AMD's 4870 – the comeback kid

Matthew Carothers 5 Aug, 2008 at 1:00am ET Article published in Tech

Test bench

ASUS Maximus Formula SE (BIOS 1004)
Intel Q6600 @ 3.6GHz (450×8)
4GB Corsair Dominator DDR2 (900MHz 5-4-5-18)
2 Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD (RAID 0)
ATI Catalyst 8.7 on Windows XP Professional x64 with Service Pack 2

GPU Settings

Stock Speed: 750MHz core / 900MHz memory
Max OC: 790MHz core / 1100MHz memory

Benchmarks

For our suite of tests we turned to Futuremark’s 3DMark06, Folding@Home and Crytek’s famed Crysis.

Futuremark 3DMark06

As we moved to 1680×1050 and turned on the anti-aliasing we saw the overclocked memory starting to pay off.

Crysis

The next test we put the card through is Crysis. Developed by Crytek and published by Electronic Arts in November of 2007, Crysis offers the most realistic and immersive game environment we have ever experienced. This experience comes with a very steep price indeed. Almost eight months after release there are few setups that can provide acceptable frame rates when the game is ratcheted up to High settings. Let’s see how the HD 4870 handles this challenge.

To get a consistent comparison between multiple resolutions and levels of anti-aliasing we decided to run the Crysis Benchmark Tool. However, instead of using the undemanding default GPU test, we ran the Assault Harbor test. This test mimics the game level by the same name and is much closer to live play.

The results speak for themselves. Our overclock didn’t do us much good here, but the HD 4870 still pumped out more than 30 frames per second even when we kicked it up to 1680×1050 with 2xAA. While it was not the 45+ frames we prefer, the high quality motion blur of the new CryEngine 2 really makes it feel stunningly smooth.

Folding@Home GPU2

Once we found the optimal clocks for our card and put it through its paces with Crysis, we were obliged to evaluate its production on the Stanford Folding@Home GPU2 client. We were disappointed to learn that the 4870 offered no better performance than the HD 3000 series, and did not match our overclocked NVIDIA 9800GTX in points per day.

According to our friends over at FoldingForum there is still much optimization to be done before ATI’s current lineup will see its full potential, but they doubt its production will match that of NVIDIA’s. It looks like NVIDIA’s CUDA platform is a real winner in this regard. In spite of the smaller production, pairing this card with the SMP client running on an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 produced a very respectable 4500PPD from a single machine.

Conclusion

There’s really just no denying it: AMD has truly impressed me with the HD 4870. It easily rips through the latest games without ripping through the wallet and has really stirred things up in the market. If you’re in the market for a powerful card this summer, you just can’t go wrong with the AMD Radeon HD 4870. It can currently be found over in the Icrontic Marketplace for as little as $279 and we have absolutely no reservations recommending it.

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Comments

5 Aug 2008 ~ 2:58pm BuddyJ Well done mas0n!
6 Aug 2008 ~ 9:02am lemonlime Great write-up, mas0n! What a fantastic card. If I were to buy a card today, this would be it!
6 Aug 2008 ~ 9:36am Zuntar Nice review Mas0n! kinda makes me want to get rid of my 8800gts 640!!
6 Aug 2008 ~ 10:11am Qeldroma I've been impressed with your developing insight into PCs, Matthew, and the freedom with which you share some of them. The Folding information was a nice touch and if you're into it, Zuntar, you may want to hang on to that GTS until they update the F@H GPU client- cause the GTS pwns it and even my HD3870 pretty much outdoes this board.

I think this series could be rescuing AMD right now from an otherwise unknown fate. It apparently scales uncommonly well in X2 and multi-GPU configurations. I'm tempted, but I'm too much into Folding to jump (hint, hint) and have been actually perusing nVidia for that reason.

Good job!
6 Aug 2008 ~ 10:59am Your-Amish-Daddy The 3800 saved them from an unknown future. The 4800 series cements it.
6 Aug 2008 ~ 8:59pm mas0n Thanks for the compliments! I think my next article may need to be on some aftermarket coolers for this beast. So far I have a Xigmatek Battle-Axe and Thermaltake DuOrb.
7 Aug 2008 ~ 1:15pm stoopid Great review. They haven't shrunk the card size I see.

Why no comparison benchmarks?
7 Aug 2008 ~ 1:29pm mas0n

stoopid wrote:

Great review. They haven't shrunk the card size I see.

Why no comparison benchmarks?

I'm glad you liked the review. I don't forsee board sizes changing significantly anytime soon. I think the market has established sizes that consumers will tolerate and the manufacturers will continue to cram as much as they can into these form factors. Also, if you look at the pictures of the VRM area on this board you can see that there is room for expansion. This makes it easier to release higher end parts in the future using the existing package.

Unfortunately I did not have any other cards available at the time of review. However, I tried to pick benchmarks that people are familiar enough with that a fairly accurate assessment could be made.