Power Usage, Noise, Temperatures As we come to the end of our evaluation let’s take a look at some of the none-gaming related numbers. The HD4870 is based on 55nm and is quite power efficient, however when you add two RV770 onto one PCB board (creating the R700) then the power efficiency goes down the drain, since Crossfire (or SLI) doesn’t offer 100% performance scaling. The GTX 280 is based on 65nm and is quite power hungry, surpassing the power usage of a 9800GX2 even.
With the system at idle the both cards are closely matched, but under load the difference is almost 100W! While a single HD4870 might do well against the GTX 280, a HD4870X2 is definitely more power hungry, if you ever plan to run two of them in Crossfire, essentially creating a Quad GPU setup, make sure your power supply is of good quality. A single Geforce GTX 280 is not a low consumer by any means but in performance/watt ranking does beat the HD4870X2 setup here.
Both cards are equipped with temperature controlled fans, our room temp of 24°C is not exotic nor freezing; when installed inside the Coolermaster CM690 case (which is equipped with 3 case fans) the cards were quickly reaching their “trigger” temperature which sets the onboard fan in motion and gradually increases the fan speed as the temperature tries to increase.
Both cards stopped at 82~83°C while the fan ramped up to high noise speeds, the ATI HD4870X2 is without a doubt noisier, the NVIDIA GTX 280 does better but is also very audible. If you want a high end system which runs cool and quiet you’ll have to invest in custom cooling. The Geforce GTX 280 will be easier to equipped with a 3rd party product thanks to its
simpler design.
We also noticed with both cards that system usage increased when the temperature got higher. Colleague reviewer Massman who’s been testing the ATI Radeon HD4850 experienced a similar outcome, as soon as he increase cooling on the HD4850 the power usage decreased.
ConclusionLast week a few e-tailers were a bit too happy to announce the upcoming HD4870X2
and posted prices, the Sapphire HD4870X2 was spotted at €433 and quickly other numbers followed, going as low as
€395. The Leadtek Winfast GTX 280 is available starting at
€338, those from other manufacturers like MSI, Asus are available at similar prices.
So we’re talking about a ~€100 difference in the worse case scenario in favour of the Geforce GTX 280. It this important? Let’s take a step back and wonder about who these products are meant for.
High end gamers. How money conscious are
high end gamers? If you are gamer with a 20~22” TFT screen you don’t need either of the cards tested today as you’ll be better of with a single HD4870 or GTX 260 or even HD4850 if you want better bang for the buck.
To be able to warrant the need for a Geforce GTX 280 or Radeon HD4870X2 you should make sure you have a 24” or higher monitor and a dual-core CPU running at 3Ghz at least (and not be afraid to overclock). At this point in time you have invested quite a bit of money so €100 more or less doesn’t really matter if your aim is to build a high end gaming rig.
So get the fastest that is available to you. In a single card configuration this is the ATI Radeon HD4870X2. If you want more still, two Geforce GTX 280 in SLI or two ATI Radeon HD4870X2 for Crossfire-X should please you lots… but when you have such a budget available just for VGA, it won’t come down to pricing, but scalability, raw performance and usability. The Geforce GTX 280 uses less power and generates less heat, is less noisy and offers the benefit of higher performance in case multi-GPU scaling fails. The ATI Radeon HD4870X2 definitely offers the performance edge when everything scales well.
Update: Vendor Comparison Chart! (source)
Thank you for reading and stay tuned as we have a lot more ATI and NVIDIA product coverage coming up!
We like to thank Steeve from
AMD and Selene from
Leadtek for allowing us to test their latest products.