HIS ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB IceQ4+ Turbo

Fallout 3 benchmark, just above the first picture

"how well each graphics card handles explosions and congested ."

Congested what? :p

I had the 4870 placed in my mind as close behind/partially on par with the GTX280...but the recent driver developments seem to have changed this...
Certainly the GTX285 changed it.

Hmmm, I was hoping to go the ATI way but without crossfire (and yes that counts X2's)
But there is quite a gap forming.
Maybe I can hope for a surprise for the next CeBIT...

would the reviewers mind telling me how long this card is, in cm? I'm specing out a SFF.

Originally Posted by Xir
I had the 4870 placed in my mind as close behind/partially on par with the GTX280...but the recent driver developments seem to have changed this...
Certainly the GTX285 changed it.

Hmmm, I was hoping to go the ATI way but without crossfire (and yes that counts X2's)
But there is quite a gap forming.
Maybe I can hope for a surprise for the next CeBIT...

i hope that you are surprised, as the 4870 seems to have been with us for a while, so maybe now ati is due to release something new, as i thought i heard somewhere that they were looking to move to the release of hardware every 6 months or so, which is pretty agressive imo but keeps all the companies pushing innovations at a faster rate. i may be totally smeggin wrong though :P

i think the final scoring for the card was fair, it does nothing to add to the 4870 imo, if i was buying, i'd get the stock and by a third party cooler with preferably a 120mm fan and then oc it with ease, as i wont have to contend with noise!

peace

fatman

According to the HIS website (seriously, this card is the second result if you search for HIS),

Card Dimension 12.5 x 25 x 4 cm (HxWxD)

Anyway, I echo Xir's comment that the ATI cards seem to be dropping in performance compared to the Nvidia ones, it seems odd. Maybe it suggests that they had been lazy on the drivers front at the beginning because they thought they would have such a performance lead.

:o No 4850 coverage! I know its not in the same market segment as the 4870 but popular non the less, would have been nice to see comparison from a judging upgrade perspective :)

Originally Posted by Cupboard
According to the HIS website (seriously, this card is the second result if you search for HIS),


Anyway, I echo Xir's comment that the ATI cards seem to be dropping in performance compared to the Nvidia ones, it seems odd. Maybe it suggests that they had been lazy on the drivers front at the beginning because they thought they would have such a performance lead.

or, maybe ati got their drivers almost right in the first place, and nvidia's were sooo gash that they suffered from it, so now after their faffing they have released lots of new drivers and pushed their cards performance right up! just an alternative perspective, plus nvidia moved their chips to 55nm production, or something like that?!

peace

fatman

A nice card for sure, but just like most 4870's. Ive just upgraded to a 260 XFX Black Edition ... and probably paid slightly more than I could have if I went down the ATI route.

However, having had ATI driver problems with games in the past, and reading about bunches of people online with driver problems still (even if the drivers are much more stable now)... I just didnt want any of that hassle anymore. (Plus I heard the 4870 cards ran real hot)

Originally Posted by lewchenko
A nice card for sure, but just like most 4870's. Ive just upgraded to a 260 XFX Black Edition ... and probably paid slightly more than I could have if I went down the ATI route.

However, having had ATI driver problems with games in the past, and reading about bunches of people online with driver problems still (even if the drivers are much more stable now)... I just didnt want any of that hassle anymore. (Plus I heard the 4870 cards ran real hot)

AMD sacrificed noise for higher temps.

In terms of performance, we added an extra frame per second at 1,280 x 1,024 0xAA 16xAF in Crysis with all of the in game settings tuned up to very high. The minimum frame rate also received a boost - it went up from 15 fps to 18 fps, which should help to make the gaming experience a bit smoother at these settings.

Hmm, I am not the most brilliant of people when it comes to the technical side, but couldn't you have picked a better way of checking how this overclock helps? I am quite sure, that at this resolutions with no AA the benefit of a big memory overclock doesn't quite manifest itself like it should - and of course maybe I am just imagining that it might show itself much better in another game with 1920x1200 with 4/8x AA applied.

Other than that, great review :)

Hi Kris,

I was looking to see if the card could actually run the game with Crysis set to very high because at its default clocks it can't. But your point is also very valid as well. :)

Hehe Tim, good point - since Ati cards tend to be notoriously underperforming compared to nvidia when it comes to Crysis. Although so far from all the reviews i've seen, no clockboosting seems to much help with Crysis, it still performs like a stubborn donkey at the market, so to speak. :)
But then again, looking at the percentages, from 15-18 is a very solid 20% boost to the minimum fps :)