4870x2 HardOCP Preview - taking the fluff out of reviewing t -.- t - Page 2

Last message on previous page:

Fine, but you're just blinding yourself to the issue that all of these previews have - which is making cpu the limiting factor and not pushing either gpu hard enough. I really don't give a flying crap if people can get 120 fps at 4x aa 1920*1200 in Half life 2 on these gpus - why? Because you could probably get the exact same FPS with 16x quality AA on an Nvidia array - or likewise you could get the same FPS at 24xCSAA on the AMD array because both configurations are held back by the cpu on this old game.

I don't really care if you like Hardocp's articles or not - because they have given unbiased and highly positive reviews of the 4850, 4870 and now the 4870x2; so if you "don't trust them as far as you could throw them" when they have the amount of data available to back up their claims as they do - then you might as well write off Tomsadvertisingguide because THG has been doing trash reviews and has shown how they sell themselves off (ibuypower, system builder marathon, tri-sli vs quad sli)

Does anyone use Skulltrail for benchmarking purposes? I would think that dual overclocked Q9775 processors to at least 4.0 GHz each should alleviate the whole CPU limitation thing.

the problem i have with H is that i have seen too often the biased conclusions they come to and their "most playable" settings they use.

complete rubbish and even with their apples to apples(what else would you do) i do not trust them not to show their usual nvidia bias.

i have even seen some reviews where their own data has contradicted their conclusions. they really struggle to praise ATI and to so is done grudgingly and only when clear cut but even the slightest thing is cause for praise for nvidia.

you cpu remarks are useless in the real world and i have a funny feeling you use the word "bottleneck".

LOL, youre too funny. Do you do Vegas too?

oh there we go again.. driver, driver and again drvier.
Been hearing this kind of excuse since the release of 38xx

I'm sick of all this Crysis ****. Seriously, the game's a bad example of a benchmark IMO. Sure it lays the smackdown on any card that runs it, but that's because of unoptimized coding on the part of Crytek and there's probably some NV bias in that game.

It's quite obvious that with just about every other game that's been developed by people who know what they're doing that video cards don't have to be cooled with liquid nitrogen, OC'd to over 1 GHz core and have 5000 shader cores to play at 2560 x 1600 w/ full settings and AA/AF.

Well you can certainly stress a gpu playing Call of Duty 4 or really any directx9 title on a 1920*1200 under 16x Quality AA + Transparency super sampling (Nv) or in the case of AMD 24x CSAA with ADAA edge detect

You don't have to play Crysis in order to stress gpus - largely the point that I continue to make is that if you aren't enabling high quality AA and texture settings in your drivers then you aren't taking advantage of high end hardware like the 4870x2. You don't have to play Crysis in order to appreciate your hardware and crank up the details, as the whole point of buying a high end gpu is to increase IQ settings. IMHO if you can play games at minimum 30 fps with every conceivable detail maxed out in-game and in drivers, then you're taking advantage of high end gpus.

I'm almost sure that Crytek even admitted that Crysis wasn't very optimized. The next iteration, Crysis Warhead, is supposed to run on the same engine, but with optimizations such that you can have all the delicious eye candy of the original without the need for top-tier hardware. That's what I've heard and read anyway.

Also, don't knock Bioshock. I liked it, though it did get ridiculously easy at the end. Also, I run an Athlon X2 3800+ at 2.8 GHz, 2 gigs of DDR2 800, GF 7600GT and I was able to run the game on XP with a mix of low and medium settings at 1280 x 1024, comfortably. Also from benchmarks I've seen, Bioshock seems to run fairly well on modern hardware, even with settings cranked up. Doesn't look too bad either.

Does it need to be bias or can it be incompentance that makes you question their ability to pick "best playable" and causes trust issues with their abilities/methods?

I can provide you a few of those.

I like that they offer the Hystogram (one of the few sites that do) however if I were to be given only one review to get information from, I would never pick an [H] review as my sole source of info.

I'm optimistic that they'll improve their methods, but what was once valuable for its novelty needs to mature more like other review sites and provide more information than just one arbitrarily picked settting.

Bioshock was quite an enjoyable game, don't get me wrong. It just doesn't run as fast, at least on my system, as several other games that are comparable in the graphics department.

Note: I'm running it on a Geforce Go 7950GTX, T7600 C2D @ 2.83, and it runs smoothly on high DX9 @1680x1050. I can't quite run it on my monitor's native 1920x1200 smoothly though, while I can run HL2 Ep2, Gears, and UT3.

GTX260: 11 min, 36 max, 25.2 avg

4850: 10 min, 31 max, 19.6 avg


feel free to remove your tinfoil hat.

I don't exactly understand what you're getting at, but when I started the thread I posted links to a website that shows the 4870x2 kicking the living crap out of the gtx280 - and then some people came in with the express interest of trying to give me a headache at their lack of sense by trying to say that the site that showed the AMD card walloping the Nvidia card for cheaper was somehow Nvidia biased.

So what does this have to do with fanboyism?

To be honest, I am a bit surprised - especially since techreport already reviewed it and came to contrary results. Go figure, huh? I wonder who is right/wrong.

ed; oh, you know though - techreport's review only covered x48 vs p45, I guess I mislead myself a bit.

I wonder what was actually holding back the x38 in CF performance - seems a little peculiar that it evidently had nothing to do with x16 lanes.

I am humbled.

It's arbitrary because who decides what's most important to a game higher resolution, higher AA (2560x1600 no AA or 1920x1200 4X QAA ?), who decides that shader quality or features are less/more important than resolution/AA. It's arbitrary as to what is chosen. I could pick 10 settings for many games that would yield a minimum of 25 fps. And even that measure they don't adhere to, so it's arbitrary. It relies solely on the choices of one person, and it's a limited number of benchmarks compared to other reviews, which in and of itself isn't bad but the exclusion of all others to that end is ignorant, and that's the position they recently took attacking other sites, including Anand whom I have no particular affinity for but their methods are no less/more valid.

You need to give your own a shake and re-read what I said. I kept the sentence singular about MY likes and dislikes about it, your internalizing that is your issue bud!
My point was the [H] review offers very little information and limits your ability to get a feel for a piece of hardware with disproportionate small slices of performance. It's nice as a companion to other reviews, but if I had only one to chose from , then I would prefer reviews like Computerbase, TechReport, Xbit, Digit-Life, THG, and yes even Anand on occasion, because if I were limited to the one review they do a good job of running extensive tests to expose limits of the hardware and compare and contrast them. Some are better than others, but rarely do I get a good feel for the hardware with an [H] review. The best thing they have is the Hystogram which tells me more than the 'highest playable settings'.

No, but then again I wasn't talking about that, I was specifically replying to your statements about [H], not about CPUs, so I have a feeling that is why you don't know what I'm getting at and you miss the point more than me.

I'm not reading too much into, but you're definitely discounting too much if you see no flaw in their current implementation. As for others sites using the same settings, yes there are many that do that, and there were others that used best playable for a while, however they moved out of that once people realized that different cards react differently to different stresses (do the GF8/9 and HD2/3K react the same to AA and Resolution?) so you need to show those differences. Not everyone plays at the same setting, nor do they all have access to the same resolutions, nor do they value settings similarly. So the utlity of testing a card at one resolution and setting makes little sense.

Like you aren't?

Look I'm pretty open with my criticisms to Kyle and in the [H] forums when I see something. The last time I saw something questionable was in the Age of Conan review;
http://www.hardforum.com/showpost. [...] stcount=85

You tell me whether or not this issue supports what StrangerStranger and I are saying or if [H]'s methods aren't without fault.

Hey man if you can't get an Apples to Apples right (which so many other sites seem able to as you point out) then how can I trust them with something as subjective as a 'max payable setting' test? And this is far from the first time, and the errors seem always to appear in one direction.
Regardless of what you think my motives are there or in this thread, as if anyone who disagrees is a troll, the data speaks for itself IMO.

To me, its all about trust. I see mistakes in most reviews anyways. BUT, I have the ability and opportunity to run it myself on other sites review methods, and other sites use the same methods which I have access to, and can compare. Does running at 1 resolution help me if its not my resolution? AA more important? AF? Total speed, damn the eye candy (this isnt me, I love my eye candy) for a FPS game? More games? Theres just too much trust involved, without me being able to actually reproduce their efforts, its either useless, or I have to believe them. OTP, I too saw those things in their reviews, all the things Apes brought up, again. Weve all seen it. Not that its bad, it is interesting, it is different, but to me, not the best, nor most concise. And sometimes they just miss the point. Ive read their forums after a review, and seen the responses, and they are defended to the inth degree. Just like the Toms way it was meant to be played thread, where a few people were claiming Toms as being biased towards nVidia, I defended them, but then I also asked why there wasnt a follow up 4870 review, which we did get. THATS apples to apples, making sure its done right, no excuses, and open to a bit of opinion. Thats just not what Ive seen at [H], in their reviews, nor in their forums

bottleneck = **********

it is a bad word people.

thankfully ovaltineplease i listened to ur advice about the x38/x48 and completely ignored it so it all worked out in the end


anywho, that's me all-over some one tells me to do something i do the opposite

The problem with them using the 'save points' as an excuse is, why does one solution take a bigger hit than another (often in Crysis it was ATi, but in AoC it was nV), and isn't that relevant if it affects performance differently?

They mentioned HDD thrashing in the AOC review, but if one solution is more efficient at texture or memory management and does it better so as to not need to swap out with the HDD as much, how is that different than one solution being more or less CPU dependant, or being better at HDR or AA or anything else?
If the frames do drop and it's not an aritifice of fraps that shows 2 fps but the screen still refreshes at 30 fps, then it needs to be included. There's mention of excuses, but hard drive thrashing as an excuse as if the framerate drop doesn't matter is ignorant, as if saying the X48 vs P45 issue above isn't relevant to the testing of different solutions on different platforms.

I definitely find them to be the nice nuts or sprinkles ontop of other more substantial reviews as a different view of the hardware, but I do have issues with their testing methods since it truly offers far less information than others. It may be a few tidbits others aren't providing, but it does remain to me just a few tidbits.

Minimum frame rates are save points - and it specifically states that in the testing methodoloy.

The histogram is there for you to read, which you obviously seem quite capable of; so if you only take the "reported values" and nothing from the histogram then it means nothing, doesn't it?

Thats like trusting THG when listing average fps and not even giving a min or max or a histogram at all.

Actually look again at that one it's not above 15 fps it's below 15 fps so that's 13 or 14 fps. At best the 17 fps would be at the very end and even then it looks more like 19 fps than 17 which would be in the bottom half of the 20-15 range.

Yeah go figure that in the only concrete thing we have there's issues. That's my point.

Once again, that thing you think is a benificial difference is nice to see, but that's the part that is like the other tests (it is a histogram showing the test, not a personal preference) it's quantitative / empirical data, their decision as to what to tweak is qualitative /subjective data. If they get the numbers wrong that are there for all to see, how can you trust their opinions?

Anywhooo, I'm not trying to convert you, you asked for the biased statement, I said it's not the statment it's issues like this. There are other issues, including Kyle's comments on the R600 long before it's release. Anywhoo, like I said, you can question my or SS's motives, but sofar you seem to simply be ignoring that there's an issue by pretending I should be ok with them providing me the evidence to refute their mistakes?

I think The Great Grape Ape and Ovaltine Please need to get together and mix up a big glass of the chocolate delicacy and wait for the final review.

It's not a bad word, it's only bad if not defined relative to the situation. My CPU isn't powerful enough to keep up with the 3870x2 at the resolution I'm stuck at until I get a new monitor after summer vacation.

If I had a Wolfdale overclocked to 3.4 gigahertz, then the CPU would be able to keep up with the card at 1280 x 1024. I knew I was buying a card too powerful for my system at the resolution I was playing at, but didn't mind it at all; because I planned on upgrading (though it turned out to be not as soon as originally planned).

People come on and ask why they don't get the frames per second in game X that a particular review gets. Well, most reviews are done with very high end CPU's and not everyone has one. In some games, at some resolutions, having a mainstream CPU with a high end card doesn't matter. In other games it does.

As many ads say in the fine print "results may vary".

I'd approve of benchmarking high end GPU's on mainstream CPU's and on high end CPU's. I'd approve of also benchmarking mainstream GPU's on both low end CPU's and mainstream CPU's.

Granted, few will put a 9600gt or 3850 in a system with an overclocked Penryn, but many will put a 4850 or a 9800gtx in a system with a stock C2D based Pentium or an Athlon X2 3800+. Sometimes, it's because they plan on upgrades later, as I do.

Other times, it's not understanding that a high end card won't give spectacular results akin to the online reviews unless the same category of high end CPU is mated to the high end GPU.

What I'd love to see are interactive charts where you choose a CPU and a GPU, then a resolution, then AA and AF. After choices made, the chart provides minimum, maximum and average framerates for a set of games and artificial benchmarks. It might be too much work for every site, but you'd think that Tom's or Anandtech could manage to keep it updated.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/arti [...] h1c2lhc3Q=

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/arti [...] VzaWFzdA==

AMD's 4870x2 kicking ass in 2007 games


So in 3 out of 4 demonstrations, HardOCP showed AMD's card being a killer performer - and specifically in 1 out of 2 benchmarks they showed the 4870x2 being clearly better than the Nvidia solution, and in Crysis the performance was very comparable. Its already been shown with the AMD 3870x2 that it takes some time for drivers to come through for this game, so today's fps on an AMD card is hardly the decider.

TGGA: I really don't think its biased based on how much positive light they give the AMD solution, just because the Nvidia product wins one test which is Nvidia driver biased to begin with - doesn't mean that HardOCP is instigating an NV bias in the article themselves. They even state in conclusions of both the 4870 review and the 4870x2 preview that both cards have plenty of room to improve with software.

Anyways, i've had enough of the argument. This thread was posted to give people an idea of what kind of eye candy they can expect from a card like this because it offers lots of high quality AA screens; and based on the information that Hardocp provided, i'd say the 4870x2 really delivers in the majority of games and it'd be the first card i'd recommend to someone interested in buying a 500$ gpu this August.

I think it is a shame to not see performance for both the GTX280 SLI/Tr-SLI and the 4870x2/dual 4870x2 in 1920 and 2560 resolutions at Very High all settings DX10. "Playable" comparisons are good, but it's also nice to see the actual performance when the cards are being pushed to the extreme to see if they buckle or end up holding their own.

Quite frankly the performance of the dual 4870x2 in "Crossfire X" is a major disappointment. Crysis is still the benchmarking game, and I know myself and many others with 8 series SLI setups already run everything else at max settings. I expected much better scaling in 2560, but I'm disappointed. The GTX280 in Tri-SLI performed very nicely in crysis 2560x1600 very high all dx10, and as the prices come down unless ATI has another trick up their sleeve, that seems to be the way to go for people with high res monitors.