XFX ATI 4000 Series Round Up
Introduction
Published: 14th April 2009 | Source: XFX | Price: £130 - £330 |
Introduction
In times gone by, if XFX were a stick of rock and you cut them in half, no doubt they would once have had Nvidia written through the middle. Times however, change and with the ever increasing competition in the GPU market. XFX have decided to sell cards from a company who are traditionally a major rival, ATI. Despite making business sense, it is still somewhat of a surprise that XFX, such a pillar of strength for Nvidia have decided to sell cards of Nvidia's most hated rival - ATI. While XFX's market share is certainly not the highest, the XFX brand is very popular among enthusiasts, due in part to the overclocked editions XFX are synominous with.
"JUDAS!" scream Nvidia. Well not quite. XFX still intend on selling Nvidia GPU's and with Nvidia's GPU market share of standalone GPU's being around the 60% mark who can blame them. What XFX are attempting to do is tap into the 40% or thereabouts remaining. XFX are still adament that their partnership with Nvidia is as strong as it ever was and now they have the marketing power to meet the demands of the enthuiast regardless of your preference to the red or green team.
This collaboration has produced a new range of graphics cards and the ones I will be looking at today are the overclocked XXX editions of the budget 4850, the 4870, the latest release 4890 and the stock clocked but mighty 4870x2. I will also be calculating these card's cost per frame to evaluate how much bang-per-buck you get for your cash.
One has to wonder what XFX can possibly bring to the table that isn't already there but as we have seen with the flagship single GPU card, the XFX4890XXX (reviewed in full here), XFX know a thing or too about what the end user wants: Supreme packaging, useful accessories and perhaps most importantly, overclocked editions backed up with 5 star support. So then. let's hope this is the case with their new ATI range of GPU's. Can XFX deliver? I think it's time we found out.
Specifications
The following specifications were taken directly from the XFX specification page.
| HD 4850 XXX | HD 4870 XXX | HD 4890 XXX | HD 4870x2 | |
| Bus Type | PCI-E 2.0 | PCI-E 2.0 | PCI-E 2.0 | PCI-E 2.0 |
| Performance | XXX | XXX | XXX | Standard |
| GPU Clock MHz | 625 MHz | 775MHz | 875MHz | 750MHz |
| Stream Processors | 800 | 800 | 800 | 1600 |
| Memory Interface Bus (bit) | 256 | 256 | 256 | 512 |
| Memory Type | DDR3 | DDR5 | DDR5 | DDR5 |
| Memory Size (MB) | 512 | 1024 | 1024 | 2048 |
| Memory Clock (MHz) | 1990MHz | 3800MHz | 3900MHz | 3600MHz |
| DirectX | 10.1 | 10.1 | 10.1 | 10.1 |
| Output HDCP Capable | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Max Resolution Analog Horizontal | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 |
| Max Resolution Analog Vertical | 1536 | 1536 | 1536 | 1536 |
| Max Resolution Digital Hoizontal | 2560 | 2560 | 2560 | 2560 |
| Max Resolution Digital Vertical | 1600 | 1600 | 1600 | 1600 |
| ROHS | YES | YES | YES | YES |
| Dimensions (Imperial) | 9 x 4.376 x 1.5 | 9.5 x 4.376 x 1.5 | 9.5 x 4.376 x 3.8 | 10.5 x 4.376 x 1.5 |
| Dimensions (Metric) | 23 x 11 x 3.8 | 24.1 x 11 x 3.8 | 24.1 x 11 x 3.8 | 26.7 x 11.2 x 3.8 |
| Profile | Double Slot | Double Slot | Double Slot | Double Slot |
| ATI Radeon HyperMemory™ | YES | YES | YES | YES |
| ATI Radeon CrossFireX™ Technology | YES | YES | YES | YES |
| ATI Radeon PowerPlay™ | YES | YES | YES | YES |
| ATI Radeon Stream Technology | YES | YES | YES | YES |
Let's sit back now and take a brief look at what each card offers in terms of packaging and appearance...
Most Recent Comments
Great round up Rich. That must have taken a lot of work to put it all together :worship:
All you need now is the 4890x2 to finish off the 48xx series :D
don't forget the 4830 ;)
Nice roundup though, interesting results on the 4890
Just a little typo on the first page, the spec table has two "Max Resolution Analog Vertical" rows with different values. but no "Max Resolution Digital Vertical" row.
I've been out of the loop for a bit too long..
The 4870 is on a par with the GTX260 thereabouts, The 4890 is on a par with GTX275 and the 4870x2 is on a par with GTX295. Hope this helps.
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Good to see some up to date figures. Just look at the CoD results. The X2 is quite a few frames over doubling the 4870 FPS.. Drivers and memory obviously helping but at least the theoretical power has actually happened in one game.