Radeon HD4850 and 4870

[belgerog]

I'm going to buy a new PC soon, and I was wondering if the Radeon HD4850 is a good enough GPU. Is there a big difference between the 4850 and 70?

Would a PC with a Core 2 Quad Q8200 ora Core 2 Duo E8500 and the 4850 run recent games reasonably well? I'm not asking to run crysis on ultra settings with 16xAA, but I'd like to have reasonalby good graphics (my screen has a 1680x1050 resolution). Would I maye do well to get a 4870 for greater longevity?

I'm looking for something that will be able to run Rage and Id Tech5 games fairly well (although I'm not sure any system specs. have been released for this engine).

Thanks a lot.

[RyanMichael]

On stock clocks, the 4870 is approximately 20% faster than the 4850 in most tests. If you overclock your 4850 a bit, you can close that gap to less than 10%, but of course you could OC a 4870 too.

The difference in power consumption is pretty negligible; 20 to 30 watts at load is the difference in usage. So assuming you've got a decent PSU, running the 4870 won't be a problem.

It's going to come down to how much you're willing to pay for that extra 20%. The price delta is over 50% still, so I'd have a hard time justifying it if I was on a budget. If you can swing $240-ish before rebates, then go for the 4870.

[Tim James]

Rage isn't out, so get something reasonably priced now and upgrade in a year. My 4850 has been fine for everything at 1600x1200, just can't quite max out a couple of new shooters.

[Alistair]

Why Radeons only? Look at the 216 core GTX 260 from Nvidia. From memory it's in the same ballpark but runs cooler. I know it'll run Crysis Warhead at 19x12 comfortably with everything maxed...

[Bad Neighbor]

I got a Sapphire 4870 512MB for $170 when Ben's Bargains posted a coupon. I went ATI because I was very unhappy that my 7900 went bad despite me never doing anything fancy to it. So far I'm very happy with my purchase.

[JPR]

In general the ATIs appear to be a slightly better value proposition right now, unless you really want Far Cry, which is packaged with several of the Nvidia cards.

[Michael Fortson]

I really like my 4870 1GB. I bought the Diamond model because of their US-based tech support, and the cooler (which exhausts air out the back) is so quiet I can't hear it except for a couple of seconds when rebooting. It runs at 790 MHz (the max that ATI's utility will OC) without hiccup.

[mono]

Why Radeons only? Look at the 216 core GTX 260 from Nvidia. From memory it's in the same ballpark but runs cooler. I know it'll run Crysis Warhead at 19x12 comfortably with everything maxed...

At 1920x1200, the GTX 260 will run Crysis in the high teens/low 20's at max quality, with dips way lower.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14934/13

[Michael Fortson]

At 1920x1200, the GTX 260 will run Crysis in the high teens/low 20's at max quality, with dips way lower.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14934/13

This one is more current, and features the Core 216 version:http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3415&p=4

[Alistair]

At 1920x1200, the GTX 260 will run Crysis in the high teens/low 20's at max quality, with dips way lower.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14934/13

I must have low standards - I thought it was awesome ;)

[unbongwah]

4850 vs 4870 - at 1680x1050, there are a few benchmarks where the 4870 does significantly better (e.g., Mass Effect), others where the difference is negligible.

FYI, Newegg has the Sapphire HD 4850 for $125 with code EMCABBDEB minus $15 rebate for $110 total. I doubt you'll find a better deal at that price. Note that the heatsink is a bit oversized, though, so you might have trouble putting another card next to it.

[Jason Cross]

If you get a 4870, spring for the 1GB model (it makes a difference in quite a few games, especially with AA/AF enabled which you can usually do at 1680x1050). Also spring for a model that has a better cooler than the stock cooler. Neither will set you back an arm and a leg.

As for those tomshardware 4850 vs 4870 charts - they didn't say whether that's a 512MB or 1GB 4870. Also, drivers in the last couple months have made marked difference in performance.

[Fugitive]

It says they're the 512MB models for both if you go back one level to the bar graphs.

I'm kind of surprised that there's only a roughly 22% speed increase from my nearly-two-year-old 8800 GTS to the 4850 though, with the 4850 actually being worse in a few cases (Mass Effect, mainly). I guess I can hold out for a little while yet.

[Telefrog]

FYI, Newegg has the Sapphire HD 4850 for $125 with code EMCABBDEB minus $15 rebate for $110 total. I doubt you'll find a better deal at that price. Note that the heatsink is a bit oversized, though, so you might have trouble putting another card next to it.

Nice deal. Thanks. I guess I'll be ugrading my card this week.

[Enduro_Man]

Also, drivers in the last couple months have made marked difference in performance.

Very true. I got my MSI 4870 around August, and my monitor back then maxed out at 1280x1024. At that resolution, the Radeon could handle just about everything I could throw at it. Then, two months ago, I upgraded to a 24" with a 1920x1200 resolution, and saw the card struggling at times in games like Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2. Upgrading to Catalyst 8.11s cleared these issues up dramatically.

I do wish I had 1 GB instead of 512 MB, but I wasn't even considering a monitor upgrade six months ago, and the selection of cards here is pretty poor.