AMD's Radeon HD 4870 X2 - Testing the Multi-GPU Waters
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on August 12, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
NVIDIA Strikes Back: The GTX Gets a Dose of Reality
NVIDIA was still living in the days of G80 when it launched its 1.4 billion transistor GT200 GPU and the GeForce GTX 280/260 that were based on it. Not only did NVIDIA's own GeForce 9800 GX2 outperform the GTX 280 at a lower price, but once AMD launched its Radeon HD 4800 series it became very clear that NVIDIA's pricing was completely out of whack. NVIDIA was pricing its GPUs for a reality that just didn't exist.
The first step to get things back in line was to drop the price of the GeForce 9800 GTX, which NVIDIA did. Next up were the new GTX cards, the GTX 280 now sells for $450 and the GTX 260 is a $299 part. In the conclusion of our Radeon HD 4800 launch article we wrote:
"The fact of the matter is that by NVIDIA's standards, the 4870 should be priced at $400 and the 4850 should be around $250."
It looks like NVIDIA's standards changed, largely thanks to AMD, and now the key players in NVIDIA's lineup are priced more realistically. Today we'll take a look at how the landscape has been reshaped as a result of NVIDIA's pricecuts. At the same time, AMD's literally hot GPUs have seen their prices fall; the Radeon HD 4870 is now a $270 - $280 GPU, slightly down from $299 and the Radeon HD 4850 is a $170 - $180 card. These are very slight changes in price, but at least they are in the right direction.
AMD Prices the Radeon HD 4870 X2
When we previewed the Radeon HD 4870 X2 we weren't given a target pricepoint, we just knew that it'd be more than $500. Today we have a price: $549.
At $549 the X2 isn't exactly a bargain, it's slightly cheaper than two Radeon HD 4870s but you don't need a motherboard with two PCIe x16 slots to use it, which helps lower overall system costs. With NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 price drops, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is now the most expensive current GPU on the market - pretty impressive for a company that swore off building huge GPUs.
The competing product from NVIDIA is, well, there isn't exactly one. NVIDIA doesn't have a single-card multi-GPU GT200 product, so we have to rely on comparing the 4870 X2 to the GeForce GTX 280 (priced at $450) as well as the GeForce GTX 260 in SLI (priced at $300 x 2).
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pattycake0147 - Tuesday, August 12, 2008 - link
I've noticed the same bias recently. I've only been a member for a little over a year now and even in the short time the site has gone downhill.sweetsauce - Tuesday, August 12, 2008 - link
Translation: I like ATI and you don't so im going to bitch. Even though my name is tech guy, i obviously have ovaries. I'm going to go cry now on ATI's behalf.jnmfox - Tuesday, August 12, 2008 - link
Get over yourself. Pointing out facts isn't taking pot-shots.This is just what I was looking for in a review of the X2. The numbers tell the story. In the majority of cases the X2 isn't worth it, and until AMD & NVIDIA get proper hardware implementation of multi-GPU solutions it will most continue to be the case.
To little performance increase for the large increase is cost.
skiboysteve - Tuesday, August 12, 2008 - link
i completely agree with anand on this article. the lack of innovation from a company supposedly focusing on multi chip solutions is stupidalthough yes, it is really fast.
and why cant they clock it lower at idle?
astrodemoniac - Tuesday, August 12, 2008 - link
... reviews I have ever seen here @ Anands. I am extremely disappointed with this so called "Review" ... hell, I have seen PREVIEWS that would put it to shame.Oh, and what in the hell did AMD do to you that you're so obviously pissed off at them?... are you annoyed they didn't give you preferential treatment to release the review earlier? man just go back to the unbiased reviews, we're buying graphic cards, not brands.
It's like the guys writing the reviews are not gamers any more o_0
/rant
Halley - Wednesday, August 13, 2008 - link
It's no secret that AnandTech is "managed by Intel" as a user put it. Of course every one must have some source of income to support their families and themselves but it's pathetic to show such blatant biasedness.TheDoc9 - Tuesday, August 12, 2008 - link
Anandtech isn't about gaming anymore, it's about photography and home theater. And the occasional newest intel extreem cpu.I think Dailytech and the forums carry Anandtech these days...
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, August 12, 2008 - link
"AMD decided that since there's relatively no performance increase yet there's an increase in power consumption and board costs that it would make more sense to leave the feature disabled. "In other words, it's broken in hardware and we couldn't get it working, so we "disabled" it.
NullSubroutine - Tuesday, August 12, 2008 - link
You didn't even include test system specs or driver versions.CreasianDevaili - Tuesday, August 12, 2008 - link
I wanted to know why you didnt retest the 4870CF setup when you obviously had some issues with it before in GRID. I noticed the 280gtx setup was retested which resulted in higher FPS. I feel that after running the game at 2560x1600 on my FW900 and also from other reviews that you had a issue with crossfire not working at that resolution. The single 4870 shouldnt be getting better FPS by that degree at 2560x1600 because it also has 512mb of vram.So I just wanted to know why the 280gtx was special enough to retest when this review was about the 4870X2. If it is to show a good comparison then why wasnt the 4870CF, which many have and want to see, not retested as well.