - e.g. Crysis for FPS, Supreme Commander or World in Conflict for RTS, maybe World of Warcraft for RPG? I know games like WoW and COD4 can be maxed with almost all of today's hardware, but there are still parts of the game (like Shattrath in WoW) that can run sluggish.
 
Excellent review.

I've actually changed my upgrade plans. I'm going with a single 4850 for now. When the 3rd party makers release upgraded 4870's with 1 GB ram and extra cooling I'll be picking one up, and I guess my wifes comp gets a free upgrade with a 4850 (now her Sims 2 peeps will really shine lol).

The review did bring one thing to mind for me though. You do realize that this puts Nvidia in quite a predicament. They have to walk a very fine line here with their line up. Nvidia will be trying to market their upcoming 9800GTX+ as a better card than the 4800 series. At the same time they will have to be careful that the 9800 doesn't get to close to the 200 series (otherwise who in their right mind would buy a 200). In the end the consumer wins and it's looking more and more like I made the right decision to stay away from the $600+ cards. Nvidia doesn't have much room to play with here between the 9800 and 200 series, lets just say I bet we are going to be seeing some hypocritical PR marketing from Nvidia (as in on the one hand they will be saying how wonderful 200 series is, then turn around and contradict themselves by saying look at how great our 9800GTX+ is). It seems to me that you don't need to buff the 9800 much to equal the 200 series.
 
So I'm guessing when Assassin’s Creed was tested, it was without DX 10.1? It would have likely given all the ATI cards a nice boost. Seems fair since anyone using one of those cards would not install the latest patch that removes it, and how sleazy Nvidia is for getting Ubisoft to remove it.
 
Just ordered two Visiontek's from BB. I'm a little concerned about limitations of 512mb at 1920x1080, but am sick of seeing my new components just collect dust. I can always hawk the cards once 4870 X2 or the 1024 version comes out.

Problem: in my rush, I completely forgot I'd need a Crossfire bridge. Any ideas if a bridge comes with the cards or where I could buy one?
 
harmattan said:
Just ordered two Visiontek's from BB. I'm a little concerned about limitations of 512mb at 1920x1080, but am sick of seeing my new components just collect dust. I can always hawk the cards once 4870 X2 or the 1024 version comes out.

Problem: in my rush, I completely forgot I'd need a Crossfire bridge. Any ideas if a bridge comes with the cards or where I could buy one?
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you'll get two bridges
 
harmattan said:
Just ordered two Visiontek's from BB. I'm a little concerned about limitations of 512mb at 1920x1080, but am sick of seeing my new components just collect dust. I can always hawk the cards once 4870 X2 or the 1024 version comes out.

Problem: in my rush, I completely forgot I'd need a Crossfire bridge. Any ideas if a bridge comes with the cards or where I could buy one?
Click to expand...

The bridges come with the cards
 
DeadSkull said:
One thing I still don't get is with this new gpu testing is that all of the testing is done in single player mode but has any review site yet gone online in a game and tested how well the gpu performs in online multiplayer fps game in an average server. 100+ fps for COD4 in sp is nice but from my experience online gameplay pushes your gpu even further and sometimes you'll have trouble keeping your fps above 50 b/c the server is complete crap or the guy you're shooting at is running on an fx 5500 and he's jumping all over the place. You think your brand new 9800gtx or 4850 or even 4870 demolishes hl2, cod4 or cs:s in sp or stress tests just go into any average server and see how well your gpu performs when you're in the middle of 5 other guys unloading ak/m4 rounds into each other. Since now pretty much every pc game is built around online multiplayer why isn't anyone doing tests in online multiplayer environment. Just my little rant from online experience in bf2 / cs:s. Personally I think if [H] started including those tests in their future reviews, the site would gain even more following from average to hardcore online gamers who are looking to increase their edge in multiplayer gaming.
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which is what makes cod4 a great gpu test, it may not bring the card to its knees but it is still severely gpu limited and huge framerates are highly desirable because of how the engine works in multiplayer.
 
Hey did you guys happen to notice what the GPU usage was in AOC when running the ATI cards? There is a well known problem (see AOC forums) with ATI cards running at only 30-50% GPU usage tops, and Im wondering if that is fixed with either these new cards or with your beta drivers.

Did you/could you run the the AOC tests with the WHQL 8.6 cats on the 4870/50???

I have a 3870 and although my CPU never goes above 50%, and my GPU never goes above 30-50%, I only get in the low 20fps in cities, etc...
 
Loved this,
We Needed This

Video card buyers needed this, gamers needed this, even hardware websites needed this. Competition is good, so very good. It drives down cost, and gives a kick in the butt to keep companies innovating. NVIDIA was riding a wave of dominance for about 7 months. Now things seem to be changing, the waves are rolling again, and they seem to be moving in a positive way again towards AMD.
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Good job guys. When I read the possible speed of GDDR5, I went Oh....
The 4870X2 with the memory scaling up... :)
 
Good stuff as usual and like the poster a few posts back the "no bullshit" last page of conclusions needed no "reading between the lines". Outstanding.

Now wth do I tell the customers I talked to last week that the 9800 was the way to go /arrrughhhhh.
 
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