An Early Peek At AMD's Radeon HD 4870 X2

Dr. Damage writes "AMD has quite a hit in the Radeon HD 4000 series. Coming up next is a product code-named R700, a high-end graphics card based on two 4870s paired together. TechReport has a preliminary look at how the card — to be called the Radeon HD 4870 X2 — performs. Nvidia could have one heck of a fight on its hands."

Comments

91+ degrees

[egnop]

Now that's a nice heater for the winter

Crysis benchmarks are very good

[unity100]

So good that there is no reason to choose the 30 cm long humongous and expensive 280 over cheaper 4870x2. what do you think ?

Re:Crysis benchmarks are very good

[jandrese]

Unless you were buying it today, since only one of those boards can be bought by mere mortals at this point. You are correct however that the G280 is really looking like a Spruce Goose for nVidia right now. I guess the 8800GTX really was a hard act to follow.

Re:1gb mem

[grasshoppa]

1Gb != 1GB

Re:Driver Support

[hr.wien]

It's time to drop this old complaint. In my experience this hasn't been the case since around the time the Radeon 9700 was king (in Windows). In fact, with the problems Nvidia has been having on Vista I'd say the opposite is closer to the truth. Driver stability just isn't a problem for ATI/AMD any more.

Quoting from TFA

[unity100]

However, playing with this early sample of 4870 X2 is a vivid reminder that we don't make these choices in a vacuum. The reality is that a single Radeon HD 4870 GPU is nearly fast enough to keep pace with the GeForce GTX 280. Even if you're running a game that lacks a driver profile or simply doesn't scale well with more than one GPU, the 4870 X2 ought to perform awfully well. And when it does get both GPUs going, as our results show, it's by far the fastest single video card we've ever tested. If this is how AMD rolls, it's hard to complain.

thats good news for gamers' wallets.

TFA discusses what women want?

[bugnuts]

... the X2's 1600 total stream processors have a peak computational rate of 2.4 teraflops. That's, erm, considerable--beyond the obvious graphics applications, that's the sort of computing power that may one day enable men to figure out what women want.

Allow me to note that the very idea of plugging a woman's desires into a matrix processing unit is precisely what women do not want. It simply won't work.

To effectively compute female emotions, you'd need something like a quantum computer where you get all possible results at once (and I do mean simultaneously), usually with lots of yelling, doors slamming, and things being thrown.

Re:TFA discusses what women want?

[pxc]

To effectively compute female emotions, you'd need something like a quantum computer where you get all possible results at once (and I do mean simultaneously), usually with lots of yelling, doors slamming, and things being thrown.

It's noble of you to suggest, but I don't have what it takes to risk my life for science.

Re:TFA discusses what women want?

[bill_mcgonigle]

To effectively compute female emotions, you'd need something like a quantum computer where you get all possible results at once (and I do mean simultaneously), usually with lots of yelling, doors slamming, and things being thrown.

Sorry, it's not that easy, though you're right - it's a quantum effect. Womanly wants operate according to the uncertainty principle. It is possible to figure out what a woman wants, but as soon as you do, it's no longer true. If you think you're about to figure out what she's going to want, and you may very well be right, then you can't know what she wants right now, so you're still wrong.

Re:radeonhd driver?

[MostAwesomeDude]

By the time they ship, we might have released working 3D drivers for these, through xf86-video-ati and xf86-video-radeonhd. Can't guarantee anything, though, since we don't even have the documentation, but I do know that there's been some NDA work going on already.

And yes, I AM a Mesa dev. :3

4800 running too hot?

[Xelios]

ATI's release drivers this time around were actually really good, minus one small problem. Default fan speed on all the 4800's was set way too low (20% I think) and the automatic fan speed control isn't working. As a result all the 4800's show some really high temperatures (75C+ idle). There's a work around for this until ATI releases a driver update to fix it (or at least let you set fan speed algorithms in the control center):

Make a profile in the Catalyst Control Center, make sure ATI OverDrive is enabled and check marked. Now find the profile files in:

C:/Documents and Settings/{user name}/Local Settings/Application Data/ATI/ACE

Open the profile you just created in notepad and change these lines:

<Feature name="FanSpeedAlgorithm_0">
<Property name="FanSpeedAlgorithm" value="Automatic" /> <--- Change to "Manual"
</Feature>
<Feature name="FanSpeedRPMTarget_0">
<Property name="Want" value="0" />
</Feature>
<Feature name="FanSpeedPercentTarget_0">
<Property name="Want" value="30" /> <--- 30 is quiet, 45+ for gaming
</Feature>

My 4870 still idles at 58C or so, but anything over 30% is just too loud for me to have running all the time. Swapping the thermal paste on the GPU has also produced some good results for people.

Re:4800 running too hot?

[schnipschnap]

In fact, the article addresses this issue, see this page

All of the Radeon HD 4800-series cards we've tested have produced some relatively high GPU temperatures, and this early X2 card is no exception. When we asked AMD about this issue in relation to the 4850 and 4870 cards now shipping, they told us the products are qualified at even higher temperatures (over 100 [degrees] C) and tuned for low noise levels. In other words, these temperatures are more or less by design and not necessarily a problem.

Why do you think it is too hot?

[Sycraft-fu]

You have a misconception about what temperatures should be. They should be whatever the manufacturer rates the part at. Not all parts have problems with high temperatures. My 8800 runs at about 90C and has done so for a long time, still works great.

Have some faith in the companies to test this. They have it run hot because it can run hot without ill effects.

Re:Video card prices vs Mac prices

[Yvan256]

Calling people stupid for buying a 1500$ Mac is okay but calling people stupid for buying a 400$ videocard is troll.

Typical slashdot.

Re:radeonhd driver?

[Evangelion]

Is there a place that has the current state of the Radeon support in the various drivers lined up that's possible for someone who isn't a developer to make sense of?

When I was putting together my current box last week, trying to figure out which card was better to get was a pain when it came to the AMD hardware. I ended up getting the GTX 260, because it was the best performing card that fit into my budget and I knew it would work fine under Linux.

I couldn't make any sense of the state of the drivers for Radeon hardware. I gathered that the radeonhd driver was the actively developed one, but RV7XX hardware wasn't listed as supported. The latest catalyst drivers didn't list support for the 4850/4870 either, so hearing that both drivers have working 3D support for a card not yet released is... not really odd, but the contradictions are symptomatic.

excuse me

[unity100]

thats one generation behind. 3870 is its counterpart, and beats it in terms of noise level and energy consumption (hence heat). this is 4870.

Nice and toasty

[Paradigm_Complex]

Apparently families used to gather around the fireplace in the winter. My family? We have a LAN party.