Sapphire HD4870 512mb DDR5
Test Setup
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A common mistake made when benchmarking graphics cards is that the rest of the PC system isn’t sufficient enough to test the GPU to its limits. This results in a bottleneck situation, where the system can only run at the speed of its slowest component. For this reason, the test configuration chosen below has been specially selected to give each of the graphics cards on test the headroom they require in order to produce the best results.
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A selection of games and benchmark suites has also been chosen to test each of the cards with several game engines. Each of the cards will be run at both low and high resolutions with varying levels of texture filtering to represent the use of the card with both small and large screen sizes.
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3DMark05
1024×768 / 0xAA / 0xAF (Default)
1920×1200 / 4xAA / 0xAF
1920×1200 / 4xAA / 0xAF
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3DMark 06
1280×1024 / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920×1200 / 4xAA / 0xAF
1280×1024 / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920×1200 / 4xAA / 0xAF
3DMark Vantage
1280×1024 / Performance Mode
1900×1200 / Extreme Mode
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Quake4
1280×1024 / Ultra / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920×1200 / Ultra / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920×1200 / Ultra / 4xAA / 4xAF
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Unreal Tournament III
1280×1024 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920×1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920×1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
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Call of Duty 4
1280×1024 / Max / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920×1200 / Max / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920×1200 / Max / 4xAA / 4xAF
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F.E.A.R
1280×1024 / Max / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920×1200 / Max / 4xAA / 0xAF
1280×1024 / Max / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920×1200 / Max / 4xAA / 0xAF
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BIOSHOCK
1280×1024 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920×1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1280×1024 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920×1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
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Crysis
1280×1024 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920×1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920×1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
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During the benchmarking phase, we will be using the following prices extracted from aria.co.uk on 30/07/08 to produce our CPF graphs. Please remember that these graphs are static and only represent a snapshot of the market at the time of this review.
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MSI GTX280 – £317.19
ASUS 4850 – £123.90
ASUS GTX260 – £199.69
PowerColor HD4870 – £174.97
Sapphire HD4870 – £183.07
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Overclocking
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The Powercolour version of the same card we have here manage to max out the ATI Overdrive tool in our previous review so lets see how the Sapphire fairs :
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True to form the Sapphire HD4870 also maxes out the ATI overdrive tool. I am in no doubt that this card can be pushed much further but cooling could become an issue as at idle the card is reading 77c. Load temps will no doubt be a limiting factor in any overclocking adventure but it is nice to know that the card is capable should you find the means to keep it cool.