Review: Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2 ATOMIC: the fastest gets faster

HEXUS.bang4buck

In a rough-and-ready assessment of the cards' bang per buck, we've aggregated the 1,920x1,200 frame-rates for four games (leaving out Far Cry 2 due to the lack of GeForce GTX 260 results), normalised them* and taken account of the cards' prices.

But there are more provisos than we'd care to shake a stick at. We could have chosen four different games, the cards' prices could have been derived from other sources and pricing tends to fluctuate daily.

Consequently, the table and graph below highlight a metric that should only be used as a yardstick for evaluating comparative performance with price factored in. Other architectural benefits are not covered, obviously.

* the normalisation refers to taking playable frame rate into account. Should a card benchmark at over 60 frames per second in any one game, the extra fps count as half. Similarly, should a card benchmark lower, say at 40fps, we deduct half the difference from its average frame rate and the desired 60fps, giving it a HEXUS.bang4buck score of 30 marks. The minimum allowable frame rate is 20fps but that scores zero.

** estimated pricing.

As an example, should a card score 120fps we treat it as 90fps as only half the frame rate above 60fps is counted for the HEXUS.bang4buck - this is the formula: (120-((120-60)/2)). Similarly, should it score 30fps, we count it as only 15fps: (30+((30-60)/2)).

The reasoning behind such calculation lies with playable frame rates.

Should card A score 110fps in a benchmark and card B 160, then card B would otherwise receive an extra 50 marks in our HEXUS.bang4buck assessment, even though both cards produce perfectly playable frame rates and anything above 60fps is a bonus and not a necessity for most.

Similarly, without our adjustments, the aggregated HEXUS.bang4buck total for two very different cards would be identical if, in a further benchmark, card A scored a smooth 70fps and card B an unplayable 20fps. Both would win marks totally 180, yet the games-playing experience would be vastly different.

A more realistic (and useful) assessment would say that card A is better because it ran smoothly in both games - and that view would be accurately reflected in our adjusted aggregation, where card A would receive 150 marks (85+65) and card B 100 (100+0).

In effect, we're including a desired average frame rate, in this case 60, and penalising lower performance while giving frame rates higher than 60fps only half as much credit as those up to 60fps. If this doesn't make sense or you have issue with it, please hit the HEXUS community.

Here's the HEXUS.bang4buck graph at 1,920x1,200. The graph divides the normalised score by the price.

The HEXUS.bang4buck metric doesn't show Sapphire's Radeon HD 4870 X2 in a favourable light, but we're almost inclined to disagree with our scoring on a product as unique as this.

A GeForce GTX 260 is most likely to be awarded a high HEXUS.bang4buck rating - and rightfully so, it throws at playable frame rates at 1,920x1,200 - but the Radeon HD 4870 X2 isn't just about playable frame rates.

The card may make little sense unless playing at resolutions of 2,560x1,600 or above, but it could be argued that it doesn't need to make sense. As the fastest single-board graphics card bar none, it warrants the right to charge a significant premium - and its target audience is well aware of that. If you demand the highest-available performance, you'd expect to pay the price.

But why doesn't the HD 4870 X2 ATOMIC score higher than the reference-design board? Again, it's worth noting that the HEXUS.bang4buck rating takes into account only performance and cost. Despite the estimated £184 price increase, frame rates are only marginally higher and the cheaper HD 4870 X2 still offers green-team-spanking performance. What the HEXUS.bang4buck doesn't take into account is the HD 4870 X2 ATOMIC's other advantages - including a single-slot design, quieter all-round system operation, lower GPU temperatures and bundled CPU cooling.