Sapphire HD4870 Toxic Video Card Review

The PC gaming industry has seen many graphics chips come and go. Companies like 3dfx, S3, Trident, Intel, nVidia, ATI and others have tapped into the gaming industry and have produced 3d accellerators for the PC, and most of them have gone.  There are only two major players in the PC graphics industry: nVidia and ATI.

These two graphics juggernauts unveil new products every year, which effectively doubles the effective processing power over the previous generation.  This ruthless competition is both good and bad news for consumers:  Good in that faster technology becomes cheaper, and we have many options.  Bad in that the expensive video card you just purchased will remain bleeding edge for only a few months.

The latest battle comes just in time for the 2008 holiday season.  ATI’s 4800 series goes up against nVidia’s GTX line of cards.  Sapphire is one of the more well-known manufacturers of ATI-based video cards, and they have a secret weapon in the world of single-GPU video cards.  Their 4870 Toxic video card not only comes pre-overclocked, but is stacked with 512MB of the fastest GDDR5 memory, which is certainly enough for today’s gamer.

Believe it or not – the best just got better. For the first time ever, 2.4 teraFLOPS of graphics horse power, 1600 stream processors and 2 GB of GDDR5 memory have been combined to create the fastest and most powerful graphics card available today.

Specifications

• I/O Output: Dual DL-DVI+HDTV
• 750Mhz Core Clock
• 900Mhz Memory Clock, 2.6 Gbps
• 2 x 800 Stream Processors
• Dual-slot Active Cooler
• HDMI complianct (via dongle)
• 7.1 Audio Channel Support
• 2GB of GDDR5 memory 2 x 256-bit memory interface
• 2.4 teraFLOPS of GPU power
• DirectX 10.1 and PCI Express 2.0 support
• 1600 stream processing units
• 24x custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA) and high performance anisotropic filtering
• Dual mode ATI CrossFireX multi-GPU support for highly scalable performance
• Dynamic geometry acceleration
• Game physics processing capability
• ATI Avivo HD video and display technology
• Unified Video Decoder 2 (UVD 2) for Blu-ray and HD video

PR poop about Sapphire

Pioneers in a new era of how data is displayed and games are played, Sapphire shepherds the performance oriented with ground-breaking solutions to an environment that remains in a constant state of flux and ultimate evolution. For over ten years Sapphire has held true to its unwavering commitment, the commitment to deliver the most feature rich and soundly engineered products. Because of Sapphire’s firm position on achieving excellence with each product that leaves our ISO9001 and ISO14001 certified factories, you can rest assured that your customers will recognize YOUR commitment to selling only the highest of quality components.

“Sapphire is ATI’s largest and best performing partner World Wide” Dave Orton, CEO ATI

Since ATI announced its manufacturing & distribution relationships with ODMs and AiBs in June of 2001, SAPPHIRE has been THE key ATI Graphics Boards Supplier worldwide and now stands poised and ready to capture the mainboard audience of those who seek a stable platform for their mission critical operations.

Captured within the circuitry of each of SAPPHIRE’s graphic cards and mainboards can be found the collective feedback from generations of enthusiasts in every market niche.

Brought to life through performance oriented innovation and an emphasis on quality control, SAPPHIRE designs, manufactures and distributes the most complete range of ATI video boards and mainboards–from the mainstream products that afford the casual user the opportunity to enjoy enriched graphics and affordable platform solutions to the state-of-the-art technological marvels that drive fantasies to before unattainable thresholds of realism, and offer the pinnacle of stability and performance! SAPPHIRE refuses to compromise quality by cutting corners at the expense of its customers experience with their products.

All ATI board designs undergo a stringent layout inspection by our staff of engineers to guarantee that they represent the usual high-quality image of ATI original boards.

We also enjoy the resources of a highly innovative technical department that layout complex designs to accommodate different market niches as they arise. SAPPHIRE ATI video boards have long been the reliable choice for a great number of OEMs and large System Integrators in Europe, North America, Asia and Latin America based largely on our ability to meet a fast paced technical markets advancements as well as our means to produce large quantities of product.

 

All SAPPHIRE ATI video boards are manufactured under 100% ATI production criteria including QC and outgoing system. Our monthly video board production capacity can reach a lofty 1.8 million and often topples this landmark figure. Our factory has always been the major manufacturer on ATI boards for most of the top ten tier 1 OEMs worldwide. With this background, you should undoubtedly be guaranteed of the impeccable quality, production capacity and product reliability of all ATI video boards and mainboards from SAPPHIRE. Be they business oriented or something just off center of the crosshairs, Sapphire has a solution for you and we look forward to an exciting and prosperous relationship with you.

The chart above lays out the differences between the 4870 Toxic, regular 4870, and 4850.  All cards use exactly the same core, but the 4850 X2 is clocked slower and has relatively slower GDDR3 memory.  While the numbers may be close, GDRR3 and GDDR5 have a different architecture, so GDDR5 can have triple the peak memory bandwidth performance at the same clock speed.

Name	ATI Radeon HD 4870 Toxic	HD 4870	HD 4850
Manufacturing Process	55 nm	55 nm	55 nm
Stream Processors	800	800	800
ROPs	16	16	16
Texture Address / Filtering	40 / 40	40 / 40	40 / 40
Core Clock	780 Mhz	750 Mhz	625 Mhz
Shader Clock	780 Mhz	750 Mhz	625 Mhz
Memory Clock	4000 Mhz	3600 Mhz	2000 Mhz
Memory Interface	256-bit	256-bit	2 x 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth	115.2 GB/sec	104 GB/sec	31.7 GB/sec
Frame Buffer	1024MB GDDR3	1024MB GDDR5	2 x 1024MB GDDR3
Transistor Count	965 million	965 million	965 million
Price	get latest prices	get latest prices	get latest prices

Here are some of the detailed features of the HD 4870 Toxic

	HD 4870 Toxic Features: ASIC Radeon HD 4870 Toxic Bus Interface PCI-E x16 (PCI-E 2.0) Memory 2GB of GDDR5 memory Clock Speed 750 MHz Cooling System 80mm fan Bracket Full Height Display Support DL-DVI-Ix4/HDTV-out VGA (via cable) HDMI(via DVI-to-HDMI Dongle) HDCP Yes Crossfire Support Native CrossfireX Support External Power PCIe Graphic External 2 x Power(2x3Pin)

	Display Resolution: Monitor Resolution 2D Display Modes Hz Maximum 3D Resolution 640×480 200 65K Colours 2048×1536 800×600 200 16.7M Colours 2048×1536 1024×768 200 1152×864 200 1280×1024 160 1600×1200 120 1920×1080** 16:9 120 1920×1200 100 1920×1440 90 2048×1536 85 2560×1600 60 ** 16:9 aspect ratio monitors are supported on 1920×1080 and 848×480 on Windows® XP and Windows® Vista. The complete list of resolutions depends on the driver version and operating system. NOTE: Resolutions are limited by the performance of the attached monitor.

Redefine HD Gaming

• 2.4 teraFLOPSof compute power
  This is the most powerful graphics card available today with nearly two billion transistors and 1600 stream processors. 1

• 2GB GDDR5 Memory
  With 2GB of GDDR5, the fastest and most advanced memory technology available today, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 delivers almost two times the memory bandwidth of the previous generation.2

• Extreme DirectXR10.1 Performance
  Play today while preparing for tomorrow with state-of-the-art DirectX 10.1 graphics capabilities.

• Unparalleled Anti-Aliasing & Anisotropic Filtering
  High performance anisotropic filtering and 24x custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA) smooth jagged edges and create true-to-life graphics, for everything from grass to facial features

• Superior Scalability with dual mode ATI CrossFireX™ Technology
  ATI CrossFireX™ technology with quad GPU support in dual mode offers superior scalability so you can take your game to new heights.

1 As of August 12th, 2008, the ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 is the fastest, most powerful graphics card based on the 3DMark Vantage v.101 extreme top score of 6920.
2 The ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 with GDDR5 memory has memory bandwidth of 230GB/sec in comparison with the ATI Radeon™ HD 3870 X2 with GDDR3 memory with a memory bandwidth of 128GB/sec.
3 AMD’s product warranty does not cover damages caused by overclocking, even when overclocking is enabled via AMD OverDrive™ software.

Go Beyond HD Video

Add an ATI Radeon HD 4870 Series GPU to your PC and watch the latest Blu-ray and HD movies play with incredible fidelity –upscale to nearly twice the display resolution of HD content.* Take full advantage of Blu-ray functionality with dual-stream, picture in picture (PIP) capabilities. Sophisticated new features within ATI Avivo™ HD technology provide a truly responsive experience. Support for the latest audio visual interconnects ensures you can take advantage of the latest display technology.

• Unified Video Decoder 2
  Unified Video Decoder 2 frees up your CPU for other tasks so you get The Ultimate Visual Experience™ for even the most processing-intensive content, including VC-1, H.264 and now MPEG-2. Also, take full advantage of Blu-ray functionality with dual-stream, picture in picture (PIP) capabilities.
• Upscale Beyond 1080p
  Watch the hottest Blu-ray movies or other HD content at full 1080p display resolution and beyond.
• On-chip HDCP
  On-chip HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) makes life easier by allowing you to playback HDCP protected content.**
• HDMI
  Enjoy the latest audio technologies using HDMI with 7.1 digital surround sound support. Also, xvYCC support allows the user to enjoy a wider range of color when connected to a capable HDTV.

*Note: HD capable monitor required
** Note: Playing HDCP content requires additional HDCP ready components, including but not limited to an HDCP ready monitor, Blu-ray or HD DVD disc drive, multimedia application and computer operating system.

Break-through Efficiency

• Dynamic Power Management
  The ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 graphics cards feature ATI PowerPlay™ technology and provide the best of both worlds, delivering high performance when needed and conserving power when the demand on the graphics processor is low.1
• Energy Efficient Manufacturing Process
  Second generation 55nm chip uses the industry’s most energy efficient manufacturing process.
• Best Performance Per Watt
  The ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics cards deliver up to 2x the performance per watt of the previous generation.2

1 ATI PowerPlay™ technology consists of numerous power saving features. Not all features may be available in all ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series graphics cards.
2 The ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 delivers 8.8 GigaFLOPS per Watt, compared with the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 which delivers 4.8 GigaFLOPS per Watt.

System Requirements

• PCI ExpressR based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard
• 650 Watt or greater power supply with one 2×3-pin PCIeR power connector and one 2×4-pin PCIeR power connector is required (1K Watt with two 2×3-pin and two 2×4-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode)1
• Certified power supplies are recommended. Refer to http://ati.amd.com/certifiedPSUfor a list of Certified products
• Minimum 1GB of system memory
• Installation software requires CD-ROM drive
• DVD playback requires DVD drive
• Blu-ray™ / HD DVD playback requires Blu-ray / HD DVD drive
• For a complete ATI CrossFireX™ system, a second ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 graphics card, an ATI CrossFireX Ready motherboard and one ATI CrossFireX Bridge Interconnect cable per graphics card (included) are required

The box is a pretty standard package.  It has the product name, along with the sapphire logo and specifications and contents on the back.  Once the box is opened, you are presented with the card itself, which is nicely tucked into grey foam, and several bags of peripherals and software discs.  The card comes with two molex to 6-pin PCIe power adapters, a DVI to VGA adapter, DVI to HDMI adapter (with audio support), an component video adapter, composite video adapter, a cross-fire bridge, a paper manual, and 5 discs of software.  The software included is Cyberlink’s DVD Suite, 3dMark Vantage (full version), Ruby Rom (several ATI demos and other software), Sapphire driver CD, and Cyberlink PowerDVD.

The card itself is also quite a marvel.  Straying from ATI’s traditional red board, Sapphire chooses a blue color for their PCB (since sapphires are blue… I hope I didn’t have to explain that to you). The front of the card is dominated by a single cooler, which has 3 heatpipes on an aluminum and copper heatsink.  This single heatsink covers the GPU and memory, and is actively cooled by an 80mm fan (which has a nice Sapphire sticker on the hub).  The rear of the card has vent slots to allow air from the fan to exhaust out the back of your PC’s case.

The back of the card is double-height and has two DVI ports, a multi video port (to connect to a TV or HDTV), and a vent to allow hot air to escape.  The back of the card has lots and lots of little supporting components, but the major features are the screws and mounting brackets which secure the heatsink.  Two 6-pin PCIe power plugs are mounted underneath the heatsink at the foot of the video card.

With the heatsink removed we can get a better look at the card itself.  The front of the board is actually very sparse-looking.  The foot of the card (where the power plugs are) are covered with MOSFETS and solid-state components to condition the power input for the card’s CPU and memory.   The single 4870 GPU is positioned at the center of the card and is surrounded by eight GDDR5 memory chips (256MB each for a total of 2 Gigabytes). Two CrossfireX ports are at the top-rear of the card.  Using the included CrossfireX bridge, you can connect up to four ATI cards with the same generation of GPU.

Installing the HD 4870 Toxic wasn’t a difficult operation at all.  The card is rather large, but is about the same size as others in its performance range… and the card is not nearly as long as the Sapphire 4850 X2 (reviewed here).  After clearing two option brackets from the back of our test PC, we slipped the card into a free 16x PCI-e slot.  Our current power supply (the ThermalTake Toughpower 850W reviewed here) has two 6-pin PCI-e power adapters, so we just plugged the cables right in.  The cables extend outside the length of the card, which can make things a little tight if you have a smaller case.

We plugged our 28″ LCD monitor into one of the free DVI ports and booted up.  After installing the included drivers (Catalyst version 4.1), the system came right up.  Our test computer consists of:

• Lian Li PC-V1200 Black Aluminum Case
• Intel Core2Duo E6600
• Zalman CNPS 9700 NT CPU Cooler
• Zalman ZM-MFC2 Multi Fan Controller
• Asus P5WDH Deluxe motherboard
• OCZ 8GB DDR2-800 Platinum Edition
• Asus Xonar D2X PCIe Sound Card
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB Hard Drive
• Logitech Wave Keyboard
• SteelSeries Ikari Laser Mouse
• ThermalTake Toughpower 850W PSU
• Sapphire HD 4870 Toxic video card
• Sapphire HD 4850 X2 video card
• eVGA GeForce GTX 280 Video Card

Power Consumption

The power consumption of all of our video cards were measured using Zalman’s ZM-MFC2 Multi Fan Controller (reviewed here).  We tested the cards at full idle and then under load (by letting 3dMark Vantage run).  It took several seconds before each card hit its peak, which we then recorded as a final measurement.  We discounted any measurement that didn’t last for more than a second, but most of the time the wattage went up and down like a bell curve as the graphics load increased and decreased accordingly.

	idle Watts	load Watts
Sapphire HD 4870 Toxic	227	309
Sapphire HD 4850	238	295
GeForce GTX 280	220	346

It is interesting to note that the GeForce GTX card is more power efficient when idle, but not by much.  At full load, the GTX uses up as much power as the 4850 X2, and far more than the 4870 Toxic.  It can be easily said that the 4870 Toxic uses far less power overall, especially when running at full load.

3dmark Vantage

3dMark Vantage goes beyond your normal video benchmark.  It focuses on the two areas that really matter in a gaming PC seperately, namely the CPU and GPU.  In previous benchmarks you got an overall score that could leave some questions up in the air as to how powerful your system really is.  For example, our current test machine uses a relatively old Intel E6600 processor, and thus the overall score could make the video card appear not as powerful as it truly is.  Now there are seperate scores for both the graphics processor and main processor.

3dMark Vantage has two GPU tests, each having a different emphasis on rendering.  CPU tests are covered by performing a physics simulation and AI simulation

	3dmark score	GPU score	CPU score
HD 4850	5603	6300	4081
HD 4870 Toxic	6975	9582	4190
GeForce GTX 280	6937	9722	4153

Our previous benchmark had the Toxic running behind the GTX 280, but then we noticed the CPU score was much lower (and the CPU hadn’t changed).  We ran the test again and found that the 4870 was running neck-and-neck with the GTX 280 (at a much cheaper cost).

Far Cry 2 Benchmarks

Crytek’s previous game, Crysis, is one of the most demanding graphics engines for a video game.  Fortunately, the developers have toned down the requirements, but at the cost of some of the more dynamic features of the game (like real-time motion blur).  The game is still gorgeous, and the engine supports a new dynamic gameplay element featuring fire.

It appears that Crytek still hasn’t quite gotten the memo about Crossfire and SLI.  Their games are some of the most demanding, and currently the highest FPS number come from non-SLI setups.  All of the cards in our lineup can play Far Cry 2 very well, but just don’t deliver the number we expect from a multi-GPU card.

	low	avg	high
HD 4870 Toxic 1900×1200	29	33	44
HD 4870 Toxic 1280×720	33	40	53
HD 4850 1900×1200	20	28	42
HD 4850 1280×720	31	48	61

Certain games just don’t like Crossfire, and in these situations a single-card solutoin will give you the best results.  The 4870 Toxic easily cleans up in Far Cry 2 as the fastest solution, even amongst dual-GPU cards.

We did some more testing with other popular PC video games.  Here are the results, along with our comments about the game and test.   Wherever possible, we watched a timedemo and noted the minimum, average, and high FPS (frames per second).  A particular high or dip was not counted unless it lingered for more than an instant.  Therefore, a ridiculously high frame rate when there are no enemies on the screen or complex scenery was not included.  We are looking for numbers that translate into real-world gameplay.

Lego Batman 1900×1200

Lego Batman may not sound like a game that has high graphics expectations, but the complexity of these games has grown with Lego Indiana Jones, and again with Lego Batman.  The same engine may be in use, but the developers have added more complex lighting and transparency effects.  We included Lego Batman to demonstrate how the cards scale with different resolutions with and without in-game anti-aliasing.  It is good to see that you can run the game at extremely high resolutions with full Edge anti-aliasing and still have very playable framerates.

 

	No AA	Edge AA
HD 4850 1900×1200	94	38
HD 4870 Toxic 1900×1200	147	48
GeForce GTX 280	100	39

 

Lego Batman 1280×720

 

	No AA	Edge AA
HD 4850 1280×720	99	79
HD 4870 Toxic 1280×720	146	95
GeForce GTX 280	126	82

 

It can be easily seen that the HD 4870 trumps other single-card solutions in this setup.

Codemasters Race Driver Grid

Codemaster’s Grid is probably one of the best-looking racing games today.  Everything looks very realistic, from the cars, to the scenery and the crowds.  The engine is demanding, but not impossibly finicky like Crysis.  We tested this game with in-game 2X anti-aliasing, and achieved very playable framerates, even at extremely high 1900×1200 resolution

card	avg FPS
HD 4870 Toxic 1900×1200	56
HD 4870 Toxic 1280×720	59
HD 4850 1900×1200	45
HD 4850 1280×720	54
GeForce GTX 280 1900×1200	42
GeForce GTX 280 1280×720	51

Again, the HD 4870 Toxic has a much higher average FPS than other single-card solutions.  The GTX 280 comes close, but not close enough.

Call of Duty 4 Benchmarks

Call of Duty 4’s engine is probably the best example of what a Crossfire or SLI setup can do for you.  The engine is very responsive to multi-GPUs and multi-core CPUs.  The numbers show how the framerate’s skyrocket linearly as you stack on more processing power.  If you crave high framerates in CoD, then you totally need a multi-GPU setup.

	low	avg	high
HD 4870 Toxic 1900×1200	48	60	88
HD 4870 Toxic 1280×720	54	87	102
HD 4850 1900×1200	38	53	60
HD 4850 1280×720	45	78	95
GeForce GTX 280 1900×1200	49	63	98
GeForce GTX 280 1280×720	68	96	153

For some reason, the GTX 280 does better in this test.  This game also does extremely well with multi-GPU cards, as well.  The 4850 X2 (reviewed here) is easily faster than the GTX 280 and 4870 Toxic, but is not included in this benchmark because it is not a single-GPU solution.

Crysis Warhead Benchmark

Crysis is THE engine that sucks as much horsepower as you can throw at it.  The engine features many advanced features like motion blur and many other features that are demanding to produce in real-time.  Currently the only way to consistently see over 30 frames per second in this game is to have the latest hardware, which translates into a computer that costs a few thousand dollars.

	low	avg	high
HD 4870 Toxic 1900×1200	12	20	32
HD 4870 Toxic 1280×720	17	26	53
HD 4850 1900×1200	15	24	30
HD 4850 1280×720	17	22	36
GeForce GTX 280 1900×1200	20	28	37
GeForce GTX 280 1280×720	24	32	41

For some reason, Crysis loves nVidia video cards.  Again, this is a video engine that does not take advantage of multi-GPU cards, so SLI or Crossfire-enabled boards will not get you any higher FPSes.  Crysis is very playable with the 4870, but the GTX manages to squeeze out a few extra frames.

Sapphire’s HD 4870 Toxic card accomplishes what it sets out to do.  The performance of this card is phenominal, as it holds its own and even surpasses its closest competitor: and it does it for a few hundred dollars less.

PC games are finicky.  Some people spend lots of money on an SLI or dual-GPU solution, only to discover that some of their favorite games don’t even use the extra horsepower.  Crysis and Far Cry 2 are gleaming examples of this fact.  If you really want to show off at a LAN party, then you’ll want to invest in the fastest single-GPU card you can.

There is no doubt that multi-GPU cards like Sapphires 4850 X2 (reviewed here) can perform very well in some games; but they don’t perform to their full potential in every PC game.  There are other caveats, too when you consider multi-monitor support.

Thrift is also a major consideration when choosing a video card.  Given the current pace of video card releases, our new powerful video card will be obsolete in a few years.  Next year there will be a cheaper card with the same performance as our current flagship.  Knowing this trend, why spend $500 of a dual-GPU setup?  Why not invest in a single-GPU card that has guaranteed compatibility with all games?  When you are forced to upgrade, the loss won’t be nearly as bad as if you bought the latest-and-greatest last year.

The HD 4870 Toxic is a great performer.  The 4870 Toxic consumes far less power, is cheaper than, and (in many cases) outperforms nVidia’s GTX 280 video card.  Given its price point, the 4870 Toxic has some of the best performance for the money, and it is factory-overclocked.  What’s not to like?

	REPORT CARD : Sapphire 4870 Toxic Video Card category rating comments Quality 4 Excellent construction.  Heatsink better than what you expect for OEM. Innovation 5 More performance with less power? Awesome. Performance 4 Some tests GTX wins, others 4870 wins, but the 4870 easily holds its own. Installation 5 Get up and running with little hassle. Value 5 You beat the performance of nVidia’s flagship for less cash FINAL VERDICT: 5 out of 5 stars