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Diamond Radeon HD 4870 512MB Video Card
 
Author:
Editor:
Sponsor:
Published:
Max Slowik
Kurtis
Diamond
Jul. 4, 2008
Video, Power, and Overclocking




HQV

HQV
(Show All Graphs)
Standard High Definition
Zotac GTX 280
Diamond HD 4870
PowerColor HD 4850
PNY 9800 GTX
130
130
130
128
0
Score (out of 130, higher is better)
160
 
 
Standard High Definition
PNY 9800 GTX
Zotac GTX 280
Diamond HD 4870
PowerColor HD 4850
100
100
100
100
0
Score (out of 130, higher is better)
160
 
 

Like all 4000-series cards, Diamond's 4870 excels with video. The previous subjective shortcoming's of ATI's video processing, namely delays with moire compensation, are gone, another thing 4000 gets right.

Power and Noise

Power Usage
(Show All Graphs)
Card (Idle) Card (Full Load)
PowerColor HD 4850
Zotac GTX 280
PNY 9800 GTX
Diamond HD 4870
39
43
67
75
0
Watts (lower is better)
250
 
 
Card (Idle) Card (Full Load)
PowerColor HD 4850
PNY 9800 GTX
Diamond HD 4870
Zotac GTX 280
95
104
125
191
0
Watts (lower is better)
250
 
 

There's no reason to expect this stock card to consume less power or make less noise than any other stock 4870, and it doesn't. The card runs hot and loud, with the fan speed modulating up and down frequently. The shifts make its profile higher than if it just blew constantly. It still makes less noise than a GTX 280.

Overclocking

Overclocking
(Show All Graphs)
GPU Memory
OC
Stock
790
750
0
MHz
1500
 
 
GPU Memory
OC
Stock
1100
900
0
MHz
1500
 
 

Like with my other 4870s, this card easily reached the overclocking ceiling in the Catalyst Control Center. Don't tell Diamond, but this card's warranty is void. Thermally, the card doesn't seem to be affected by the slight overclock, since most of it is memory overclocking. Again, this card struggles contain frames in its diminutive 512MB frame buffer, so memory overclocking is where it's at.

 
<< Previous
Page 5 of 6
Next >>
Page 1: Introduction, The Card & Bundle
Page 2: Specifications and Setup
Page 3: DirectX 10 Titles
Page 4: DX9, OpenGL, and Synthetics
Page 5: Video, Power, and Overclocking
Page 6: Conclusion


2 User Comments
1 - Posted by alganonim on July 6, 2008 - 4:17 am

Ports : Dual DVI,HDTV-out with VIVO ??? VIVO is for Video In, Video Out , I'm sure there's no 4870 model with VIVO so far, call it TiVO if you must ...

2 - Posted by Max Slowik on July 7, 2008 - 3:22 pm

That's pulled straight from their website, and it's gotta be a typo of "Avivo", the video playback processing engine of all HD ATI cards.

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