ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 @ [H]

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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AMD's ATI Radeon HD 4870 with 1GB of GDDR5 - AMD’s brand new ATI Radeon HD 4870 with 1GB of GDDR5 RAM is on the chopping block today. We throw two brand new games at it; Crysis: Warhead and Stalker: Clear Sky. We will directly the new 1GB Radeon HD 4870 to a 512MB Radeon HD 4870 and the newer GeForce GTX 260 video cards.

Yes, the 1GB Radeon HD 4870 is worth its cost and here is why.
 
Nice review, shows where the extra ram helps and that's with the higher rez and when you turn more eye candy on.
 
I just bought that card as well from a member here , it is one of the best things I have done for my computer.
Although I am hit with that damn DVI no video bug.
 
Great Review, I garnered quite a bit of Knowledge from the Article, and was on the Fence about going up to a Better Card. Now I'm really wondering if there will be an Apples 2 Apples Comparison between the HD4870 1 Gig Crossfire and the 4870 X2? Any Chance of That?
Also I'd like to see your Appraisal of the Asus EN9800GT UL SLI'ed and Pitted against the HD4870 1 Meg.
I was really surprised by just a Little Memory Increase could achieve, but the Topper is the Price Difference going up to 1 Meg.
 
yay! this makes me happy that i bought the 1gb powercolor card :)

i can play crysis warhead on enthusiast at 1680x1050 and 2xaa and average around 20fps :S just barely playable, but it looks soooooo good.

and that's without custom configurations.

great job on the article by the way kyle :)

i like the apples to apples comparison, because it gives a better idea of what's under the hood on the card, instead of the highest playable settings where they're usually all at different settings, but it does show what the card can do.
 
Wow. Make one editing error and you flip out? I am removing the offensively worded line now so in hopes that you will chill the fuck out. You guys can be real dicks sometimes. Ever think about asking a question civily instead of the outburst? - Kyle
 
yay! this makes me happy that i bought the 1gb powercolor card :)

i can play crysis warhead on enthusiast at 1680x1050 and 2xaa and average around 20fps :S just barely playable, but it looks soooooo good.
it does show what the card can do.

Wow and all this with 1 GB of VIDEO RAM... I wonder how much better it would be with 2 GB of video RAM... ;)

I mean $400+ for a video card with 2 GB of RAM that can't even play Crysis at high resolution with more than 20fps? Who are these video card makers trying to kid?

If you guys fall for this more video card memory is better than you are just like the APPLE fanboys who believe everything that Apple says and "It Just Works".
 
Great article guys. Things like these just keep pushing down the old GTX 260's price, closer and closer to me. :D

Typo fixed, thanks! - Kyle
 
Just as an FYI update since this article was apparently written: you can get a 4870 512MB card from the Egg right now for $239.99 after a MIR. That makes the price delta between the 512MB and the 1GB cards more like $50 vs. what was in the article at it's time of writing ($24?). Kyle, does this doubling of the price delta, in your opinion, alter your bottom line, or would you still suggest the 1GB card?
 
Just as an FYI update since this article was apparently written: you can get a 4870 512MB card from the Egg right now for $239.99 after a MIR. That makes the price delta between the 512MB and the 1GB cards more like $50 vs. what was in the article at it's time of writing ($24?). Kyle, does this doubling of the price delta, in your opinion, alter your bottom line, or would you still suggest the 1GB card?

To make your question/point stronger, over this last weekend the 512 was as low as $225 at Best Buy.
 
Wow. Make one editing error and you flip out? I am removing the offensively worded line now so in hopes that you will chill the fuck out. You guys can be real dicks sometimes. Ever think about asking a question civily instead of the outburst? - Kyle


OK, I chilled. But don't you think instead of simply tell me to chill the fuck out, how about you explain the self contradicting review?

In the Age of Conan page you show 1GB 4870 can run max at 0x AA and 16x AF at 1920*1200

"We tried to bump up to 2X or 4X AA on the 1GB Radeon HD 4870, but the performance wasn’t just there."

Then in Apple to Apple you shows 1GB 4870 running at 8x AA 16X AF at 1920*1200 at 41.2 FPS and is faster than 260, how is this happening? Explanations?

Edit: OK, read your edit, you got me totally wrong, it was't about one line you edited, that would be small thing and I won't even bother posting, but first you showed highest playable at 0x AA and 16x AF at 1920*1200, even commented on how it cannot handle 4x or even 2x AA, then you showed us it runs very well at 8x AA 16X AF at 1920*1200. This is a major problem.
 
at last 1 gb review nice job guys

ps : wow just wow 239 for gtx 260 its amazing how quickly prices changed thx to ati
 
Nice review, I was thinking of getting the 1GB 4870 a month ago, but I picked up the Palit Sonic 4870 512 due to price ($239) and previous 1GB card track records (plus it wouldn't perform too much better for me since I game in 1280x1024 on a 19").

Its too bad that the 1GB didn't do too much in the newest games, but nice to see that it lets you up the AA on some of last years games (still current technology after all). I think both Crysis and Stalker:CS are due some optimizing which may or may not allow this card to push the boundaries further over the 512.

btw, First Post :p -- been a reader for about 5 years though.

edit: anyone else notice that you can edit now? finally! hooray.
 
OK, I chilled. But don't you think instead of simply tell me to chill the fuck out, how about you explain the self contradicting review?

In the Age of Conan page you show 1GB 4870 can run max at 0x AA and 16x AF at 1920*1200

"We tried to bump up to 2X or 4X AA on the 1GB Radeon HD 4870, but the performance wasn’t just there."

Then in Apple to Apple you shows 1GB 4870 running at 8x AA 16X AF at 1920*1200 at 41.2 FPS and is faster than 260, how is this happening? Explanations?

Edit: OK, read your edit, you got me totally wrong, it was't about one line you edited, that would be small thing and I won't even bother posting, but first you showed highest playable at 0x AA and 16x AF at 1920*1200, even commented on how it cannot handle 4x or even 2x AA, then you showed us it runs very well at 8x AA 16X AF at 1920*1200. This is a major problem.

I should have noted, Bloom was disabled in the Conan AP2AP tests to allow us to run at high levels of AA to make that comparison happen. In the highest playable section Bloom is enabled to provide the highest in-game settings. I have editted the ap2ap page to include this information.
 
Interesting, I was expecting a lot more gains from extra vram in Crysis but that didn't happen.
Anyways thanks for a well written review.
 
Wow and all this with 1 GB of VIDEO RAM... I wonder how much better it would be with 2 GB of video RAM... ;)

I mean $400+ for a video card with 2 GB of RAM that can't even play Crysis at high resolution with more than 20fps? Who are these video card makers trying to kid?

If you guys fall for this more video card memory is better than you are just like the APPLE fanboys who believe everything that Apple says and "It Just Works".

umm, are you joking me?

it's crysis warhead, and ive got a "dated" system, so there's quite the bottleneck there. it isnt the card by a long shot.

and i only paid $300 shipped for it, so you can take your $400+ BS and take it somewhere else.

and a memory increase in a video card to 1gb does make a huge difference.

if this wasn't true, dont you think a gtx280 would still have 256mb of memory??
 
I should have noted, Bloom was disabled in the Conan AP2AP tests to allow us to run at high levels of AA to make that comparison happen. In the highest playable section Bloom is enabled to provide the highest in-game settings. I have editted the ap2ap page to include this information.

So which gives a better gameplay, Bloom with no AA or without Bloom but with 8x AA?
 
Again, a great review! Thanks!


Too bad GDDR5 memory was so expensive to put 1 GB on in the beginning when the 4870 came out, it does seem to help the card. Otherwise they could have added it on the cards as a choice when the series was released. I'm still very impressed with the performance of the 4800 series, for a chip that's smaller in size than Nvidia's.


I own now both a GTX 260 (192) and HD 4870 (512 memory), both are awesome cards. This cycle of videocards has been great! Performance is awesome and the prices are unbelievably low. I hope both Nvidia and AMD continue this way from now on.


I really enjoyed reading the review, thanks again.
 
I want it :]

Too bad [H] didn't test the power consumption. It seems that this new BIOS has lower voltages which resulted in lower temperatures and lower power consumption according to some people and one review.

Kyle, any chance of doing it? Pretty please? :) Brent can continue to lay the smackdown on sskk and you do it, deal? Hehe :p
 
I hadn't tryed Clear Sky in DX10 yet on my 4870, but when I got home today I used your recomendations, and it runs great, better framerates than I expected. Thanks for the review!
 
Disappointing AoC performance with bloom and AA. I thought the 1Gb card would be able to do at least 4xAA @ 1920x with bloom and full shadows. I run 4xAA|16xAF bloom, full shadows and the rest set to high fine @ 1920x on an "old" GTX 260. I've got ground quality radius maxed too. I was thinking about trying an HD 4870 1Gb and not so much now. I play a lot of AoC. My card can't do that well stock and can starting @ 660 on the core.
 
I wish I could see how Flight Sim X would perform with all these new video cards with the big caches of RAM on the video card. I run a 7800GT right now and am curious to how much better all these new cards run.
 
I hadn't tryed Clear Sky in DX10 yet on my 4870, but when I got home today I used your recomendations, and it runs great, better framerates than I expected. Thanks for the review!

That is really great to hear, real-world gameplay testing FTW!
 
ya know I have to wonder since I have never been privy to run a game at such high resolutions.... but GRID at the resolution you had.... do you really need AA lol

(don't mind me just a bit of envy going on)

But I would be curious to see what the diffrence is at such a high resolution

Ok I need to stop my self now... I bought waaay too much computer equipment this year lmao
 
oooo yea great review :) DEF. cant wait to get my 1gig 4870 this friday.

Now they need to hurry up with deneb
 
oooo yea great review :) DEF. cant wait to get my 1gig 4870 this friday.

Now they need to hurry up with deneb

I know.

I'm still debating on getting 1 HD4870 1GB now, or two 4850's again or a 4850x2 if they ever release it.

I'm excited. After I order my PSU/HDD next week I'm gonna have everything for my new build except my CPU/GPU.
 
nice review, ati'll keep driving the prices of the 260 down with products like this.
 
Excellant review, I've been torn over the 4870 1 gig, and the newer GTX 260. This has settled it for me. I prefer the ATI for my photo and video work, but was about to spring for the GTX 260 because of game performance, now I get my cake and eat it too.

Thanks
 
nice review, I would not have believed that the extra 512mb of ram would have made such a difference.

any reason for the discrepancy here? http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTU1OCwxMywsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q=

The single 4870 1gb has a better settings possible then the 4870X2 2GB. I am guessing a crossfire issue? the single 4870 1gb was certainly smoother

Yep, a crossfire issue, it would do just what the 512MB 4870 would do when AA was enabled on it, play smooth then slow down suddenly, then speed up again, it caused us to crash our car, thus making unplayable at 8X AA.
 
Who needs "God sunshine" to have an immerse gaming session!!! SM3.0 is good enuff fer me! DX9 with everything crank'd is smooth. Guess I should have waited for the 1gb version would have been able to use the AA in S:CS. Great review!!!:D
 
I was hoping this would be the 1gig 4850 review. I expected the 4870 to show increased performance, but does the 4850 have the horsepower to utilize it or is it a gimmick like earlier cards that could never use the additional memory.
I'm hoping it can, in a crossfire setup! In fact, I'm pushing my virtual wheelbarrow to NewEgg this weekend, and a pair of Asus 4850 1gb cards is on the list..
 
I am hoping for a blowjob. Did not get that either. ;)
 
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