Post by Yoon on Jun 25, 2008 16:56:37 GMT -5
If you thought the Radeon HD 4850 was great, wait till you see the Radeon HD 4870! The Radeon HD 4870 was officially unveiled earlier today, and it packs quite the punch for a card of it's price. With the NDA lifted, all the major tech sites have posted their reviews, which you can find links to below.
From Anandtech. The Radeon HD4870.
Reviews:
AnandTech
Ars Technica
Bjorn3D
Expreview
HardOCP
Hardware Canucks
Hot Hardware
MadBoxPC (Spanish)
PC Perspective
TechReport
TweakTown
From TechReport. HD 4870 outperforms the GTX 260 in Crysis by a small amount.
From Expreview. HD 4870 nearly matches the GTX 280 with high levels of AA/AF on.
From Anandtech. HD 4870 outperforms the GTX 260. HD 4870 in CrossFire fly past everything else!
I really did not expect this level of competition from ATI at all this summer. Before the HD 4850 came out, I thought that HD 4850/4870 would offer minimal performance improvements over the previous HD3850/3870 series, as rumored specs were not that impressive. Boy, was I wrong.
ATI managed to beat out nearly everyone's impressions and completely shocked the hell out of nVIDIA.
In the reviews of the HD 4870 around the web, the HD 4870 outperforms the $399 USD GTX 260 in most games. It even matches (or outperforms) the $649 USD GTX 280! This is especially true, when AA & AF are enabled.
Another incredible fact is the price! With the HD 4870 listed at $299 USD and it's performance level, no one should even consider looking at the GTX 260, which is currently going at $399 USD for a $100 more. Granted, nVIDIA may likely be forced to drop the GTX 260 to match the HD4870 at $299, but even that won't be enough, as the HD 4870 already defeats the GTX 260. Also, two HD4870s at $299 are cheaper than a single GTX 280 and offer much faster performance!
PROS:
* Competitively priced at $299 USD. Closest rival (GTX 260) currently priced at $399 USD.
* Outperforms the $399 USD GeForce GTX 260 in most games.
* Sometimes matches or outperforms the $649 USD GeForce GTX 280 in certain scenarios.
* Outperforms the GeForce 9800 GTX/GTX+, GeForce 8800 Ultra/GTX/GTS 512MB, HD3870 X2, and HD3870.
* AA and AF have been improved and fixed over the previous HD2xxx / HD3xxx series.
* Supports DirectX 10.1 features.
* Two HD 4870s in CrossFire are cheaper than a single GeForce GTX 280 and outperform it in nearly all cases.
CONS:
* Low availability of cards until mid July.
* 1 GB HD 4870 cards will likely be much more expensive than the 512 MB models.
* Outputs a lot of heat.
* Consumes more power at idle than the GTX 260/280 video cards.
* Two HD 4870s in CrossFire consumes a lot of heat.
It's great to see that high-end ATI products are once more competitive with nVIDIA high-end cards. After the AMD-ATI merger and the release of the dismal Radeon 2900 XT and concurrent releases after, it seemed for a while that AMD/ATI would not be able to catch up with nVIDIA. However, the Radeon HD 4850/4870 completely shatters that notion, as seen from their performance against similarly priced nVIDIA cards.
The big shocker is that AMD/ATI is not done yet this summer, as they have a secret weapon against nVIDIA, called the Radeon HD 4870 X2, coming out in August. Given today's performance of the HD4870 CrossFire, it's very likely that it will completely defeat the GeForce GTX 280, once and for all.
From Anandtech. The Radeon HD4870.
Reviews:
AnandTech
Ars Technica
Bjorn3D
Expreview
HardOCP
Hardware Canucks
Hot Hardware
MadBoxPC (Spanish)
PC Perspective
TechReport
TweakTown
From TechReport. HD 4870 outperforms the GTX 260 in Crysis by a small amount.
From Expreview. HD 4870 nearly matches the GTX 280 with high levels of AA/AF on.
From Anandtech. HD 4870 outperforms the GTX 260. HD 4870 in CrossFire fly past everything else!
I really did not expect this level of competition from ATI at all this summer. Before the HD 4850 came out, I thought that HD 4850/4870 would offer minimal performance improvements over the previous HD3850/3870 series, as rumored specs were not that impressive. Boy, was I wrong.
ATI managed to beat out nearly everyone's impressions and completely shocked the hell out of nVIDIA.In the reviews of the HD 4870 around the web, the HD 4870 outperforms the $399 USD GTX 260 in most games. It even matches (or outperforms) the $649 USD GTX 280!
This is especially true, when AA & AF are enabled.Another incredible fact is the price! With the HD 4870 listed at $299 USD and it's performance level, no one should even consider looking at the GTX 260, which is currently going at $399 USD for a $100 more. Granted, nVIDIA may likely be forced to drop the GTX 260 to match the HD4870 at $299, but even that won't be enough, as the HD 4870 already defeats the GTX 260. Also, two HD4870s at $299 are cheaper than a single GTX 280 and offer much faster performance!
PROS:
* Competitively priced at $299 USD. Closest rival (GTX 260) currently priced at $399 USD.
* Outperforms the $399 USD GeForce GTX 260 in most games.
* Sometimes matches or outperforms the $649 USD GeForce GTX 280 in certain scenarios.
* Outperforms the GeForce 9800 GTX/GTX+, GeForce 8800 Ultra/GTX/GTS 512MB, HD3870 X2, and HD3870.
* AA and AF have been improved and fixed over the previous HD2xxx / HD3xxx series.
* Supports DirectX 10.1 features.
* Two HD 4870s in CrossFire are cheaper than a single GeForce GTX 280 and outperform it in nearly all cases.
CONS:
* Low availability of cards until mid July.
* 1 GB HD 4870 cards will likely be much more expensive than the 512 MB models.
* Outputs a lot of heat.
* Consumes more power at idle than the GTX 260/280 video cards.
* Two HD 4870s in CrossFire consumes a lot of heat.
It's great to see that high-end ATI products are once more competitive with nVIDIA high-end cards. After the AMD-ATI merger and the release of the dismal Radeon 2900 XT and concurrent releases after, it seemed for a while that AMD/ATI would not be able to catch up with nVIDIA. However, the Radeon HD 4850/4870 completely shatters that notion, as seen from their performance against similarly priced nVIDIA cards.
The big shocker is that AMD/ATI is not done yet this summer, as they have a secret weapon against nVIDIA, called the Radeon HD 4870 X2, coming out in August. Given today's performance of the HD4870 CrossFire, it's very likely that it will completely defeat the GeForce GTX 280, once and for all.
