The most important items here are that the GPU is made on a 55nm fabrication process which allows for more transistors and less heat overall. Also note the stock overclock on this card.
While it’s not a big jump, the technology and the clock speed allow this particular card to have TRIPLE the peak memory bandwidth of a stock clocked 4850. This leads to a huge jump in performance despite the close model numbers.
The ATI Radeon HD 4870 Series GPUs deliver a cinematic gaming experience with unprecedented performance. The powerful new TeraScale graphics will propel you deep into your gameplay with seamless frame rates and high resolutions. Enhanced anti-aliasing (AA) and anisotropic filtering create striking graphics with unparalleled realism so you can max out the settings of the most demanding next-generation games or revitalize your favorite titles. Play today while preparing for tomorrow with tessellation, support for DirectX® 10.1 and scalable ATI CrossFireX™ technology.
| Sapphire's Take |
My take |
TeraScale Graphics Engine
The powerful new TeraScale graphics engine features deliver high resolutions and fast frame rates. |
This just means it's a 4800 series card that sports over 1 teraFLOPS of power. FLOPS means FLoting point Operations Per Second. Most graphics calculations are floating point operations. |
Enhanced Anti-Aliasing & Anisotropic Filtering
High performance anisotropic filtering and 24x custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA) smooth jagged edges and create true-to-life graphics, for everything from grass to facial features. |
This is the effect that makes your games look realistic, it's also a huge strain on your video card. |
DirectX 10.1
Play today while preparing for tomorrow with state-of-the-art DirectX 10.1 graphics capabilities. |
DirectX 10 is provided with Windows Vista and is the future of gaming. |
ATI CrossFireX™ Technology
ATI CrossFireX™ technology with up to quad GPU support offers superior scalability so your system is ready to level up when you are. |
This card features two CrossFire connectors allowing you to chain up to 4 cards together. |
PCI Express 2.0
Support for PCI Express 2.0 will prepare you for bandwidth-hungry games and 3D applications. |
Twice the bandwidth of PCI-E 1.0. If this even matters in the end is anyones guess. |
Power to Spare
This GPU has the brute processing power needed for physics, artificial intelligence, stream computing and ray tracing calculations. |
As mentioned above this GPU can tear through over teraFLOPS worth of calculations. |
Unified Video Decoder 2
Unified Video Decoder 2 frees up your CPU for other tasks so you get The Ultimate Visual Experience™ for even the most processing-intensive content, including VC-1, H.264 and now MPEG-2. Also, take full advantage of Blu-ray functionality with dual-stream, picture in picture (PIP) capabilities. |
This says it all, it frees up your CPU to do more important tasks. |
Upscale Beyond 1080p
Watch the hottest Blu-ray movies or other HD content at full 1080p display resolution and beyond. |
This feature obviously requires a Blu-ray player. |
On-chip HDCP
On-chip HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) makes life easier by allowing you to playback HDCP protected content. |
This feature is in place if you happen to view some content that is HDCP protected. |
HDMI
Enjoy the latest audio technologies using HDMI with 7.1 digital surround sound support. Also, xvYCC support allows the user to enjoy a wider range of color when connected to a capable HDTV.
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This allows you to watch HDTV or listen to very high definition audio. |
ATI PowerPlay™ Technology
ATI PowerPlay™ Technology delivers high performance when needed and conserves power when the demand on the graphics processor is low. |
This is similar to AMD's cool n quiet. It's made to save you money because the graphics card is one of the most power hungry components. |
Energy Efficient Manufacturing Process
Second generation 55nm chip uses the industry's most energy efficient manufacturing process. |
I'm not sure why you'd care that ATI's power bill is lower, but in case you do they added this. |
Next we're going to take a closer look at this beautiful card.
