The Radeon HD 4870 1GB: The Card to Get
by Derek Wilson on September 25, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
The Radeon HD 4870 1GB is a better buy than both the GTX 260 and core 216 variant. AMD says MSRP is between $280 and $300, and a quick look at Google shows us that the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 1GB is priced at $290. This is definitely not bad for the types of performance gains we are seeing. If the card is to be used for high resolution gaming with all the settings, then up to a 10% to 15% increase in price over the stock 4870 is not a bad investment (unless, of course, you only play the games that don't see a real benefit from the additional RAM). And at these settings, there's an additional bonus in that this performance improvement might just make the playability difference for some people in some of these games.
While the 4870 512MB part can be had for $20 or $30 cheaper than the 4870 1GB (if you shop around), many of the 512MB variants are still priced in the same range as the 1GB cards. There is no reason to buy the 512MB part if prices are equal, so we hope to see a downward shift in price for the 512MB version. We haven't heard any confirmation on this from AMD or their partners, but it really should be a matter of simple economics. It will be harder to move parts priced at $280 to $300 when you can get something that's better for the same amount of money. Thus prices should drop, if not for the minimum then at least for the average price of a 4870 512MB.
We can't say whether or not the 1GB card will have an advantage going forward, as there is a heavy push for making games more compute heavy. Larger textures and the like are always rolling out, but if the future direction leans on compute more we may see the 4870 limited in ways that it can't overcome. Conversely, the GTX 260 core 216 may benefit more or less in the future depending on what developers decide to do. While it'd be great if there were better answers here, it's a guessing game and it's all about balance. What we can say for certain is that the 4870 1GB and core 216 are both at least equal to their older siblings, so at least you'll never lose performance.
For now, it looks like the 1GB of RAM is a better balance for the RV770 GPU on current games, especially when leaning toward higher resolutions. At the prices we are seeing, it's a better balance for the consumer as well. The Radeon 4870 1GB gets our recommendation at the $280 - $300 price range.
And it's not only that. While the 4870 was actually competitive with the GTX 280 in some cases, the additional RAM actually increases that competitive edge. Yes, this is only in a few games, and we can't recommend the 4870 1GB over the GTX 280 in the general case, but there is clearly a value advantage here that can't be overstated. If you don't need the best of the best (or you aren't willing or able to spend the money for it), the 4870 1GB is a very strong solution.
So, what's the bottom line? This is currently the card to get.
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carmaster22 - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
How come you don't include the NVIDIA 9800 series cards anymore?They were proven to perform just as well and better than the GTX series and there's many people that have them.
SiliconDoc - Friday, October 3, 2008 - link
It's to make it as confusing as possible to we the consumer. No matter WHAT review site I go to - they are absolutely CERTAIN to leave out a couple of KEY cards in the reviews - so that it makes it absolutely near IMPOSSIBLE to make a reasonable decision without endless HOURS of finding, comparing, checking the system stats, of various reviews....It's like corporate code - but what really happens is the goobers are thinking, thinking, thinking - and they think so much and so !bleepin! hard, that they come up with some cool points, and interesting facts - but alas - you still don't know what you want to know.
Whatever, it's so frustrating - I'm sending $100 paypal to the first author that actually satisfies a good lineup in review.
Goty - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
The only 9800 series card that could outperform the 4870 was the 9800GX2, and even that fell behind the 4870 and the GTX200s when you started cranking up the resolution and IQ.daniyarm - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
8800gt SLI beat 4750 in several tests even at hi-res. People that own single or sli 8800 or 9800 want to know how the cards compare. What's the point of a review that compares only new gen cards and give absolutely no information for people that want to know if they need to upgrade or not.daniyarm - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
I meant 4870.Patrick Wolf - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
Where do you get your info?The 9800 GX2 can be had for under $300 and is also very comparable to the 8800gt SLI. If you have an SLI mainboard and an 8800gt, a very cheap and viable upgrade would be to throw in another 8800gt. If you lack the SLI mainboard, bite on the GX2 and sell your current card.
Same goes for the 9800 GTX and GTX+ if you're going SLI with them.
The following graphs speak for themselves. All the above solutions are still a great contender, worthy of inclusion.
Crysis: http://www.anandtech.com/GalleryImage.aspx?id=3192">http://www.anandtech.com/GalleryImage.aspx?id=3192
Oblivion: http://www.anandtech.com/GalleryImage.aspx?id=3192">http://www.anandtech.com/GalleryImage.aspx?id=3192
Patrick Wolf - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
Oops.Oblivion: http://www.anandtech.com/GalleryImage.aspx?id=3189">http://www.anandtech.com/GalleryImage.aspx?id=3189
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
Considering you just linked a recent review that has all of the pertinent information, then throw in the cluttered nature of those charts, and I'm of the opinion that dropping most of the cards and just keeping the more recent stuff makes a lot of sense.FYI, outside of a few games (The Witcher 2xAA, ETQW 4xAA, COD4 4xAA) the 9800 GTX+ is very close to the performance of the GTX 260. That's understandable, since they have similar architectures. Here's the theoretical performance overview:
GTX 260:
192 SPs at 1242MHz = 715.4 GFLOPS
Core clock of 576 MHz = 36.9 GT/s texture fillrate
28 ROPs at 576 MHz = 16.1 GP/s pixel fillrate
448-bit RAM at 999MHz = 111.9 GB/s
9800 GTX+:
128 SPs at 1836MHz = 940 GFLOPS
Core clock of 738 MHz = 47.2 GT/s texture fillrate
16 ROPs at 738 MHz = 11.8 GP/s pixel fillrate
256-bit RAM at 1100MHz = 70.4 GB/s
So the GTX 260 has substantially more bandwidth (59%) and pixel fillrate (36%), while the 9800 GTX+ has more theoretical GFLOPS (31%) and texture processing power (28%). The GTX 260 ends up faster overall - I'm not sure it ever trails - but there are many games where the difference between the two is only about 10%. The 8800 GT, for the record, is usually 65 to 75% of the performance of GTX 260.
Spoelie - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
The 9800GT is a rebadged 8800GT, which sits below any ATi 4 series .The 9800GTX+ is competitive with the 4850, but that's a lower price/market segment (target resolution 1600x1200/1680x1050 ?).
This is an article about cards that run newer games on 1920x1200 and higher comfortably, and well, the 9 series just don't make that cut anymore. Anandtech included all possible contenders except maybe for some SLI configurations.
Jovec - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
AT is wrong in what many, if not most, of us want in these reviews. Simply, we have our specific system, and want to know if a single upgraded part or parts (when it comes to new platforms) justifies the purchase price. Obvioulsy impractical, but there is no reason AT can't build and keep 1-2 systems per year, for a 2-3 year moving window, of the most common mid-range builds and include those benchmarks as a reference in all reviews.The best example of this is the 8800GTS which I assume many of us still own. We don't care how the 4870 runs on the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 @ 3.20GHz used in the review, we care if the card will boost our FPS enough to warrant purchasing for our computer. It's a different type of comparison than the GPU-limited and CPU-limited tests they currently run, but very useful to the majority of us.
We can say "My system is very close to the Fall '07 system, so if I buy this new card I'll get a similar performance increase."