Zardon

Well as you know we published our R700 preview a while ago and we have several 4870 x2's in our hands for the full review coming up shortly.

Anyway I have a 4870 X2 running in skulltrail right now, and while im under NDA until launch day they wont mind me sharing a few thoughts.

1: the 4870 X2 is ATi's best product in the last few years, without a question. Sure its high end but its seriously landing them right up there again with Nvidia with regards to performance.

2: The drivers are really good now, I havent had a single problem over the weekend with all the leading games. The card is a monster to hold but its surprisingly quiet and I notice temps are never over 70c (extended load) in a good airflow case (55c idle).

3: IQ is top notch. Seriously, at 1920x1200 or 2560x1600 this card delivers the goods.

4: Game example? Half Life 2 Episode 2 on Skulltrail (8x4.2ghz), 16GB ram, single card, 1920x1200, 8MSAA, 16af, all settings maxed out in game, I was averaging 170fps through most of several levels with peaks over 300fps and never dipped once under 110fps.

5: Time to try two of them later on the Skulltrail board? why not.......

Make sure you guys check out our full review coming up in the next few weeks....... This card is one to watch out for especially if its hits the price ive been reliably informed it will... £299.............

kris23

Z your machine is beyond the limits of our imagination....

hows crysis with it?

and how much is £299 in USD?

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Zardon

well its not really "my" machine. Intel let me have it and i test things for them with it. its rather quick to say the least. ive it watercooled however and pimped out..

I am not sure the USA retail price of the 4870 X2, I was just told the expected UK price, although dont quote me as it might be slightly different. I am taking an educated guess that it might be correct at £299 inc vat UK. USA? well I dont know under $500?

seriously though it has been a long time since ATI have really impressed me, this is just a killer card on all levels.

I tend to stick with Nvidia in my own systems at home but I could quite happy switch to this for full time gaming and entertainment.

brutusmaximus

heh thats like 5k of hardware, funny

Yeah i liked your preview on the 4870 X2 Zardon but isnt it pretty flaky with ATI drivers in the system? I mean the last ATI card I had it crashed left, right and center. I can only guess what the drivers are like.

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Mousey

Is Skulltrail ever gonna come out in the uk Z?
I haven't seen it anywhere :/

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Zardon

Yeah, its out, just hard to get. the processors are around a thousand pounds each and you can see limited availability of the motherboard for around £400 on scan Scan Computers UK: Intel Skulltrail, i5400 Express 771x2 PCI-E (x16) DDR2 ECC/Non-ECC 800MHz, SATA II, SATA RAID, E-ATX

Its not really a mass market thing to be honest, more a lesson in how awesome intels engineering is

Any of you guys contemplating the 4870 X2?

kris23

i will buy a 4870 x2 with my imaginary money.....

man im so broke....

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H82LUZ

Will these cross fire with the 4870 and give good performance? Also is the cards gonna be that sexy black pcb ?

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Zardon

I haven't tried mixed crossfire myself but yes it should work perfectly fine with those two cards.

Sexy black pcbs are a possibility but the ones I have or have seen are red, im guessing some partners might decide to release black versions.

sammorris

If the 3870s were anything to go by, Mixed crossfire should work well.
Zardon - where did you hear about the £299 RRP for the cards? I was planning on using a standard 4850 crossfire setup, but given that price, I'm not so sure now.

The main reason I was put off the 4870X2 was because I like my PC silent, which the 4870X2 will clearly upset, and I'm doubtful third party coolers will pop up for it.

Since I own a crossfire board (X38-DS4), a normal 4850 or 4870 setup seemed logical. However, the slight problem with that is the resolution I use - 2560x1600.
I've seen the performances posted by the HD4870X4 combinations and they're fabulous.

Early days yet, as until I get a job or start uni (student loan.. hehe) I won't be able to afford a single lowly 4850, but the price you posted for the 4870X2 has maybe made my dream of a crossfire X PC a little more tangible. It'll be as noisy as sin, but I could probably afford to turn my old fileserver into a quiet workstation PC, and have a monster crossfire rig to run games like Age of Conan and Crysis.

Has any site other than HardOCP touched on 4870 crossfire X?

Zardon

for 2560x1600 gaming Sam, yes 4870X2 x 2 is the way to go.

We have played with two of the cards yes, but we want to wait until we publish the final review on launch day, rather than include it in the previous preview.

Stunning cards I have to say, these will put ATI back firmly on the map, they deserve to be big sellers.

As for the £299 inc vat price tag thats what I was told by a very good source so hopefully it comes to fruitition. If that happens it will be a serious bargain. 2 years ago a card like this would have been £500.

And actually I have one of the new bioses on this card and its reasonably quiet which surprised me.

mkk

Hot cake, it should sell like.

sammorris

Very interesting indeed. I'm looking forward to it. Could potentially be a struggle getting one of these to fit in my NZXT Lexa case though, let alone two of them.

The price tag of the cards is mindblowing really, even one HD4870 is matching last year's best SLI combinations, the 4870X2 is mincing the GTX280 in all the prelim benches I've seen.

Do we know roughly when the UK release is going to be for these cards? I appreciate it's not something you can just go and ask, but to put this in an extremely literal manner,
omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgwant!
lol

For the quietness though, I'm a bit of a silent PC geek. The stock HD3870 cooler at idle was 'a bit noisy' in my eyes, so that should put it into perspective. I like my PC dead quiet so I can work in peace, and leave it running overnight for downloads etc. (I sleep in the same room as my PC). However, given the big power consumption these cards are going to have at idle, I may have to start using an alternative PC for light work to save on the electricity bill.


Do you know if the 4870X2 has a decent idle power consumption, or is it huge like the 4850's?
Oh and also, 299 inc. or + VAT?

Zardon

well you need to know what im saying is what ive heard from various sources in AMD partners or in the company itself.......... with any big launch however, prices etc can change at the last minute but I have heard £300 inc vat. however even if it changes to pre vat its a good price considering the performance.

As for noise, and wanting a silent system you would be hard pressed to have a high end system with 4870 X2 x2 and have it silent overnight for downloading. You would be best investing in a cheap laptop for that, you can pick them up even secondhand for £199 now.

I don't like noise myself which is why the skulltrail is watercooled, and I use all large fans like 200mm or 240mm as well as a few 120mms over buffered memory and chipset. In this scenario I couldnt audibly hear the X2, however you may very well have more sensitive ears than me and be in a different environment.

sammorris

Indeed, however, my system currently runs a 3.15Ghz E4300 and an HD3870 and apart from the regrettably noisy hard disks, is dead silent, which I'm quite proud of. I'd have the means to carry this on with a pair of 4850s, but the 4870X2 will obviously throw that out. However, I have another PC I may well turn into my 'silent' PC and let my gaming PC make some big noise....

I was under the impression the Skulltrail had a noisy chipset cooler, but I may have got that confused with something else. I know someone with quite a good watercooling system in his gaming PC, but quiet as it is, my air-cooled PC is quieter still, and he's had a lot of grief with watercooling, some Thermalright heatsinks and I'm happy.

Whether it's £300 or £350, the 4870X2 will be an excellent performer for the price. I can only hope that Overclockers don't buy the whole UK stock of them and overcharge because of that fact, like they usually seem to.

procupine14

Yeah 4870x2 is going to be .

Now where is all that money raining form the sky that is going to score me a crossfired set?

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Zardon

in relation to the earlier question, mixed crossfire does work. I experimented with a 4870 and a 4870x2 earlier and crossfire X is enabled with a warning that they arent matched cards.

sammorris

TechReport certainly seemed to have good results mixing an HD3870 and HD3870X2, the performance was right where you'd expect it to be.
Realistically though, if you've already bought an HD4870X2, since both cards require two power connectors, you may as well get another X2, if it's as cheap as we're hoping...

Zardon

Very true. It is worth pointing out however that the 4870 x2 just takes two six pin power connectors. the X2 takes one eight and one six. I am positive they run ok with 2 sixs (havent tested that yet), however you would just lose overdrive.

Judas

if i recall right..

you had to have the 8pin power for using the overdrive options.. otherwise using the 6pin would result in only the card operating with default values.

2x 4870x2's would be a pretty nasty draw on power lol.. but i would venture a guess that it would be less then that of the hd2900xt's in crossfire...

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Zardon

Yes, thats what I said.

Judas

sorry for whatever reason i missed that

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Zardon

you upgrading to the X2's ? I know you tend to only buy ATI.

H82LUZ

I am looking at the 4870x2 + 1 4870 option,Or maybe just wait one more week and get a 2nd 4870 for $200,Some places here in Canada have them ranging from $284-$329 price rang (4870) So getting the 4870x2 would be good.

Zardon does the mix Cross fire scale well ? Or does the X2 get put to say 3 4870`s ? thanks AMD/ATI for so many options and great cards....

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Judas

the scaling i've seen so far in reviews says it quite good.... not perfect.. but quite good.

just makes sure you've got a powerful enough psu to run more then the x2

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Zardon

Well I really can't go into massive specifics here as our article will be going up in the near future.

On Skulltrail with a 4870X2 and a 4870 I noticed gains yes. I certainly wouldnt say they were massive gains, but frame rates increased yes. Obviously this is still very driver specific and im sure this will improve in time.

It is a nice option for the end user I think and I like the way ATI are offering mix and match systems.

H82LUZ

Ok thanks Zardon will be looking for that review next week,But might just get a 2nd 4870 ($281 for a Sapphire ) And just save up until I can get the 4870x2.

Judas i think my Enermax 850 DXX Galaxy can handle it,Seen a pre-review yesterday and they had 2 4870 and they switched to a 1 X2 and 1x 4870.

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Zelig

Hey Z,

Do you see dual-gpu cards as being gimmicky still, or are they essentially equivalent to running a dual card setup?

And where do you see a market for dual-gpu cards? High end parts only, and will they eventually dominated the high end market?

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Zardon

I dont think "gimmicky" is the right word. they do have an issue however, which will be total reliance on the driver. In theory if a new title arrives and there is no driver support, you are looking at a possible 50% performance.

I don' think its a perfect solution by any means but this really is the first card in a long time from ATI that I would happily have in one of my own systems.

sammorris

Hmm, when i first ran 3870s in crossfire it was very tedious and unreliable, it finally became useful around the release of Catalyst 8.5. Hopefully the 4870s won't have such an uncomfortable warmup period. Even if they do, we're looking at much faster cards to start with.