ATI HD 4000 series

[The Laughing Man]

Well to be honest, I got all hyped about their previous release on the 2900 XT and well, we all know how that turned out, hopefully i'm wrong.

Don't remind me :laugh: that desktop just sits there now.

[Scirwode]

I'm liking what I see, but I reserve my judgement when the product comes out and I see how well it performs. That said, I prefered the ATi Catalyst drivers rather than Nvidia's Forceware as they simply worked as they should. Nvidia really need to do something with the plethora of drivers that they have at the moment, as it is tiring just to find which one runs the best on your system.

Scirwode

[Andre S. Veteran]

Well ATI cards always seemed to have better specs than nVidia cards, but the latter seems to perform better than what the specs indicate.

True in the case of R600/G80, but hardly a generality. In fact before the R600 ATI was consistently outperforming NVIDIA, since the Radeon 9000 days in fact. Radeon 9000 killed geforce FX, Radeon X100 slightly better than geforce 6, and X1000 still slightly better than geforce 7. And the HD 3000 are doing pretty well especially for the power consumption. So I have some good hopes for the HD 4000 although I don't think ATI is minded on outperforming the geforce 9 altogether.

My only real grudge against ATI is the lack of proper pillarbox support in the drivers. NVIDIA has buggy support for pillarboxing, but at least the support exists.

[Lighthalzen]

Don't remind me :laugh: that desktop just sits there now.

Mine is sitting there doing not much too...

[+shift. MVC]

...

Sorry that's what I really meant, I guess I should have clarified. I only noticed in recent generations of video cards that the specs show these overwhelming amount of transistors, all these shaders etc. But benchmarks have been all but slightly disappointing :(

[ViperAFK]

Sorry that's what I really meant, I guess I should have clarified. I only noticed in recent generations of video cards that the specs show these overwhelming amount of transistors, all these shaders etc. But benchmarks have been all but slightly disappointing :(

Yeah I definitely see what you mean, I mean look at the specs of the 2900XT for example, 512 bit memory, insanely fast clock speeds, lots of shaders, and it got spanked by most of nvidias cards.

[HyBry]

According to Nordichardware the 4850 will take longer than 4870 parts and will come only in July..

[NextGen_Gamer]

TG Daily has a new article up with many details on the RV770 core. They talk about clockspeeds (Radeon HD 4870 still on-track to be world's first GPU with 1GHz+ core, apparently), TMU count (32 in RV770, so that rumor really looks likely to be true), memory amount and types (256MB GDDR3 ones for OEMs, but 512MB and 1GB GDDR5 versions for retail), among other things.

[giantpotato]

My only real grudge against ATI is the lack of proper pillarbox support in the drivers. NVIDIA has buggy support for pillarboxing, but at least the support exists.

Pillarboxing works fine on my ATi HD2600.

[Andre S. Veteran]

Pillarboxing works fine on my ATi HD2600.

Is it the monitor or the driver that does it? If it is the driver can I see a screenshot of the ATI control panel where you have that option? Because I've seen much discussion about pillarboxing at widescreengamingforum.com and apparently there's no real support for widescreen with ATI drivers. If you're lucky your monitor will do it automatically but it doesn't work for everyone. But maybe ATI has finally added it in a recent version, I don't know. If so I might seriously consider an ATI card next time. I simply ruled them out of my possibilities when I learned about non-existent pillarbox support. (besides at the time there wasn't anything competing with the 8800 GTS 320MB at its price point :happy: )

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

TG Daily has a new article up with many details on the RV770 core. They talk about clockspeeds (Radeon HD 4870 still on-track to be world's first GPU with 1GHz+ core, apparently), TMU count (32 in RV770, so that rumor really looks likely to be true), memory amount and types (256MB GDDR3 ones for OEMs, but 512MB and 1GB GDDR5 versions for retail), among other things.

May? That's earlier than I expected. AMD is really on to something with 115 to 141 GB/s with a 256-bit memory controller.

[Neo Razgriz]

I'll take two 4870X2s to go please!! :D

[MiG-]

Lots of GigamaFlops. Lovely.

[NextGen_Gamer]

These final specs for the Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 look very legit, and I personally think this is what we will be looking at come June 16th (official launch date):

Radeon HD 4870 | 16 ROPs | 32 TMUs | 480 SPs | 850MHz Core, 1050MHz SP | 1GB GDDR5 @ 1935MHz (3870MHz Effective)

- $349 USD

Radeon HD 4850 | 16 ROPs | 32 TMUs | 480 SPs | 625MHz Core, 825MHz SP | 512MB GDDR3 @ 1143MHz (2286MHz Effective)

- $249 USD

Source, Picture

[bobbytomorow]

If the rumored benchmarks are true I will be grabbing one fo sho. Benchmarks show the 4870 being 30% faster than a 9800GX2 while consuming less power and for nearly half the price, I'll take one of those :D

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Wow, the HD 4870 stomps all over the 9800GX2. If those benchmarks are true then I'm getting two.

[+Mystic MVC]

Isn't Nvidia releasing their 9900 which will just 1-up ATI again right after they get the 4000 series out?

[giantpotato]

Is it the monitor or the driver that does it? If it is the driver can I see a screenshot of the ATI control panel where you have that option? Because I've seen much discussion about pillarboxing at widescreengamingforum.com and apparently there's no real support for widescreen with ATI drivers. If you're lucky your monitor will do it automatically but it doesn't work for everyone. But maybe ATI has finally added it in a recent version, I don't know. If so I might seriously consider an ATI card next time. I simply ruled them out of my possibilities when I learned about non-existent pillarbox support. (besides at the time there wasn't anything competing with the 8800 GTS 320MB at its price point :happy: )

They only added driver support for pillarboxing a few months ago.

[Thrawn]

If Nvidia prices their GTX 280 at over $600, then I'll stick to the 4870 too.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Click here for info on the HD 4000 series. It includes pictures and specifications of the HD 4870 and HD 4850.

[Andre S. Veteran]

They only added driver support for pillarboxing a few months ago.

Awesome!!! :woot:

[Randolph]

omg this summer is going to rock.

ATI vs NVIDIA going head to head now.

ati for the win!!!!

"Terrorists win!" lol

sry too much cs ;)

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

I've updated my initial post to include pictures and specifications of the HD 4850 and HD 4870. It's going to be one hell of a war this summer.

[+Mystic MVC]

Can somebody fill me in because my question still is unanswered. With Nvidia's upcoming line in June/July, won't that just destroy these two new cards from ATI that everybody has been waiting for?

In comparison, I know these two new cards blow away Nvidia's current 9800 GX2, but have they publicly talked about a response to what everybody knows is coming?

[Andre S. Veteran]

Any specs on NVIDIA's next line?

At any rate I am quite excited with ATI's new line. If that early benchmark is any sign of its real performance, then it would be the first major leap since the geforce 8, which now goes back more than a year and a half (november 2006!).