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ATI Radeon HD4870X2 Engineering Sample Benchmarked

@ 2008/07/14

Techreport gets a chance to play around with an engineering sample of the HD4870X2 and run it through a few benchmarks, Half Life 2, Grid, Crysis and other games are used.

Quote:

These tests involve manual gameplay, so I wouldn't focus too much on minor performance differences between the cards. For all practical intents, the 4870 X2 ties with the GeForce GTX 280 using Crysis' "high quality" presets. With the "very high" presets, the X2 proves to be a little quicker than the GTX 280. In both cases, the X2 performs very similarly to the Radeon HD 4870 CrossFire dual-card config.

They also include power usage, noise and temperature results!

in performance/watt the GTX 280 has an huge lead!
GTX 280 299W vs HD4870X2 436W

in noise charts also very big nod to the GTX 280
GTX 280 ~46dBA vs HD4870X2 ~52dBA

temperatures matter? Not always, depends on the cooling, but seeing as HD4870X2 needs loud fans to kept cool the GPU temps are important if you want to get it cool and quiet. Here the ATI fails... noticeably
GTX 280 76°C vs HD4870X2 91°C

with the HD4870X2 set to cost more than a single GTX 280 and CF/SLI scaling not always being was it is supposed to be... if you want high end, you might be better of with a single GTX 280, especially if power consumption and noise are important factors for your purchase choice.

Source: http://techreport.com/articles.x/15105
more previews:
- http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=590&type=expert >> BioShock, Crysis, Call of Duty 4
- http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=588 >> World in Conflict, Crysis, Half Life
- http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...50aHVzaWFzdA== >> Crysis, Age of Conan
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Comment from jmke @ 2008/07/14

Quote:

Originally Posted by phlegm

it'll just dominate in that game.

Have you read anything about microstuttering with this card yet? because if that issue has not been fixed, in can dominate in all the charts, but be worthless when it comes to actually playing games.

here's the HardOCP preview, they use Crysis and Age of Conan...

Quote:

This preview has shown a very positive light on AMD’s ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2. Usually previews can go two ways, either it is going to perform really badly, or it is going to outperform our expectations. This was the latter; the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 outperformed our initial expectations. Even in this preview state the hardware and drivers have a very solid feel to them. The CrossFireX experience was easy to setup and worked without any fuss.

We are excited about testing fully finalized retail hardware with newer drivers. Our performance evaluation has shown spectacular performance already, and we are really excited as it can get better from here. NVIDIA has some real competition with the Radeon HD 4870 X2, especially if it is offered at a competitive price. Gamers will certainly have more options for high-end gaming, and this is a good thing.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...50aHVzaWFzdA==

Comment from phlegm @ 2008/07/14

If you check out the HardOCP preview's benchmarks, they notice that even though it performs worse in fps, but since the X2 has "free" AA, you could actually get superior image quality. If AMD can fix the scaling on Crysis (nVidia needs to look at this too: a 27% increase from a second $400+ card is just sad), it'll just dominate in that game.

Comment from jmke @ 2008/07/14

previews are sanctioned by AMD, let's hope different sites pick different benchmarks for the sake of making it interesting

Quote:

1. Previews can be posted any time after 12:01 am on Monday, July 14th.
2. Previews can include benchmarks of any combination of artificial tests or games up to a maximum of four.
3. As PowerPlay has not been enabled in the BIOS on your engineering sample, please stay away from Idle Power tests at this point.
4. In the interest of leaving something for the full NDA lift in August, we'd ask you to keep this high level and not go deep on the architecture at this point.

from http://www.madshrimps.be/vbulletin/f...e-conan-45784/

Grid at 2560x1600 4xAA really loves the HD4870X2

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