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Diamond HD 4870 512 MB GDDR5 Review
Packaging & Contents »Introduction
Recently AMD introduced their latest graphics card, the Radeon HD 4870. It is based on the same RV770 GPU that is present on the HD 4850, too. The major difference is that the HD 4870 uses GDDR5 while the HD 4850 uses GDDR3. Certainly the biggest benefit of GDDR5 is that is offers twice the memory bandwidth than GDDR3 at the same clock. As a result the HD 4870 has almost double the memory bandwidth available, even though its memory clock is slightly lower than the HD 4850. Another difference to the HD 4850 is that the HD 4870 uses a dual-slot cooling solution allowing AMD to increase the core clock by 125 MHz to 750 MHz.
Diamond's HD 4870 is fully based on the AMD reference design, but Diamond has already announced a special Black Edition card that allows much higher clock speeds.
| Radeon HD 3850 | Radeon HD 3870 | GeForce 9600 GT | GeForce 8800 GT | Radeon HD 4850 | GeForce 8800 GTS | Radeon HD 4870 | GeForce 8800 GTX | GeForce 8800 Ultra | GeForce GTX 260 | GeForce GTX 280 | |
| Shader units | 320 | 320 | 64 | 112 | 800 | 128 | 800 | 128 | 128 | 192 | 240 |
| ROPs | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 24 | 24 | 28 | 32 |
| GPU | RV670 | RV670 | G94 | G92 | RV770 | G92 | RV770 | G80 | G80 | GT200 | GT200 |
| Transistors | 666M | 666M | 505M | 754M | 956M | 754M | 956M | 681M | 681M | 1400M | 1400M |
| Memory Size | 256 MB | 512 MB | 512 MB | 512 MB | 512 MB | 512 MB | 512 MB | 768 MB | 768 MB | 896 MB | 1024 MB |
| Memory Bus Width | 256 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 384 bit | 384 bit | 448 bit | 512 bit |
| Core Clock | 670 MHz | 777 MHz | 650 MHz | 600 MHz | 625 MHz | 650 MHz | 750 MHz | 575 MHz | 612 MHz | 576 MHz | 602 MHz |
| Memory Clock | 828 MHz | 1126 MHz | 900 MHz | 900 MHz | 993 MHz | 970 MHz | 900 MHz | 900 MHz | 1080 MHz | 999 MHz | 1107 MHz |
| Price | $120 | $150 | $140 | $160 | $199 | $210 | $299 | $390 | $520 | $449 | $649 |