Sapphire HD 4870 Video Card Review

[Hardware Secrets Team]

There has been a new article posted.

Title: Sapphire HD 4870 Video Card Review
URL: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/589

Here is a snippet:
"AMD/ATI has released two new high-end graphics chips recently, Radeon HD 4870 and Radeon HD 4850, known by the codenames RV770 XT and RV770 PRO, respectively. As you can guess by the numbers, HD 4870 ..."

Comments on this article are welcome.

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Hardware Secrets Team
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com

[Kenpachi]

I just bought myself a 4850 from Here, and it kicks ass! I would have gone with the 4870, but it was just too expensive, plus I got the hd 4850 for $169 which is the lowest I have seen it anywhere.

I highly recommend these new offerings from ATI they are probably the best bang for you buck you can buy, and either version will handle any game with ease.

ATI sure has made a great comeback with their hd 3800 and 4800 series, it's about time NVIDIA had some real competition, as you can see the consumers are benefiting greatly

[Gabriel Torres]

I couldn't agree more. 4800 series is really good and at a lower price than nVidia competitors. Isn't that great?

nVidia made the big mistake of understimating AMD, charging a lot for their new GTX 200 series.

Also some partners are pissed with constant price reductions trying to catch AMD. Rumor is that EVGA and XFX are breaking with nVidia and will start manufacture AMD-based products.

Cheers,
Gabriel.

[Merman]

Nice video card reviews. Just a thought, how about commenting about minimum and/or preferred power needed for single and dual card setups???

AMD/ATI makes it easy to find but nVidia only makes SLI requirements easy to find. Still some are still confused by not realizing the minimum power requirements that are shown in watts, are for the total system. Or maybe I am confused???

I found the nVidia power requirements. Here is a sample:

http://www.nvidia.com/HelpMeChoose/fx/HelpMeChoose.asp

[Gabriel Torres]

Hello,

Thanks for your valid suggestion. While we get support from nVidia, AMD is simply ignoring us so we can't tell the minimum power requirements for HD 4870 and HD 4850.

There are two specs published. One is the VGA maximum TDP, which is the maximum wattage consumption for each video card. This number is a little bit exagerated, as the manufacturer plays on the safe side. Then there is the minimum recommended power supply wattage for a single card.

TDP we published here: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/569/3

As for minimum PSU wattage:

single GTX 280: minimum 550 W unit with 40 A on +12 V rail.
single GTX 260: minimum 500 W unit with 36 A on +12 V rail.

Cheers,
Gabriel.

[Merman]

Thank you for your reply.

TDP, Thermal Design Power