Power Color HD 4870 Author:  Jason Dumbaugh Date:  2008.10.10 Topic:  Video Provider:  Power Color Manufacturer:  Power Color

Test Rig:

Testing:

Testing began with some of our favorite synthetic benchmarks - 3DMark Vantage, PCMark Vantage, and Cinebench R10. These three benchmarks are the most trusted in the industry at this moment in time, and we will be using them by themselves, as well as in Crossfire for testing.

Cinebench R10:

MAXON CINEBENCH runs several tests on computers to measure the performance of the processor and graphics card under real-world circumstances and makes use of up to 16 cpus or cpu cores. Cinebench's test process is in two-phases: The first test procedure is directed against the cpu using a 3D render scene and photo realistic image settings shown above to test how fast the cpu can produce the fully rendered scene. During the 1st pass of the test, the benchmark will only use one cpu, or in a multi-cpu core system it will use only a single cpu core to render the photo realistic scene to get a base value against which it will then perform the 2nd phase of the test using all of the cpu cores available. Higher Frames/Second and lower rendering time in seconds equals better performance.

Cinebench R10 was first ran on the PowerColor HD 4870, followed by the Palit HD 4870, and finally Crossfire with the two. These tests were performed while the processor was clocked at 2.4GHz.

PowerColor HD 4870	Palit HD 4870	Crossfire with the two cards

As you can see, both cards were neck and neck with the 1CPU score, with PowerColor beating the Palit with a close 2 points. During the xCPU test, the PowerColor pulled out into the lead with a good margin, having a score of 12612 compared to the Palit's 12391. Strangely, the two cards in Crossfire did worse than it did with individual cards. During the OpenGL test, we see the same trend, with the PowerColor card at 6113 - leaving the Palit HD 4870 in the dust.

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