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Review: Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 TOXIC 512MB: a worthy upgrade?

by Tarinder Sandhu on 8 October 2008, 11:49 3.5

Tags: TOXIC HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 PCI-E, Sapphire, PC

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qapoj

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System setup and notes

05

Hardware

Graphics cards Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 TOXIC 512MB Force3D HD 4870 512MB HIS HD 4850 IceQ4 TurboX 512MB BFG GTX 260 (216) MAXCORE OC ZOTAC GTX 260 896MB
Current pricing, including VAT £210 £175
£135 £257 £190
Shader model 4.1 4.1 4.1 4.0 4.0
Stream processors 800 800 800 216 192
GPU clock speed (MHz) 780 750 685 655 576
Shader clock speed (MHz) 780 750 685 1,404 1,242
Memory clock speed (MHz) 4,000 3,600 2,200 2,250 1,998
Memory bus width (bits) 256 256 256 448 448
CPU Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 LGA775 (3.0GHz, 12MB L2 cache, quad-core)
Motherboard MSI X48 Platinum EVGA 132-CK-NF79-A1 (nForce 790i Ultra SLI)
Motherboard BIOS v2.3 (07/07/2008) P06
Mainboard software Intel Inf 9.0.0.1008 nForce 15.17
Memory 4GB (2x 2GB) Corsair XMS3 DHX DDR3-1333
Memory timings and speed 9-9-9-24 1T @ 1,333MHz
PSU Cooler Master Real Power Pro 1,000W Enermax Galaxy DXX 850W
Monitor Dell 30in 3007WFP - 2,560x1,600
Disk drive(s) Seagate 500GB - 32MB cache - SATAII (ST3500320AS)
Graphics driver Catalyst 8.8 Catalyst  8.8 Catalyst  8.8 ForceWare 177.79 ForceWare 177.79
Operating system Windows Vista Business SP1, 64-bit

Software

3D Benchmarks Company Of Heroes: Opposing Fronts v2.301: DX10 - ultra quality
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars v1.5 (demo_00010.dem, map Valley): OpenGL - vhq
Race Driver: GRID v1.2 - custom-recorded benchmark - ultra quality
Call Of Duty 4
v1.7.568 custom HEX benchmark: DX10 - highest quality

 

Notes

Real-world gaming benchmarks were run at 1,680x1,050, 1,920x1,200 and 2,560x1,600, although the highest resolution wasn't run with Race Driver: GRID due to substantial slowdowns in the game, leading to inconsistent and unrepeatable results via our FRAPS-recording method. We've also added in decent amounts of image quality, too.