Guru3D - AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 Crossfire review

Hilbert Hagedoorn

AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 Crossfire

It's that time, AMD today unleashes their all new high-end product, the Radeon 4850 and 4870 X2. For those of you who lived under a rock and do not know what the X2 actually stands for, it's as simple as it sounds. X2 is times two .. these products are based on multiple GPUs per graphics card. In essence you take a large PCB (printed circuit board), position two 4850 or 4870 processors with an interconnect bridge-chip, grab a handful of memory chips, and then a pinch of resistors and mosfets. You put it in the pan, stir it and voilla ... your serving is ready. Wanna see how fast the fastest performing graphics card in the worlds is ? Of course you do ..
We'll also test the 4870 X2 card in Crossfire. You can find the 21 page article right here:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-4870-x2-review-crossfire/

G-lad21 · 08-11-2008, 21:48 | posts: 195 | User is Offline

games released on 2015 wont tickle this piece of hardware (Crossfire Wise)..just wow..
but 1100USD for that? nah..
oh and a question..i saw in the review something about 4850X2? it this for real? release date?

Lowteckh · 08-11-2008, 22:05 | posts: 156 | User is Offline

21 pges... Most ever?

Nictron · 08-11-2008, 22:08 | posts: 221 | Location: South Africa | User is Offline

Thank you Hilbert, good review.

But I agree with you on the SLi and CrossfireX configurations, I had a 7800GTX and 8800GTX Sli setup over the last 4 years and it has been nothing but problems on some of my favourite games. I think 70% of the time I run with Sli disabled and the constant driver hunt to get it to work probably stole 50% of my available gaming time! So my next purchase will be a single GPU.

I mean the money you save on the motherboard by not going SLi or Crossfire brings you in line with a high end GPU price.

Regards,

Nico

Phantomchess · *Last edited by Phantomchess; 08-11-2008 at 22:16.*

$550 is alot. I foresee another price drop in a week lol. Think ill wait till it is bundled with a game and price drops some.

Iarwain · *Last edited by Iarwain; 08-11-2008 at 22:25.*

GTX 280, 260, take your pick...this thing demolishes them. I don't think, from what I gathered from various communities, anyone expected it to be quite this good, as it is destroying the GTX280 even by 10-20 FPS in some games, and being slightly above in most others, but this is just amazing, to say the least.

Do want.

And comparing a multi-GPU card that fits in a single slot to a single GPU card that works in a single slot is a perfectly fine and acceptable comparison. In fact, if you're not willing to make that comparison, I'd say you were being unfair.

Similarly, there's a reason we all use dual or quad cores that fit in a single socket when our games might not utilize all cores, or even more than one core. Some games may even crash without being set to a certain CPU, and yet, I would recommend a dual core over a single core everytime, because they're just not that big a problem when you compare the prices.

If a 4870x2 comes in at 549 (will likely drop to 499 once the die-hards have their cards) I think it is perfectly reasonable to compare it to the card that is supposed to compete with it at 430-470.

This argument about Crossfire not scaling, or being unsupported, is BS. I can't say a game I've come across that ISN'T supported. Nor do I have any compatibility issues in games, nor do I have stability issues in my OS. Besides, even if you're playing an old game that doesn't support it, just disable one of the cores and you still have a single 4870.

chispy · 08-11-2008, 22:32 | posts: 4,644 | Location: Puerto Rico | User is Offline

OMG ,great review as I expected , Hilbert thanks.

krayzieNRG · 08-11-2008, 22:34 | posts: 481 | Location: Ask me | User is Offline

not a long ago thousands of people got their gtx280 for 650usd and was happy,now its 450 and its all because of amd so if this card is selling for 550usd that it well price cuz if these amd cards wasn't out people wouldn't be getting back their money from nvidia's partners,with that said even if your a fan of the red or not this is a great card

Lowteckh · 08-11-2008, 22:47 | posts: 156 | User is Offline

Might want to edit some of the copy and pasting from your previous reviews:

Crysis benchmarks show 1 4870 performing the same as the X2 yet your conclusion is

"with medium Image Quality settings up-to 2560x1600 is playable. With the latest press-driver used in this review the X2 finally is starting to show some better performance scaling. But NVIDIA still owns this game performance wise, though everything is just very close."

bradleyg5 · 08-11-2008, 22:52 | posts: 6 | User is Offline

why no comparison with 2 GTX 260 in sli? same price range both duel GPU seems a pretty obvious comparison nobody is making.

isidore

lool something is wrong with crysis, in all the other games the x2 destroys the gtx280...damn this card is a monster..pure power..

JumperR · 08-11-2008, 23:13 | posts: 460 | User is Offline

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phantomchess

$550 is alot. I foresee another price drop in a week lol. Think ill wait till it is bundled with a game and price drops some.

if price don't drop.. much , going for 280gtx.

I am sure price will drop on 280gtx a bit.. i think

I am not paying $450+ for a card...

^^

Stukov · 08-12-2008, 00:14 | posts: 2,247 | Location: South Dakota | User is Offline

you can get a GTX 280 for 389 after MIR. to me, this thing better not cost a cent over 550, I don't know how much in price it will go down over the next few weeks, I expect it to go up with price gouging. I think you wont really see a 500 dollar price until after the 55nm 280 is released or something. i was really hoping to see AMD drop the X2 at 499.

tuco · 08-12-2008, 01:26 | posts: 2,391 | Location: Midgard | User is Offline

Nice analysis, and I strongly agree reguarding the price tag for this product, and there is no way I am going to pay close to 400 UK pounds for this card, ever. As you mention however, the 4850x2 is around the corner, so I am going to wait a little longer, and unless that comes at a good price/performance, i'm buying a 280.....wow.

kapu · 08-12-2008, 02:33 | posts: 1,748 | Location: Poland | User is Online

Like i expected, HD4870X2 washes floor with GTX280, bring GTX260SLI pls.

Logic Zero · 08-12-2008, 03:26 | posts: 1,020 | Location: London, UK | User is Offline

Hi Hilbert, just a quick question. Did you manage to run 2 monitors off a single x2? If so, did you have to disable/enable crossfire to get it to work or did it work right off the bat?

Hilbert Hagedoorn · 08-12-2008, 03:44 | posts: 11,705 | Location: Guru3D Trenches | User is Offline

Quote:

Originally Posted by Logic Zero

Hi Hilbert, just a quick question. Did you manage to run 2 monitors off a single x2? If so, did you have to disable/enable crossfire to get it to work or did it work right off the bat?

Good question - I just checked that for you.

I connected another monitor to the primary X2 (secondary is connected in crossfire). then i expanded the desktop to the 2nd monitor and started a game.

In short works fine, primary screen shows the game, secondary shows the windows desktop. And there is no need to en/disable crossfire.

johnnyxp64nd · *Last edited by johnnyxp64nd; 08-12-2008 at 04:38.*

Quote:

Originally Posted by kapu

Like i expected, HD4870X2 washes floor with GTX280, bring GTX260SLI pls.

all those are waste of money, as the article correctly says single GPU solution is the best, now if you buy a 4870 or 4850 will play ANyhting for the next at least 2-3 years! up to 1600x resolution with no problems at all.

after the first 4850 article, i waited a week and then bought the 4850 Toxic from saphire, (wich YET hasnt been Reviwed!) and i am extreamly Happy compaired to 8800gts512 and 8800gt, that i used to have and turned my pc into a volcano for nothing!

i had 8800gt sli for a while, and i had lots of issues with different games.
so i totally agree with single GPU solution!

and ati drivers in my Windows xp x64 works much better than nvidia drivers!

extreamly happy!