4850X2 "within weeks"

[ObiWong]

Back in August Neowin reported that ATI were expected to release the 4850X2 “shortly”...

Now finally ATI has said that the 4850X2 should hit the shelves of your favourite component supplier within weeks. The 4850X2 is the smaller cousin of the 4870X2 and like its bigger sibling will feature 2 4850 chips on a single PCB, with each core having access to 1GB of GDDR3 memory.

4850X2 designs have now “validated” by graphics cards makers, said Sasha Marinkovic, senior product marketing manager at AMD’s graphics products group at a news-conference on Thursday.

The new 4850X2 is expected to retail in the region of $350-$399 according to ATI.

It is expected to go head-to-head with Nvidia’s monolithic single core design Gefore GTX 280 which currently retails in the $499 price range.

It’s predicted that the 4850X2 will match and in many cases surpass its Nvidia counterpart. But fundamentally it still suffers from the problem of all dual-chip designs; driver profiles are needed to be able to use both cores in games. If the game is not supported then the 4850X2 will only use a single core.

source: http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=49088

hopefully we'll be seeing some benches soon
i wanted to CF my 4850 but my P35 board kills it with the 8x/4x lanes
guess this might be another solution for me, which looks nice at a $350 price point

[ghost_recon88]

Dang, hotness :D

So many decissions now to make about video cards...

[GotNoRice]

Hmm, I wonder if this might provide some sort of smooth upgrade path where I could upgrade one of my 4850's and have triple crossfire and then eventually upgrade the other for quad crossfire. 4870x2 + 4870 works, so 4850x2 + 4850 should work also right?

[xtkxhom3r]

wow this is awesome i wonder how it compares to 2 4870's in crossfire

[jason4207]

Hmm, I wonder if this might provide some sort of smooth upgrade path where I could upgrade one of my 4850's and have triple crossfire and then eventually upgrade the other for quad crossfire. 4870x2 + 4870 works, so 4850x2 + 4850 should work also right?

It should work, but by doing that you'll be increasing your GPU power, but you'll still be limited by memory bandwidth which won't increase. That's assuming these are 512MB/GPU.

[>HyperlogiK<]

i wanted to CF my 4850 but my P35 board kills it with the 8x/4x lanes
guess this might be another solution for me, which looks nice at a $350 price point

Correct me if I'm worng, but I think a 16x PCIe 1.0 lane can significantly bottleneck a 4970x2 at high res. So it would probably do somthing similar to these cards.

[AngelicPenguin]

but I think a 16x PCIe 1.0 lane can significantly bottleneck a 4970x2 at high res

I'm no expert, but I believe ViperJohn is:
http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=5830671&postcount=5

[Alien432]

Let me do the math...

2 4870 $250x2 = $500
2 4850x2 $300x2 = $600
2 4870x2 $550x2 = $1100

I would very much like to have two of those 4850x2 cross-fired !

[OCKarl]

You will be able to play all upcoming games @ high details with a 4850 single core, maybe some OC necessary.....

I'm sure. Look at Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3, they do even run fine on consoles.

[ziggo0]

You will be able to play all upcoming games @ high details with a 4850 single core, maybe some OC necessary.....

I'm sure. Look at Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3, they do even run fine on consoles.

I've found that the only game my 4850 can't play at high with AA has been Stalker.

Consoles also by default, unless hooked to a HDTV run 640x480.

[jason4207]

Consoles also by default, unless hooked to a HDTV run 640x480.

Yes, but you can set them to run 1080p too, but not all games are actually rendered at 1080P

When the game is coded for a console it is optimized for that hardware. Its the same thing as you running the game on your PC at various settings until you find something that stays at or above 60fps.

The thing w/ consoles is that you don't get to turn the settings up, so an equivalent run on the PC might equate to med settings, and no AA.

Also if the console game isn't optimized well, you might get some slow down. Whereas w/ the PC you could turn your settings down to prevent any dips in fps.

Consoles are plug n play, but PCs are nice if you like to tweak things.

[Brando]

The benches I've seen of crossfire hd4850's show them slaughtering the gtx 280 flat out so this is one to look out for. If it's $350 I'm in...probably. I'm still trying to figure out for sure about this microstuttering thing.

[ziggo0]

I'm definitely in for one considering I only have 1 16x PCIe lane. GG P35

[Brando]

Hopefully this card is equivalent to 2 cards in crossfire because daaaaam....
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/9159-ati-hd4870-hd4850-crossfire-performance-review-11.html
AND it has double the ram. $350 sounds too good to be true but who knows.

[ghost_recon88]

The 4850X2 is the smaller cousin of the 4870X2 and like its bigger sibling will feature 2 4850 chips on a single PCB, with each core having access to 1GB of GDDR3 memory.

I'm not sure the HD4850 can utilize a 1GB buffer (per GPU) but at least you know memory capacity won't be the limiting factor of this card :beer:

[Essenar]

I'm not sure the HD4850 can utilize a 1GB buffer (per GPU) but at least you know memory capacity won't be the limiting factor of this card :beer:

It can if you OC it. Even OC'ing it to 700 will yield you performance within 20-25% of the 4870x2.

Remember the 4850 has the exact same core as the 4870. No modifications whatsoever except clock speed.

[Mr.Guvernment]

wow this is awesome i wonder how it compares to 2 4870's in crossfire

it would lose just as a single 4850 loses to a 4870

[Brando]

I've read in a couple places that this card will equal, and sometimes beat the gtx 280. But in the benches I've seen, 2 4850's annihilate the gtx 280. Is there some reason the 4850x2 would be inferior to 2 individual 4850's?

[Essenar]

I've read in a couple places that this card will equal, and sometimes beat the gtx 280. But in the benches I've seen, 2 4850's annihilate the gtx 280. Is there some reason the 4850x2 would be inferior to 2 individual 4850's?

Maybe because it doesn't "annihilate" the GTX 280? It more or less trades blows with the GTX 280. And if you don't believe me, check the benchmark/reviews for yourself.

Dual 4850's perform really well in :
Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, GRID

They lose to the GTX 280 in:
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3

More or less equal in Source based games where CPU is king.

Over-clocked on the other hand, I know 4850's will put a handy beating on any single GPU card. 4850x2's will handle higher resolutions really well due to 1gb per GPU. Maybe not high resolution with eye candy, but high resolutions none the less.

[ziggo0]

^not to mention with AA enabled at higher resolutions(1680x1050 & up), the 48x0 series takes less of a blow then the current gen nV cards.

[Brando]

I based the word "annihilate" on the first benches I found that compared the 2 but I didn't read every review. In the hardwarecanucks benchmark the 4850's were approx 170% better than the gtx 280 in cod4.
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/9159-ati-hd4870-hd4850-crossfire-performance-review-11.html
Is it lies? They do well (not quite as) in Devil may cry 4 as well. As far as the games where it gets really low scores, I can only assume the game isn't really using both cores yet or it's been gimped for non nvidia cards like crysis. I tried to find more benches but everything that comes up when I google leads back to this same review. I'll try to dig up some more.
EDIT: Ah hell I guess 4800 cards are just really good with COD4. I saw the COD4 benches and got all excited thinking it was like that with most games. Oh well:(

[Sgt_Pinto]

I based the word "annihilate" on the first benches I found that compared the 2 but I didn't read every review. In the hardwarecanucks benchmark the 4850's were approx 170% better than the gtx 280 in cod4.
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/9159-ati-hd4870-hd4850-crossfire-performance-review-11.html
Is it lies? They do well (not quite as) in Devil may cry 4 as well. As far as the games where it gets really low scores, I can only assume the game isn't really using both cores yet or it's been gimped for non nvidia cards like crysis. I tried to find more benches but everything that comes up when I google leads back to this same review. I'll try to dig up some more.
EDIT: Ah hell I guess 4800 cards are just really good with COD4. I saw the COD4 benches and got all excited thinking it was like that with most games. Oh well:(
nvidia has a foot in the door with every developer. This is going to change tho as ati has merged with AMD and i suspect that nvidia will not be able to bribe as many companies as they used to.

[don'tknow]

Well to be fair, I don't count Crysis when I see an "ATI and Nvidia Benchmark comparison" review. It is heavily Nvidia-optimized (but that's very old news by now) and it's quite funny the last sentence on that site, for the Crysis benches is "All in all it seems like ATI's driver team has a ways to go with optimizing their cards for this game." - because it's actually the opposite; Crytek needs to optimize the game engine for ATI cards.

[Kuroimaho]

Sounds like a counter for NVs die shrink, can't wait for benches.

[Jim Morbid]

"few weeks..." I'm guessing not before fallout 3 comes out then :(

[AngelEyes]

4850's in crossfire scream at x16 on the x48 chipset. They need mucho CPU though. In my case E8400 from 3ghz to 4.5ghz produced big gains every step of the way. I don't know what kind of CPU OC would top the cards out but I haven't got there yet. If the 4850x2 is cut into two x8 channels though it might not work the same.

21243 3dmark06

[Brando]

I think Brollocks did a test with a bunch of cards including the 4870x2 and it was only bottlenecked by 1-2% on a pcie 1.0 (1.1?) x16 slot if I'm remembering properly.

[don'tknow]

I think Brollocks did a test with a bunch of cards including the 4870x2 and it was only bottlenecked by 1-2% on a pcie 1.0 (1.1?) x16 slot if I'm remembering properly.

It's on one of the stickies. Crossfire with 2 4870's. They don't get bottlenecked much by x8 but dual-GPU cards in CrossfireX like 2 4870x2's do have a big decrease in performance according to some benches I forgot the location of. It was on another hardware review site (not this one), I can't remember.

[Brando]

Ok thanks. I'm still a bit confused on the difference between pcie 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0. Can someone confirm whether there's a bandwidth difference? I was under the impression the newer pcie versions just had more power available from the slot itself. Would it be a waste to get a 4870x2 and put it in my P5B-deluxe? I think it's pcie 1.0 but my power supply has an 8 pin pcie cable so maybe?

[Kuroimaho]

Yes there is a bandwidth difference, PCIe 1.1,1.0 is 250MB/s on each lane while 2.0 doubled it to 500MB/s. Afaik the I965 chipset has PCIe 1.0 support.

[xtkxhom3r]

so in other words if you have 1.0 or 1.1 your 16x is equivalent to a 8x in a 2.0 bus

[jason4207]

so in other words if you have 1.0 or 1.1 your 16x is equivalent to a 8x in a 2.0 bus

In theory, yes. I'm not sure about real-world throughput, though.

[ziggo0]

How do you know what board has what slot?

[xtkxhom3r]

you check in the boards specs it should say pci-e port 1.0/1.1/2.0

[jason4207]

P35 and earlier is PCIe1.x, and X38/X48/P45 and later is PCIe2.0

[Brando]

So running a 4870x2 on a P5B-deluxe (pcie1.0)is like running 4870 crossfire at 4x\4x 2.0?

[Blazing fire]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a 16x PCI-E 1.0 lane can significantly bottleneck a 4970x2 at high res. So it would probably do something similar to these cards.

I doubt so. There maybe a difference between PCI-E 2 and 1 but I doubt it is not significant. I'm sure we are talking about 5fps in the 150+ fps range and 3fps in the 0-60 range.

Btw, I think you meant 4870X2.

[jason4207]

So running a 4870x2 on a P5B-deluxe (pcie1.0)is like running 4870 crossfire at 4x\4x 2.0?

Not quite, b/c the chips can talk to each other via the on-board chip, and don't need to tie up the PCIe lanes.

[ObiWong]

Several European retailers have jumped the gun and listed Sapphire's HD 4850 X2 card.

The card packs 2GB of memory and it's clocked at 625MHz for the core and 993MHz for the memory. It's not a reference design, as you can see by the dual fan coolers.

The only trouble with it is that it's currently priced at HD 4870 X2 levels. The cheapest list price is €378, while the greedier retailers are going overboard with a €415+ price tag. The cheapest HD 4870 X2 in Europe currently sell for €399.

Of course, this is the initial launch pricing and you should probably expect it to and up near the €300 mark once it becomes readily available. Retailers expect to have the cards in stock as early as November 5th.

source: http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10195&Itemid=1

[Jim Morbid]

/facepalm... more expensive than a 4870x2.

Honestly some retailers just need to suck the round-a-house of reality.

JM

[don'tknow]

Those prices are retarded if they're real, it's cheaper to get a P45 board + 2x 4850's. Maybe end of december it'll be reasonable and/or have deals/rebates in many retailers.

[xtkxhom3r]

that is way to much money for a 4850x2....

[Jim Morbid]

You have to take those prices with a pinch of salt - I mean they are impossible. It's like trying to sell a 9800GTX at the same price as a 9800GX2 - its not feasible.