RSS Feeds
Hardware
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 Previewed: ATI's Fastest Single Graphics Card Ever
Posted by Matt Buchanan at 6:40 AM on July 17, 2008
ATI fanboys, your time may have come with the R700-based Radeon HD 4870 X2. It's a US$500 multi-GPU card that basically straps together a pair of Radeon HD 4870s with 2GB of onboard memory to create ATI's fastest single card ever. (It's not your imagination, they're really stepping with the Nvidia-killing, which is sweet.) Benchwise, it actually beats Nvidia's monster GeForce GTX 280 running in SLI in a couple of games, like Age of Conan.
One of the most fundamental changes in the R700 cards--which are two RV770s with a PCI Express switch connecting the the two and double the memory--is that the GPUs actually communicate with each other, whereas past CrossFire configs had both cards basically rendering their own sections independently, then combining them. AnandTech says it's not entirely clear how much communication there will be, but there will definitely be more than there was. Also, the drivers still need to come up to spec to let the card truly shine, but the hardware is totally in the right place. [AnandTech]
Tags: amd | ati | gaming | graphics | graphics cards | hardware | pcs | radeon
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Saad Baig
Posted 7:31 AM 17/7/08
wow! Everything is talking over each other lol
Saad Baig
exobite
Posted 7:27 AM 17/7/08
and it looks good enough to be next to a ferrari
exobite
ninjagin
Posted 7:24 AM 17/7/08
Finally, my time has come! Funny, I thought it might come back when I could drink beer after 10:00 pm and had naturally low cholestrol, and actually played more computer games. Whatever. I'll keep this in mind for my next rebuild, whenever that comes.
ninjagin
TBM-Fan
Posted 7:23 AM 17/7/08
Wait they put a 4 way crossfire against 2 Nvidia 280GTX in SLI??
it seems not fair, i rather see 4 Nvidia 280GTX against the HD 4870 x2 in crossfire mode
then we could see the real winner
HD 4870 x2 means 2 cores on 1 card and Nvidia has just 1 core on the card
the only nice part if a single card can use all of the 2GB of memory
TBM-Fan
evilkingteapot
Posted 7:20 AM 17/7/08
Is that a Dyson logo on the cooling fan?
evilkingteapot
D_Zarster
Posted 7:02 AM 17/7/08
oh boy! at $500 it looks like I found myself a replacement for my X1800! :P
D_Zarster
Log1c
Posted 6:54 AM 17/7/08
Consider also that all of these pre-release benchmarks are all running on at best beta drivers.
Its definitely an impressive card.
Log1c
Evangelion
Posted 6:50 AM 17/7/08
Nice!
Evangelion
bobide
Posted 6:48 AM 17/7/08
Oh boy oh boy oh boy!
bobide
vaca232
Posted 7:51 AM 17/7/08
@TBM-Fan: A Single HD4870x2 beat 2 GTX280's in SLI
vaca232
el_gordo
Posted 7:35 AM 17/7/08
@TBM-Fan: Actually I read something on the Tech Report website...
"We do know, however, that the two GPUs on the card don't share memory. The board has eight Hynix GDDR5 memory chips per graphics processor, four on the front and another four around back ...so each GPU has a total of one gigabyte of memory to call its own. Cumulatively, 4870 X2's effective memory size is still 1GB, since data must be replicated into each GPU's memory space."
[techreport.com]
el_gordo
Mr.DuckSauce
Posted 8:28 AM 17/7/08
Wow, now I want a ati card, good going ati.
Mr.DuckSauce
thesum
Posted 8:04 AM 17/7/08
God! This article sooo gave me a nerdgasm!
thesum
RigorMortis
Posted 8:36 AM 17/7/08
Thank god. I've always had hideous luck with stability using nVidia. Now I can buy an ATI card without any tradeoff.
RigorMortis
DanLar75
Posted 9:29 AM 17/7/08
@TBM-Fan: Who cares about the amount of cores? Its Money-Performance that is king! And the 280 is just to damn expensive!
DanLar75
DanLar75
Posted 9:28 AM 17/7/08
Spunk.. Well Crap!
DanLar75
TendoMentis
Posted 10:00 AM 17/7/08
BYO 64bit OS I guess....
At 2GB onboard RAM, using this on a 64bit system is a pre-requisite.
TendoMentis
NeoXY
Posted 10:03 AM 17/7/08
holy....crap
NeoXY
Cyfer911
Posted 12:56 PM 17/7/08
dunno if to buy since i bought 2400Pro which was a complete piece of shit. i did not expect to game on it but at least not destroying pc would have meen enough
Cyfer911
PR-0927
Posted 1:30 PM 17/7/08
It's amazing how ATI finally stole the crown back from nVidia. It had been four years since they lost it.
Not that I'm a fanboy. I think "fanboyism" is a moronic trend, and that just buying the better product makes sense. I previously bought nothing but nVidia (minus the ATI GPU in the Xbox 360), and now it looks like I'll be switching over to ATI.
It's sad how nVidia forgot how to compete after squashing ATI for so long. But the performance increase from the GeForce 8800 Ultra to the 9800 GX2 was pathetic, as was the "increase" (sometimes decrease) from the 9800 GX2 to the GTX 280. ATI got my money this time.
One HD 4870 X2 is beating GTX 280s even in SLI. That's pathetic nVidia.
I'll miss the "way it's meant to be played" thing though.
:P
- PR-0927
PR-0927
roflwaffles
Posted 2:12 PM 17/7/08
what happens if you run 4 of these in dual crossfire?
does the universe implode?
roflwaffles
mhlaxp
Posted 3:23 PM 17/7/08
@PR-0927: "One HD 4870 X2 is beating GTX 280s even in SLI. That's pathetic nVidia." You sure about that? HardOCP shows that two 4870 X2s in crossfire are lagging behind a pair of GTX 280s in SLI. Granted they're beta drivers but still it's a long way off from what you're claiming.
Ah well, good to see ATI back in the game. Looks like the next system I build will have one of their cards inside.
mhlaxp
KroKan
Posted 10:03 PM 17/7/08
4870 X2 2GB is really good, but wait for 4850 X2 1 GB. It will have similar performance and cost lower than 400$ :)
I believe that card will ban all these NVIDIA fans for eternity! :D :D
KroKan
leonard71
Posted 12:39 AM 18/7/08
8-pin and a 6-pin power connector? What PSUs come with two 8-pin power connectors? The one that they come with is used for the CPU. hmmmmmm
leonard71
rubicon_65
Posted 1:50 AM 18/7/08
@mhlaxp: If I remember correctly, the Crossfire drivers had some issues, and ATI's aware of them. The single card is very fast, though. Combine that with the lower price tag, and there doesn't seem to be any reason to invest in a 280 SLI setup at all.
rubicon_65
sisedi
Posted 1:30 AM 18/7/08
@mhlaxp: According to Anandtech, the R700 beat the 280 SLI in Age of Conan and beat a single 280 in multiple titles by a decent margin.
sisedi
mhlaxp
Posted 6:25 AM 18/7/08
@sisedi:
@rubicon_65:
Whoooo late. Looking closer at HardOCP too only the Crysis tests show that result. I've actually since decided it's going to be time for an upgrade soon. Thanks for the tips.
mhlaxp
alexban
Posted 8:01 PM 20/7/08
the hd 4870 x2 will have a bandwidth of 230gb/s the gx2 has only 130. so i thing the ATI card will beat the gx2 very good.also the card will have 1600 Stream processing, 4.8 Tflops and almost 2 billion transistors.IT WILL BE THE BEST
alexban