Jon Peddie Research - a technically oriented marketing, research, and management consulting firm in the graphics industry.

ATI takes the flag

Posted by Robert Dow on August 18th 2008 | Comments Closed
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By Alex Gorvoi, Robert Dow,
and Jon Peddie

Sapphire’s HD4870x2
(Source: Jon Peddie Research)

FIGURE 1: Comparison of three new AIBs.
(Source: Jon Peddie Research)

FIGURE 2: Power consumption of three new AIBs.
(Source: Jon Peddie Research)

FIGURE 3: P4 values for the new AIBs.
(Source: Jon Peddie Research)

FIGURE 4: Benchmark points per dollar for the three new AIBs.
(Source: Jon Peddie Research)

ATI launched their new dual-GPU AIB, the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and reclaimed the flag from Nvidia with regard to performance. The timing couldn’t be better—occurring at Siggraph and nicely sidestepping the noise of the Intel Developer Forum and Nvision—not just a coincidence and certain to have an impact on both of those commercial events as well as the IEEE HotChips conference at Stanford.

We received a Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2 with 2GB of 900 MHz GDDR5 memory to test, and it was a pushing match to see who was going to get to it first; this has been a long-awaited AIB here in MTTLs, mostly by Alex.

Once installed, we put it through its paces. The results were actually better than we thought, and are summarized in Figure 1.

We were a little surprised at how hungry the board was, and as Figure 2 shows, it drew more than twice the wattage as the stock HD4870 or the 280GTX.

The best price we could find for the HD4780x2 was $500.

With regard to noise it was just slightly more noisy than a stock HD4870.

The P4 number

Factoring in four parameters, Power, Price, Pressure (noise), and Performance, we got surprising results for the HD 4870 X2, as shown in Figure 3.

On a benchmarks per dollar basis, the HD 4870 X2 came out better, as Figure 4 shows. The high power consumption is what knocks the HD 4870 X2 back in the P4 evaluation.

On a pure performance basis and on a price-performance basis, the HD 4870 X2 is a winner. Factoring in environmental factors such as power consumption and noise and it comes in last place. However, for insane gamers like us and others, we have to give this AIB a big thumbs up.

Epilog—looking sideways

When ATI was getting ready to launch the RV770 word got out about a new sideport interface that would allow GPUs to talk to each other in a more intimate high-bandwidth manner. This is not a new concept, and the last company to try it was XGA. It’s also not easy with regard to driver support, connectors, and associated PCB costs.

However, when we got the board, we were truly surprised by how well it performed, scoring over 4x at the high res, and 1.77 at the low res with no AA compared to a stock HD4870. So we asked ATI if they were using the sideport. “What side port” we were asked, “we don’t know what you’re talking about,” click.

OK, they’re not ready to talk about it yet, and evidently from the dial tone they’re not employing it. But why not. Well, there are a lot of why nots. There are too many ifs. It depends on software support and AIB implementation; and of course if there is enough benefit to warrant a transition.