2 GB of GDDR5 memory
2.4 teraFLOPS of GPU power
DirectX® 10.1
1600 stream processing units
2 x 256-bit memory interface
24x custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA) and high performance anisotropic filtering
Dual mode ATI CrossFireX™ multi-GPU support for highly scalable performance
PCI Express® 2.0 support
Dynamic geometry acceleration
Game physics processing capability
ATI Avivo™ HD video and display technology1
* Unified Video Decoder 2 (UVD 2) for Blu-ray™ and HD Video
* Accelerated Video Transcoding (AVT)
* DVD Upscaling
* Dynamic Contrast
* Built-in HDMI with 7.1 surround sound support
* Integrated DisplayPort2
Dynamic power management with ATI PowerPlay™ technology3
1. Note: ATI Avivo™ HD is a technology platform that includes a broad set of capabilities offered by certain ATI Radeon™ HD GPUs. Not all products have all features and full enablement of some ATI Avivo™ HD capabilities may require complementary products.
2. The ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 GPUs are capable of outputting DisplayPort signals. Manufacturers of ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 graphics cards may choose to implement this functionality – you may inquire of them which models, if any, support DisplayPort.
3. Note: ATI PowerPlay™ technology consists of numerous power saving features. Not all features may be available in all ATI Radeo™ HD 4870 X2 graphics cards.
ATI (the graphics division of AMD) first released its new RV770 graphics processor back in June with the introduction of the Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon HD 4870. Both of these are excellent products—they're some of the best graphics cards we've seen in a long time, and deliver so much bang-for-the-buck that Nvidia has had to drastically reduce prices on its products to remain competitive, a move which Wall Street didn't like very much.
Whatever you may say about the Radeon 4800 series, this much is true: ATI was competing in the mid-range and performance graphics segments, with no product for the truly high-end (defined by "$400 and up"). At the time of the 4800 series launch, ATI laid out its new strategy: no more really big GPUs designed only to be used in those high-end products. Instead, it will stick two modestly-sized GPUs on a single card, similar to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 to address that market.
There's nothing inherently good or bad about this strategy. It is a series of tradeoffs like any other. ATI has been working hard on their multi-GPU scaling and compatibility, with nice improvements in both areas delivered in drivers earlier this year. Now that the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is finally here, it's time to put ATI's new strategy to the test. Is two RV770 GPUs on a single card the best way to cater to the high-end market?
