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I see NDAs did come off today. Reviews everywhere; 23 pages at AT.

...and then disaster struck.

Or at least that's how it felt. The past few weeks have been incredibly tumultuous, sleepless, and beyond interesting. It is as if AMD and NVIDIA just started pulling out hardware and throwing it at eachother while we stood in the middle getting pegged with graphics cards. And we weren't just hit with new architectures and unexpected die shrinks, but new drivers left and right.

First up was GT200, which appeared in the form of the GeForce GTX 280 and GeForce GTX 260. Of course, both of those can be paired or tri-ed (if you will), but with two cards requiring at least a 1200W PSU we're a bit worried of trying three. Then came the randomness that was the accidental launch of the Radeon HD 4850 (albeit with no architectural information) and only a couple hours later we first heard about the 9800 GTX+ which is a die shrunk higher clocked 9800 GTX that is now publicly announced and will be available in July.
...
Priced at $299 the Radeon HD 4870 is clocked 20% higher and has 81% more memory bandwidth than the Radeon HD 4850. The GPU clock speed improvement is simply due to better cooling as the 4870 ships with a two-slot cooler. The memory bandwidth improvement is due to the Radeon HD 4870 using GDDR5 memory instead of GDDR3 used on the 4850 (and GDDR4 for 3870); the result is a data rate equal to 4x the memory clock speed or 3.6Gbps. The Radeon HD 4870 and 4850 both use a 256-bit memory bus like the 3870 before it (as well as NVIDIA's competing GeForce 9800 GTX), but total memory bandwidth on the 4870 ends up being 115.2GB/s thanks to the use of GDDR5. Note that this is more memory bandwidth than the GeForce GTX 260 which has a much wider 448-bit memory bus, but uses GDDR3 devices.

I do loves me some memory bandwidth; feeds that FSAA/AF craving. We live in quad-data times from now.

Whee.

I won't say you're going wrong that route, but videochips have run that hot for 5-6 years now. What's increased is total power and heat output.

For myself, I'd not worry about either, esp. since the HR-11 is a fine way to dissipate said heat. Extract it from the chip into the case airflow, reduce everything from the chip temp to the PCB temp, shed into the cases' ample airflow. Simple thermodynamics. And these boards look well-built, with newer low-level components that should live long and prosper.

One seldom goes far wrong being cautious. Of course, with me, cooling has been a specialty this milloonium and before.

I see Thermalright has a new one. Looks nice, tho not yet tried for fit on the 4xx0s. This type cools the entire card, tho only from one side, and this one will likely be a bit pricey, tho quiet. More will come.


ed sp

Last edited by Bat (2008-06-26 3:16 pm)

My builder assures me that the 4850s will be no problem, and are much better value than the 3870X2. So that part of the decision has been made.

Now it's down to AMD vs Intel.

FYI, round two is almost here. Non-reference solutions, dual-slot coolers etc.

This is just the first from Diamond, a little bird told us there are tons more to come from them and many others. We know about the R700/Dual 4870 board, we know there are higher-clocked variants, and we know there are higher memory SKUs as well. There are also higher-clocked dual boards with huge memory configs coming as well.

The first round of boards out of the gate, both 4850s and 4870s, were reference designs, every OEM had the same thing more or less. Very soon you will see custom designs, differentiation and much higher-end parts. The Diamond XOC card is the first one to leak out to our inbox.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ … 70-spotted

More here.

Ribtorus wrote:

My builder assures me that the 4850s will be no problem, and are much better value than the 3870X2.

Reference designs are usually first out, then come the variants. These look particularly good. Variant 2 has the kind of 'factory aftermarket' cooling that should let these run both faster and cooler.

SAPPHIRE TECHNOLOGY has shipped two new models of the HD 4850: the HD 4850 1 GB and the 4850 Toxic Edition. The HD 4850 1GB, essentially an upgraded variant of the original HD 4850, offers clock speeds of up to 625MHz (core) and 993MHz (memory).

The Toxic card, fitted with 512MB of high speed memory operating at 1100MHz, is capable of achieving core clock speeds of 675MHz. Toxic also features a Zalman heatpipe fan that provides efficient cooling with a minimal amount of noise.

[img]

Both models use the PCI-Express Gen2 interface and includes dual connectors for CrossfireX cables, which allows two or more cards to function simultaneously on a CrossFireX compatible mainboard. In addition, the new cards offer improved memory management architecture and an upgraded video hardware for smooth decoding of Blu-ray, HD DVD and Mpeg content.

The Toxic variant has enough VRAM at 512 to run 1680x1050 comfortably with most games, and the higher-speed memory both improves general performance and allows enabling more FSAA/AF without a big performance hit for improved image Q. Still single-slot cards. Fan is big enough to cool much of the PCB. Article has nice pic.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ … ces-hd4850

Speed kills.

If it hasn't been built yet...

Bat wrote:

Reference designs are usually first out, then come the variants. These look particularly good. Variant 2 has the kind of 'factory aftermarket' cooling that should let these run both faster and cooler.

SAPPHIRE TECHNOLOGY [..]

The Toxic card, fitted with 512MB of high speed memory operating at 1100MHz, is capable of achieving core clock speeds of 675MHz. Toxic also features a Zalman heatpipe fan that provides efficient cooling with a minimal amount of noise.

The Toxic variant has enough VRAM at 512 to run 1680x1050 comfortably with most games, and the higher-speed memory both improves general performance and allows enabling more FSAA/AF without a big performance hit for improved image Q. Still single-slot cards. Fan is big enough to cool much of the PCB. Article has nice pic.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ … ces-hd4850

Overclockers Club did a review. Conclusion reads

The biggest complaint about the HD48xx series of video cards has been the performance of the cooling system on the cards - more so the HD4850 variant than the HD4870. Load temps in the 90+ Celsius range are a little unnerving for those that pay attention to the small things. While ATI has said that the temperatures are ok, something had to be done. The Zalman GPU cooler used on the Toxic HD4850 cooled the card quite well. Idle temperatures of 35 to 38 degrees Celsius, and load temperatures of 60 to 64 Celsius - with zero noise - are a huge improvement over the standard cooling used on the 4850 series cards - no BIOS or software modifications needed. [..]

The inclusion of the bundled software from CyberLink and Futuremark make the price of the Toxic more appealing. Just a mere $25 more than the $190 that most HD4850 video cards are selling for just makes buying an overclocked card with a nice bundle a smart decision if you are looking for a card like this. Great price, great bundle, great cooling, and overclocked performance make the Sapphire Toxic HD4850 a winner.

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews … 850/15.htm

load temperatures of 60 to 64 Celsius - with zero noise - are

..pretty darn good by any measure, really. The cost is only a bit higher too, but I'll keep an eye out for more in that range. With good case airflow, all is good.

Didn't there used to be external video card enclosures?

It's irrelevant, meant for adding decent graphics to lappies etc. that lack internal space.

Ribtorus wrote:

..introducing a 60° C device into a system that barely gets above 50° C

...and a reference design 4850 might peak at 90°, yet dissipate the same amount of heat, both internally, loading the system basically the same (local hot spot[s] aside). I am familiar with the physics, thermodynamics and acoustics, as dv likely remembers (80mm Tornado/Swiftech, dv?).

Then there's the extra work (heat and fan noise) the power supply will be doing just to run the new video. It's no deal breaker, but I'm definitely considering the thermal and noise loads in my decision.

It's a quad-Opteron system. If the cooling is as good as you say, the PSU is the only real worry if you choose well. Remember you'll need a unit with both adequate output and the right connectors or adapters. I wouldn't rely on a case with only the PSU fan for exhaust with this, esp. if a dual-chip design is chosen.

I do keep up. Too bad your friends didn't wait a few weeks.

Good luck with your decision. My work here seems done.

Fine news. I think you'll be happy with this setup, especially after a little experimentation with visual quality settings- FSAA, AF and the like.

I'm pretty sure I would be.

Max pr3tteh in-game only? There's a lot that's often left out, esp. in older games. That's what driver control panels are for.

Lots of great games were made before things like anisotropic filtering were even invented, let alone became common &/or got in-game settings. You can't even set FSAA, let alone texture filtering, in games like Battlezone, but it makes for mad improvementz.

/gamerspeak


(Your turn, Books).