Incredible: 4770 in XFire beats 4890 AND it's cheaper !!!

[HTC]

According to this: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-4770-crossfire,2288.html

In almost all benchmarks, the XFired 4770s beat a 4890, and for $30 less: i'm impressed

 

[aCid888*]

But for games that don't support Crossfire, they wont do near as well as the 4890.

Also, they may scale well but I'd sooner take a single 4890 and either crossfire it with a 4870 or get another one later because trifire (to compete with two 4890's) offers even less of a return over 2 cards and will take a bigger PSU, further adding to the cost.

Can't deny the potential of the 40nm 4770, or its value for money though.

 

[largon]

512MB VRAM will limit HD4770 in many, many scenarios where high resolution textures, AA and AF are used.

 

[HTC]

But for games that don't support Crossfire, they wont do near as well as the 4890.

Also, they may scale well but I'd sooner take a single 4890 and either crossfire it with a 4870 or get another one later because trifire (to compete with two 4890's) offers even less of a return over 2 cards and will take a bigger PSU, further adding to the cost.

Can't deny the potential of the 40nm 4770, or its value for money though.

I would say "far worse".

Still, with 2 cards running cooler and consuming less power (maybe W1zzard can help shed some light and prove/disprove this) and, best of all, cheaper: that downside is small, IMHO.

512MB VRAM will limit HD4770 in many, many scenarios where high resolution textures, AA and AF are used.

As shown by the review.

 

[mastrdrver]

Don't know why this would be surprising as two 4830s ran quite close to one 4870. Still good deal for about 200 clams.

 

[SonDa5]

512MB VRAM will limit HD4770 in many, many scenarios where high resolution textures, AA and AF are used.

I agree.

Still a very nice card. It would be nice to see a whole bunch of improved flavors of HD4770.

 

[HolyCow02]

This was surprising to see. The only problem is with the 128-bit memory interface. Putting 1GB of GDDR5 on there will be nice but you won't see a huge improvement. Still a great set for $200

 

[Scrizz]

"there’s really no reason to buy a single 4890, unless you lack CrossFire compatibility. And you shouldn’t be lacking CrossFire unless you own a motherboard with Nvidia core logic (in which case, you’re probably already running a GeForce card of some sort, too)"

from the ARTICLE.... :shadedshu fail

again 4890 ftw!

 

[kenkickr]

To someone like me the 4770's would be very nice in crossfire + a good value due to my max res is 1680 x 1050 and I don't see my LCD dying anytime soon. However, I'm perfectly happy with my 4830's

 

[newtekie1]

Ok, and what happens when you put it in a motherboard that doesn't give each card the full x16 bandwidth. What does the ~10% performance hit from this situation do to the numbers?

Most motherboards do have two PCI-E x16 slots, but only the expensive ones give true x16 slots. The affordable ones only usually give x8 slots. The $30 savings on the cards doesn't really help if you have to pay $30+ more for the motherboard. There is a huge difference in price between X48 boards and P45 boards.

Granted, if you are going i7, you don't really have much to worry about, but the Core 2 Duo and AM2 buyers have to pay for more expensive motherboards.

 

[Scrizz]

if you go i7, wth are you doing purchasing 4770s

 

[Ketxxx]

I don't like the 4770 at all. Sure, it has 40nm and GDDR5, but a 128bit memory bus that absolutely, unquestionably, slaughters it. I'm willing to bet a 4830 (at decent clocks, not the crummy 575/1800) in higher resolutions due to the 256bit memory bus outperforms any flavor 4770.

 

[AKlass]

it should it doubles the memory bus to 256bit and 640x2 stream processors

 

[Ketxxx]

I'm not talking about ringbus, I'm talking about the actual memory interface. From results I've seen the 4770 is just barely faster than a 4830 (both @ stock), and no doubt the small difference there is can easily be chalked up to GPU core speed difference than any other factor.

 

[DaMulta]

Crossfire in 8x or 16x you will see no difference. To say that it's 10% loss is crazy talk.

Ket WHO CARES about 128k vs 256k?

They are different chips.

Looks at 2900XT with 512k buss then 3870 with 256k buss.

Which is faster?

 

[ShadowFold]

Same was said about the 4830's beating the 4870. I honestly don't see why people would be surprised that two high end cards beat a higher end one.

 

[DaMulta]

People don't see CF numbers that often.

One thing to look for if you don't see reviews of it, they don't want you to see reviews of it.

 

[Scrizz]

like 2 4850s

 

[r9]

The whole point of 4770 is to be cheaper than 4830. It has smaller die 40nm it has thinner PCB because of the smaller mem bus and the DDR5 should be cheaper compared to when it was released.
This design it is not for the buyers it is for AMD to make some little more cache.
And I don`t like those non reference 4XXX cards. At first non-reference was refered to improved design of the PCB but for 48XX 99% of the time mean that is cheap ass design.

 

[Darknova]

I'm not talking about ringbus, I'm talking about the actual memory interface. From results I've seen the 4770 is just barely faster than a 4830 (both @ stock), and no doubt the small difference there is can easily be chalked up to GPU core speed difference than any other factor.

There were 2 main reasons for using a 128bit bus over a 256bit bus.

1. Cuts production costs.
2. The GDDR5 makes up for it, don't forget that effective speeds are 4 times that of the "real" speed. The bandwidth is a colossal amount for a 128bit bus.

Stop looking at a single factor, look at the whole. Whether or not you "like" it the 4770 is slightly faster and essentially the same price (a few quid difference). That and the fact it's on a 40nm process means it should, theoretically, overclock much higher than a 4830.

Ket WHO CARES about 128k vs 256k?

They are different chips.

Looks at 2900XT with 512k buss then 3870 with 256k buss.

Which is faster?

Thank you. The 2900XT was faster at higher resolutions, but the 3870 used a lot less power, ran a lot cooler, and cost a lot less. In every way it was a better buy.

 

[Polarman]

I looked at Tom's Hardware article. It does look pretty good considering you really want to go the crossfire way.

Personnaly, i'd rather stick with my single 4890 "Kickass" card.

 

[newtekie1]

I don't like the 4770 at all. Sure, it has 40nm and GDDR5, but a 128bit memory bus that absolutely, unquestionably, slaughters it. I'm willing to bet a 4830 (at decent clocks, not the crummy 575/1800) in higher resolutions due to the 256bit memory bus outperforms any flavor 4770.

If you look back at the two HD4830 review samples that Wiz got, he managed to get one to 1105MHz on the GDDR3, yielding a bandwidth of 70.7GB/s. Guess what the HD4770's bandwidth was at the 1105MHz Wiz managed with his review sample...yep 70.7GB/s. What you are asking is for the HD4770 to have the same memory bandwidth as the HD4890. Why should a mid-range card have the same memory bandwidth as the flagship?

GDDR5@128-bit = GDDR3@256-bit

Thank you. The 2900XT was faster at higher resolutions, but the 3870 used a lot less power, ran a lot cooler, and cost a lot less. In every way it was a better buy.

The HD4890 uses a 256-bit bus, and stomps the HD2900XT...

 

[Ketxxx]

All that does is prove my main point exactly. Why use expensive GDDR5 when the much cheaper GDDR3 can produce the same result and all ATi need do is keep a 256bit bus.

Look at things this way;

4830 = 256bit bus, GDDR3, 55nm process
4770 = 128bit bus, GDDR5, 40nm process

IMO what ATi should of done is simply keep the die shrink on the revamed architecture along with the cheaper GDDR3 and a 256bit bus. Production costs would likely be much cheaper still, which makes a mainstream card all the more affordable. Just because a certain technology is newer, in this case GDDR5, it does not mean its better in every scenario.

 

[DaMulta]

I think they have a ton of GGR5 laying around that's already bought(that's what I'm thinking).

 

[ShadowFold]

They used GDDR5 because they want to phase out GDDR3 in high and mid end cards. Which is good because GDDR5 is so much faster.