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I've seen the future. I can't afford it - How to be a Zillionaire!
ATI unleashes the 4850 X2 and 4870 X2
ATI JUST TOOK the high end GPU crown back for the first time in years, and did so in a comprehensive fashion. The new Radeon HD 4870 X2 is the fastest card you can buy, bar none.
If you recall, the HD 4850 and the 4870 were shots across Nvidia's bow. You can see what we thought of them here, here and here.
Basically, the $299 ATI card came within 15 per cent or so of the $649 Nvidia GTX280, which quickly became a $399 card once you factor in rebates. The problem for Nvidia was that the mid-range ATI part is within spitting distance of the highest end GT200 variant, so what about the high end ATI parts?
Sapphire's 4870X2 on our test bench
We had to wait a month for the answer to that question, but today brings us not one but two new parts, the 4870X2 and the 4850X2. The 4870X2 goes on sale today for $549 MSRP, and the 4850X2 will hit in a few weeks for $399. Nvidia didn't just lose first place, they lost second as well.
The specs are basically the same as two of the lesser cards, 4850 or 4870, they are just paired up on one PCB. The 4870X2 runs at the same 750MHz, has the same 3.6Gbps GDDR5 memory, and pulls down less than twice the power of a 4870, 286W TDP. The little brother 4850X2 is exactly the same as two 4850s, but once again has double the total GDDR3 memory. Two cards with 2GB total frame buffer launched in one day.
Note the side port, not to mention the totals
One unique feature the 4-series X2 parts have is called the Sideport, something we told you about a long time ago. It is basically two PCIe2.0 16x lanes that run directly between the GPUs, so traffic does not have to go through the PCIe switch on the PCB. Interestingly enough, the 4870 X2 is swimming in internal bandwidth, so the extra from the sideport is not necessary.
ATI chose to turn it off, presumably to save power, but it can be enabled at a later date through a driver update should it be needed. You never know. In any case, the 4-series X2 parts are positively swimming in extra bandwidth, about 3x what the 3870X2 had.
How does it perform? Abusively as you would expect, but due to a hectic travel schedule, our testing wasn't completed in time for launch. The initial runs of 3DMark06 on XP - the Broken OS was not used - showed that he X2s performed exactly like two 4870s in Crossfire. This was even more surprising because initial testing was done on an ATI 790GX based board with 2 PCIe2.0 8x slots, not the full 16x slots. We will have full numbers for you in a few days.
How did ATI manage such a comprehensive victory? Easy, they used their brains while Nvidia used brawn. The idea to make small parts that work well together is not new, Intel has been using it to slap AMD around in the processor space for a while. It does take a lot of planning, engineering, and software support. And that means time.
Luckily, ATI started a long time ago. The results are what you are seeing today. A cheaper card that outperforms a more expensive and harder-to-produce part. Two R770 dies are much cheaper to make than a single GT200 die, no question there. They are also smaller in net area, 2 x 260mm^2 is less than 576mm^2, and have a much better net yield.
In the end, ATI took back the single-card crown. It also took second place, and just about every performance per dollar measure you can think of. It is a clean kill in every way other than the lower-end parts, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that there are 46xx and 44xx parts are on the horizon.
Nvidia can not crank up the clock, they are yield and power bound. The same power problems prevent a GTX280 X2 type part, and a downclocked GTX260 X2 would badly underperform the ATI counterpart and cost far too much to ever make money. Nvidia is stuck with what they have until TSMC comes through with 40nm, but given the love between the two sides, that may be delayed a bit.
Today is the ATI show. The firm took a beating for more than two years, but were busily plotting and engineering during that time. The industry works in cycles, and the Radeon HD 4850 X2 and 4870 X2 just signaled that a new one has begun. We told you it would be a fun summer. µ
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...but seriously Charlie, you make assertions that nVidia has lost 1st and 2nd place, then don't back it up with results from any games or even Vista? I know you hate Vista, so maybe you should give "Mojave" a go. Maybe you'll like this more than Vista :P (hehe)

Come on mate. Don't give people ammunition to go at your reporting, as you know they will. Try some HardOCP style tests or even just a full suit of games testing like AnandTech or X-Bit Labs. Ideally for running those cards one should be testing on Vista 64-bit (otherwise you won't even be running 4GB of memory, which is ridiculous considering the graphics memory available, plus you can't test the DX10 or even 10.1 features), but at least some XP basics are needed here.

I'm going to give you a D- for this but a 3 (out of 5) for effort. You tried quite hard and wrote a scathing Nvidia commentry, but the testing philosophy is sorely lacking. Give us some real world tests to show us how it will perform next time. Must do better.
There you go, another round of gouging whilst the muck and bullets are flying. Devolution is merely a principle and It doesn’t care if you are for or against so long as you are damaged, that it’s job covered. That’s what worshipping Relativity gets you, stupidity and dumbness, the favourite MO of blankness. C’mon Green Team, time to unleash that broadside salvo you’ve been waiting for, just when those red commies are getting too fat and cumbersome from feasting off the drool-drippings left by their fanboys. Should any nut masquerading as confidence stands up to be counted, these things are not only insanely costly [what? You believed the spiel about how much it costs them to make the sandy stuff?], fuelling the fetishes of their abandoned screws, it makes you who & what you’ve become. A real NUT. This is where competitors become good friends as they complete the circle of the spinning wheel and they call this, “Ping-Pong Diplomacy”. Come to ‘fink of it, it will be entertaining to see who gets to breach and sustain the previous price levels set by Humpty-Dumpty-Greenie.
"ATI 790GX based board with 2 PCIe2.0 8x slots, not the full 16x slots"

Did i fall asleep & dream this or isnt PCI-E2.0 x8 = PCI=E1.0 x16 ??
Don't these things run insanely hot?

Hope you include some temperature scores when you do your testing.

Otherwise it looks sexy!
This gap between red and green must be bigger then the famous Radeon 9800 vs FX5900 gap.
It's a kick-ass generation by AMD
This is very good, for how long it lasts. I'm wagering two generations until DAAMMIT has issues. You're also assuming that Nvidia isn't making good green @ 399 on the GTX 280's. I thought the original complaint was that they were nailing customers to the masts because the cards were soooo expensive. You should make up your minds. Oh, well if that's the case, then the DAAMMIT card is barely breaking even at 299, much less two of them for 399!

That is, of course, unless you plinkies are dead wrong, realize the BOM on both cards is about equal. Realize that Nvidia and DAAMMIT have been making green the whole time, just that Nvidia isn't making as much now as they did for the 6, 7, 8, and 9 generations.

I'm sorry to rain on your parade, but as of right now (much less a much rumored die shrink) if Nvidia released GTX 280-X2 for 500$-550$ they take back spots 1 & 2, along with 4. DAAMMIT's not really any better off this year than last, they've just managed to cut the Green Goblin's profit margin a bit.

Twas a good try, but I'm not calling the game for DAAMMIT yet. They seem to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Yo Charlie!

So, can you now play Crysis at 9600x4800 and full eye candy?
I may have to switch back to at least a amd video cards, I dropped amd CPU's because of the lack of speed, so I went to intel, and I dropped ati after my X800XT was overtaken by the 7800GTX, I have since owned NV up till now getting the 7800gtx, then the 8800GTS now the 8800GT 512mb. 
so if the price is right i will make the switch. 

I also like the fact they made it run at all the same bus speeds, the 2 gpu's can talk at 5gb/s same as the memory, and the interconnect runs at 8.5, so no bottlenecks whatsoever, which is fantastic, it seems to me AMD is making efficiency its no1 priority
of course you can keep adding speed, but not making everything faster create bottlenecks just like what is happening at Intel, fast cpus, smoking fast, but memory can only run at 333mhz, which is very big bottlenecks, amd has always been good at efficiency, the athlon core max memory speed, and was a great cpu. so looks like things are on the up and up for amd, lets hope their next cpu isnt a flop like phenom.
Read the article again, read your comments, take a deep breath, and say "it is the last time I say something stooped".

Why does it seem that you are having a hard time understanding that nVidia is not making money out of their new GPU's. The new GPU's have massive dies and the yeild is terrible. In order for nVidia to recover the cost of manufacture, RnD, etc., they need to price their GPU's way above AMD's. You can also stop dreaming about an G2xx X2. It ain't gonna happen. Ok, there's a chance that nVidia will make a couple of those, but it's going to be expensive. Besides, they have to figure out how they can fit two G280 cores in one PCB. Just the thought of that makes me chuckle.

Mr. Joe Servo, stop dreaming, Charlie is correct on this one!

Cheers!
-Goody-goody
I couldn't care less how much Mr C hates the green goblins, but the Crossfire Sideport is disabled on all the X2s. Every other reviewer caught this but no, not the INQ. Bravo!
Sideport? Can you say NUMA. Could it be that AMD/ATI has an ace up its sleeve and just needs drivers to accomplish the vaunted goal of NUMA on graphics cards? Instead of mirrored memory wherein the 2GB RAM is used as 1GB RAM mirrored you have 2GB RAM shared NUMA style. There is good enough bandwidth for this to work.
At "2gb frame buffer".

Any such misinformation immediately makes the rest of an article invalid.
"Today is the ATI show. The firm took a beating for more than two years, but were busily plotting and engineering during that time."

Wow, saying that ATI took a beating is the first time Charlie's saying something positive regarding to Nvidia. This is amazing.

Anyways, of course it's good that the market leader position changes every now and then so that we'll avoid near monopolies and stalling.
Gee a $549 HD4870X2 thermo nuclear furnace CrossFire pair on common PCB is faster that a $399 GXT280...big surprise and about damn time for ATI. Of course Charlie seems to go brain dead and forgets to mention a pair of $249 GTX260's in an SLI will out run ATI X2 lol.

You have to wonder how much Daamit pays Charlie per article to spin his anti nVidia crap in ever article he writes.

Viper
crossfireX made from 2x4870x2 use about 800W with c2d 8400@stock . Is it time to spare money to build small power plant in basement ? This is getting INSANE !!!
While not jumping on any bandwagon, if you people just start to use your God given ( or genetically inherited ) talent and research the net for multiple articles from other sources who have tested and commented on not only the problem with affected chips but the reviews of ATIAMD's new graphics cards and see if there is merit to the story instead of jumping in and saying its all just false.
Never assume as it usually makes one look foolish.
While Charlie might be wrong about NV , he also might be right.
ATI has two put two chips on a single card to compete or beat Nvidia with their new 260GTX and 280GTX single chip cards. I know both companies cards suck allot of power but the ATI uses even more. I would bet and can see it now, dual core and quad core video chips are in the works.
Charlie hit the nail on the head.

There are other sites who give detailed game FPS counts if you need more details. Bottom line is that AMD/ATI rules the top end. All I can tell you is at the low end, my Sapphire HD Radeon 2600PRO gave me 80 fps score in Half life 2 @1024X768 with everything turned up. That's fast enough for my low power system. NV has more "problems" to deal with than AMD/ATI taking them out at the high end......
LOL @ Nvidiot Viper...
Not only does the X2 beat your SLI GTX260s....it beats 3 of them as well :)
http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/15293/5
Reread the article, you idiot! Charlie clearly state that sideport was disabled, but could be enabled through a driver update, if needed. Read a little slower, that way you will understand what you're reading.