Derrick
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The HD 4870 X2, for instance, stands as one of the most potent single-card solutions available today, and also took the accolade as the first display adapter to utilise GDDR5 memory technology for killer overall bandwidth.
With the introduction of its HD 4000-series graphics cards, ATI has shifted gear and adopted an approach to the market, which was used to good effect by parent company AMD for many years – and still persists today in that competitive field of PC performance. The HD 4000 range basically forced NVIDIA to stop producing cards that could deliver the grunt of the Sun, but also cost the Earth, and instead shift its focus to delivering a strong performance/cost argument instead.
In short, the HD 4000 was released at a price point, which meant ATI took dominance of the mid-range market. They had cards that were quite comparable to the high-end products in many ways, at pretty much half the cost. TOXIC variants of the single-GPU HD4850 are priced at just over R3,000, which is really excellent value for this strong performer.
But now, thanks in part to CrossFireX technology – a connector-less multi-GPU method of chaining ATI graphics chipsets together - the company is taking these same great-value cards, and creating some real high-end contenders. The HD 4870 X2, for instance, stands as one of the most potent single-card solutions available today, and also took the accolade as the first display adapter to utilise GDDR5 memory technology for killer overall bandwidth.
Now the company has come up with the seemingly more reasonable HD 4850 X2, and we’ve got the Sapphire variant of this configuration on test to see just what it can do. Essentially, it’s a 4870 X2 running at lower clock speeds – 625MHz on the core and 993MHz on the massive 2GB of more conventional GDDR3 memory – so it ought to be somewhat easier to cool at the very least.
We ran our tests with the card installed on an Intel DX48BT2 board, with 2GB of Corsair DDR3 running at 1,600MHz, a QX 9770 CPU, and Vista providing the user interface. And with the latest version of the Catalyst driver package at the time, 8.1, installed on our 32-bit OS.
This being a gaming card, naturally our chosen benchmark runs were gaming focused, and consisted almost entirely of the latest DX 10-capable apps to properly stress such a high-powered product. Crysis might have been around for a while, but still constitutes a stern test of GPU power, and since it’s a rather different engine, we chose to include the distantly related Far Cry 2 as well to cover the 3D shooter side of things. The quirky but fun Devil May Cry 4 includes a solid real-world performance testing component, and of course the gaming-orientated synthetic benchmark stalwarts, Futuremark, provided the latest Vista-orientated 3DMark version, Vantage.
Of course, installation first, and it’s a lengthy beast this one. Lengthy enough to obscure the pair of SATA connectors at the front of our board. It also required both the older six-pin PCI-E power supply and a newer eight-pin version to draw sufficient voltage from the PSU, but our 600W test unit proved more than adequate even with a substantial array of storage devices attached. We used the included adapter to draw the power needed for the eight-pin connection from a pair of regular Molex connectors, as many of you are likely to, and had no problems with this setup.
During this process, we also noted the quartet of DVI ports, as well as one TV-Out connector, which was great to see, as it gives massive scope for extreme multi-monitor configurations from a single card. The length of the 4850 X2 meant that, with SATA cables still plugged into those obscured ports, the connection itself was somewhat touch and go with these cables forcing the front end of the card up slightly, something you might want to resolve if you’re upgrading to this card long term.
Into the first of the benches, and it’s not immediately clear just how quick this pair of ATI RV770 GPUs actually are, as the first runs were done at the standard resolution of 1,280 x 1,024. Although there’s no denying that it posts a good time, multi-GPU solutions have really always only come into their own at 1,600 x 1,200 and up. So, the stock 3DMark Vantage result of 11,549 was really just a foretaste of what’s to come. At my Flatron CRT’s maximum resolution of 2,048 x 1,536, it still managed 4,327, and that’s with quality settings upped to Extreme and 4-pass AA enabled, which incidentally was still slightly faster than the second-generation 8800GTS 640MB at Performance quality, no AA, and 1,024 x 768!
So the synthetic run placed it marginally below a 4870 X2, but still comfortably in the rendering performance top drawer, trading blows with the best NVIDIA can throw at it and coming out on top.
And our three DX 10 real-world results broadly ‘concur’, although it must be said that in some of the titles similarly endowed NVIDIA parts do (unfortunately we had none to test side by side) overtake the X2, but by a very nominal margin and only at resolutions below 1,920 x 1,440. Devil May Cry 4 at its maximum resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 and with all detail settings absolutely maxed still delivered the highest in-game performance ranking, with results for each of the four stages of the test of 92, 69, 108, and 67fps, and looked utterly sensational like this. Meanwhile, Crysis and Far Cry 2 took full advantage of the pair of GPUs to average 36.42fps and 35.17fps respectively at 1,600 x 1,200, and that’s rendering four passes for the smoothest results on top of already extreme detail settings. Without antialiasing, these results jumped to 61.09 and 49.28 – both very playable levels, and that Crysis result was especially impressive.
What’s more, while it churned through pass after pass, the GPUs never got beyond 72°C, despite testing through the heat of early-December in JHB, suggesting that there’s still overclocking headroom waiting to be unlocked. That said, our sample ‘had issues’ as soon as we went beyond 680MHz on the core and 1.1GHz for the RAM, although here our comparatively lightweight PSU might have been the real issue. Our sample had the latest BIOS version already in place when we got it as well, and therefore wasn’t ridiculously noisy (as many complained about with the original BIOS coding on this product) - even when the fans kicked into high-speed operation, noise levels remained acceptable.
In addition to running at a manageable temperature, ATI claims that the 55nm process itself produces a core that is more energy efficient than ever before. The Sapphire GPU further enhances this environmental (and electrical bill) appeal with its own implementation of three-phase power circuitry, complete with power-optimised management functions for further reductions in the total power draw.
So, it isn’t the fastest graphics card in the world - that title still belongs to the 4870 X2, as does the position of most expensive... Sapphire has priced this card very competitively. Whereas international markets could get more benefit from buying a pair of vanilla 4850s and save USD100 over this single-board solution, the local RRP of R5999 puts the X2 bang on par with such homegrown multi-GPU platforms in cost. Kudos to Sapphire SA for this foresight!
With the introduction of its HD 4000-series graphics cards, ATI has shifted gear and adopted an approach to the market, which was used to good effect by parent company AMD for many years – and still persists today in that competitive field of PC performance. The HD 4000 range basically forced NVIDIA to stop producing cards that could deliver the grunt of the Sun, but also cost the Earth, and instead shift its focus to delivering a strong performance/cost argument instead.
In short, the HD 4000 was released at a price point, which meant ATI took dominance of the mid-range market. They had cards that were quite comparable to the high-end products in many ways, at pretty much half the cost. TOXIC variants of the single-GPU HD4850 are priced at just over R3,000, which is really excellent value for this strong performer.
But now, thanks in part to CrossFireX technology – a connector-less multi-GPU method of chaining ATI graphics chipsets together - the company is taking these same great-value cards, and creating some real high-end contenders. The HD 4870 X2, for instance, stands as one of the most potent single-card solutions available today, and also took the accolade as the first display adapter to utilise GDDR5 memory technology for killer overall bandwidth.
Now the company has come up with the seemingly more reasonable HD 4850 X2, and we’ve got the Sapphire variant of this configuration on test to see just what it can do. Essentially, it’s a 4870 X2 running at lower clock speeds – 625MHz on the core and 993MHz on the massive 2GB of more conventional GDDR3 memory – so it ought to be somewhat easier to cool at the very least.
We ran our tests with the card installed on an Intel DX48BT2 board, with 2GB of Corsair DDR3 running at 1,600MHz, a QX 9770 CPU, and Vista providing the user interface. And with the latest version of the Catalyst driver package at the time, 8.1, installed on our 32-bit OS.
This being a gaming card, naturally our chosen benchmark runs were gaming focused, and consisted almost entirely of the latest DX 10-capable apps to properly stress such a high-powered product. Crysis might have been around for a while, but still constitutes a stern test of GPU power, and since it’s a rather different engine, we chose to include the distantly related Far Cry 2 as well to cover the 3D shooter side of things. The quirky but fun Devil May Cry 4 includes a solid real-world performance testing component, and of course the gaming-orientated synthetic benchmark stalwarts, Futuremark, provided the latest Vista-orientated 3DMark version, Vantage.
Of course, installation first, and it’s a lengthy beast this one. Lengthy enough to obscure the pair of SATA connectors at the front of our board. It also required both the older six-pin PCI-E power supply and a newer eight-pin version to draw sufficient voltage from the PSU, but our 600W test unit proved more than adequate even with a substantial array of storage devices attached. We used the included adapter to draw the power needed for the eight-pin connection from a pair of regular Molex connectors, as many of you are likely to, and had no problems with this setup.
During this process, we also noted the quartet of DVI ports, as well as one TV-Out connector, which was great to see, as it gives massive scope for extreme multi-monitor configurations from a single card. The length of the 4850 X2 meant that, with SATA cables still plugged into those obscured ports, the connection itself was somewhat touch and go with these cables forcing the front end of the card up slightly, something you might want to resolve if you’re upgrading to this card long term.
Into the first of the benches, and it’s not immediately clear just how quick this pair of ATI RV770 GPUs actually are, as the first runs were done at the standard resolution of 1,280 x 1,024. Although there’s no denying that it posts a good time, multi-GPU solutions have really always only come into their own at 1,600 x 1,200 and up. So, the stock 3DMark Vantage result of 11,549 was really just a foretaste of what’s to come. At my Flatron CRT’s maximum resolution of 2,048 x 1,536, it still managed 4,327, and that’s with quality settings upped to Extreme and 4-pass AA enabled, which incidentally was still slightly faster than the second-generation 8800GTS 640MB at Performance quality, no AA, and 1,024 x 768!
So the synthetic run placed it marginally below a 4870 X2, but still comfortably in the rendering performance top drawer, trading blows with the best NVIDIA can throw at it and coming out on top.
And our three DX 10 real-world results broadly ‘concur’, although it must be said that in some of the titles similarly endowed NVIDIA parts do (unfortunately we had none to test side by side) overtake the X2, but by a very nominal margin and only at resolutions below 1,920 x 1,440. Devil May Cry 4 at its maximum resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 and with all detail settings absolutely maxed still delivered the highest in-game performance ranking, with results for each of the four stages of the test of 92, 69, 108, and 67fps, and looked utterly sensational like this. Meanwhile, Crysis and Far Cry 2 took full advantage of the pair of GPUs to average 36.42fps and 35.17fps respectively at 1,600 x 1,200, and that’s rendering four passes for the smoothest results on top of already extreme detail settings. Without antialiasing, these results jumped to 61.09 and 49.28 – both very playable levels, and that Crysis result was especially impressive.
What’s more, while it churned through pass after pass, the GPUs never got beyond 72°C, despite testing through the heat of early-December in JHB, suggesting that there’s still overclocking headroom waiting to be unlocked. That said, our sample ‘had issues’ as soon as we went beyond 680MHz on the core and 1.1GHz for the RAM, although here our comparatively lightweight PSU might have been the real issue. Our sample had the latest BIOS version already in place when we got it as well, and therefore wasn’t ridiculously noisy (as many complained about with the original BIOS coding on this product) - even when the fans kicked into high-speed operation, noise levels remained acceptable.
In addition to running at a manageable temperature, ATI claims that the 55nm process itself produces a core that is more energy efficient than ever before. The Sapphire GPU further enhances this environmental (and electrical bill) appeal with its own implementation of three-phase power circuitry, complete with power-optimised management functions for further reductions in the total power draw.
So, it isn’t the fastest graphics card in the world - that title still belongs to the 4870 X2, as does the position of most expensive... Sapphire has priced this card very competitively. Whereas international markets could get more benefit from buying a pair of vanilla 4850s and save USD100 over this single-board solution, the local RRP of R5999 puts the X2 bang on par with such homegrown multi-GPU platforms in cost. Kudos to Sapphire SA for this foresight!