Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB Toxic

Written by Tim Smalley

February 23, 2009 | 10:54

Tags: #1gb #4870 #card #consumption #cooler #evaluation #hd #heat #overclocking #performance #power #radeon #review #rv770 #toxic #vapor-x #vapour

Companies: #ati #sapphire #test

Far Cry 2

Publisher: Ubisoft

Far Cry 2 is the latest first person shooter from Ubisoft and it's one of the most hotly-anticipated games of this year. While it continues the Far Cry franchise that Crytek started in 2004, Far Cry 2 is built on its own in-house engine and has no association to anything Crytek has worked on or is working on now.

The game uses DirectX 10.1 to improve anti-aliasing performance and quality. The improvements are made by reading the multisampled depth buffer in a single pass - something that was only introduced officially with DirectX 10.1. However, Ubisoft has also made the enhancements available to Nvidia hardware as well through a DirectX 10 extension.

We used the game's built-in benchmarking tool to measure performance in DirectX 10/10.1 mode - this provided a pretty accurate rundown of how various graphics cards perform and it shows off a lot of the game's special effects. We set every option to its maximum setting and tested at 1,680 x 1,050, 1,920 x 1,200 and 2,560 x 1,600 with various anti-aliasing settings.

Anisotropic filtering is controlled by the game's quality settings and forcing AF from the driver control panel does not have any effect on visual quality or performance.

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB Toxic Far Cry 2 - DirectX 10/10.1

Far Cry 2

1,680 x 1,050 0xAA, DirectX 10/10.1, Ultra High Quality

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB SLI
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB CrossFire
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260-216 896MB SLI
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 1,792MB
  • Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 1GB
  • Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB Toxic
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260-216 896MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
    • 92.8
    • 58.0
    • 90.8
    • 71.0
    • 90.6
    • 59.0
    • 83.4
    • 65.0
    • 80.9
    • 61.0
    • 73.2
    • 52.0
    • 55.0
    • 40.0
    • 52.0
    • 41.0
    • 51.1
    • 39.0
    • 49.8
    • 39.0
    • 46.5
    • 35.0
    • 44.8
    • 36.0
0
25
50
75
100
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Far Cry 2

1,680 x 1,050 4xAA, DirectX 10/10.1, Ultra High Quality

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB SLI
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB CrossFire
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260-216 896MB SLI
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 1,792MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB Toxic
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260-216 896MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
    • 82.7
    • 66.0
    • 74.0
    • 52.0
    • 73.8
    • 56.0
    • 73.6
    • 59.0
    • 67.1
    • 53.0
    • 57.1
    • 46.0
    • 48.7
    • 38.0
    • 45.0
    • 34.0
    • 41.1
    • 30.0
    • 40.5
    • 31.0
    • 39.3
    • 30.0
    • 30.6
    • 25.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Far Cry 2

1,920 x 1,200 0xAA, DirectX 10/10.1, Ultra High Quality

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB SLI
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB CrossFire
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 1,792MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260-216 896MB SLI
  • Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB Toxic
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260-216 896MB
    • 86.0
    • 58.0
    • 83.7
    • 65.0
    • 83.5
    • 57.0
    • 75.2
    • 58.0
    • 75.2
    • 59.0
    • 72.5
    • 54.0
    • 51.7
    • 43.0
    • 50.8
    • 39.0
    • 49.3
    • 40.0
    • 47.1
    • 36.0
    • 43.7
    • 35.0
    • 42.5
    • 32.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Far Cry 2

1,920 x 1,200 4xAA, DirectX 10/10.1, Ultra High Quality

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB SLI
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 1,792MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260-216 896MB SLI
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB CrossFire
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB Toxic
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260-216 896MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
    • 74.7
    • 58.0
    • 67.1
    • 50.0
    • 66.9
    • 54.0
    • 65.2
    • 50.0
    • 63.4
    • 51.0
    • 54.2
    • 43.0
    • 44.0
    • 34.0
    • 40.8
    • 32.0
    • 39.0
    • 31.0
    • 37.2
    • 29.0
    • 36.2
    • 29.0
    • 27.8
    • 21.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Far Cry 2

2,560 x 1,600 0xAA, DirectX 10/10.1, Ultra High Quality

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB CrossFire
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB SLI
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 1,792MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260-216 896MB SLI
  • Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 1GB
  • Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB Toxic
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260-216 896MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
    • 68.5
    • 53.0
    • 65.2
    • 54.0
    • 64.7
    • 53.0
    • 58.5
    • 45.0
    • 56.9
    • 42.0
    • 53.4
    • 42.0
    • 40.5
    • 32.0
    • 37.8
    • 31.0
    • 36.9
    • 28.0
    • 35.9
    • 28.0
    • 32.8
    • 25.0
    • 25.9
    • 21.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Far Cry 2

2,560 x 1,600 2xAA, DirectX 10/10.1, Ultra High Quality

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB SLI
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB CrossFire
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 1,792MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260-216 896MB SLI
  • Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB Toxic
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260-216 896MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
    • 62.7
    • 48.0
    • 57.2
    • 46.0
    • 54.6
    • 44.0
    • 53.8
    • 40.0
    • 53.5
    • 39.0
    • 44.6
    • 35.0
    • 37.2
    • 30.0
    • 34.1
    • 27.0
    • 32.2
    • 27.0
    • 30.7
    • 26.0
    • 30.0
    • 23.0
    • 21.0
    • 15.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Far Cry 2

2,560 x 1,600 4xAA, DirectX 10/10.1, Ultra High Quality

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB SLI
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 1,792MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260-216 896MB SLI
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB CrossFire
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB Toxic
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260-216 896MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
    • 57.2
    • 43.0
    • 45.8
    • 27.0
    • 43.5
    • 31.0
    • 43.3
    • 30.0
    • 41.4
    • 29.0
    • 33.9
    • 27.0
    • 31.1
    • 24.0
    • 29.3
    • 22.0
    • 26.8
    • 21.0
    • 25.4
    • 19.0
    • 25.3
    • 18.0
    • 8.0
    • 5.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

The modest overclock on the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 1GB Toxic gives it an advantage over the GeForce GTX 260-216 at 1,680 x 1,050 4xAA in Far Cry 2's DirectX 10 mode, where the reference Radeon HD 4870 1GB was three percent slower than the competition from Nvidia. At 1,920 x 1,200 4xAA where the Radeon HD 4870 1GB already had an advantage, the Toxic card merely extends the lead and starts to get quite close to the level of performance delivered by the GeForce GTX 280.
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