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ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2

ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2: A Legend of the Past in the Realities of 2025

Let’s explore why it's worth remembering this veteran of the GPU industry in 2025.

Introduction

The ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 is a legendary graphics card from 2008 that became a symbol of the technological breakthrough of its time. Despite its age, it still piques the interest of enthusiasts and collectors. In this article, we will examine what the HD 4870 X2 looks like 17 years after its release and who might find it useful today.

1. Architecture and Key Features

R700 Architecture: Two Chips in One

The HD 4870 X2 is built on the R700 architecture, combining two RV770 graphics processors on a single board. This design allowed the card to compete with top-tier NVIDIA models thanks to CrossFireX technology "out of the box."

Manufacturing Process

The chips were manufactured using a 55nm process, which was cutting-edge for 2008. This ensured a balance between performance and energy efficiency (by the standards of that time).

Unique Features

- DirectX 10.1: Support for new effects in late 2000s games.

- GDDR5: The first ATI card with this type of memory.

- Unavailable Technologies Today: Modern features like ray tracing (RTX), DLSS, or FidelityFX are absent.

2. Memory: The Foundation for Past Successes

Type and Capacity

The HD 4870 X2 came equipped with two 512MB GDDR5 modules, totaling 1GB of memory. For the era of resolutions up to 1920×1200, this was sufficient, but today even basic games require at least 4GB.

Bandwidth

With a 256-bit bus and a frequency of 3.6 GHz (effective 7.2 GHz), the bandwidth reached 115.2 GB/s — an impressive figure comparable to budget cards from the 2020s, such as the GTX 1650.

3. Gaming Performance: Nostalgia for HD

FPS Examples in Older Titles

- Crysis (2007): 35-40 FPS on high settings at 1680×1050.

- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009): 60+ FPS at 1920×1080.

- The Witcher 2 (2011): 25-30 FPS on medium settings.

Modern Games

By 2025, the HD 4870 X2 struggles with even indie games at low settings. For example, Hollow Knight (2017) will launch but may lag due to insufficient VRAM.

Resolutions

Maximum 1080p for older games. Ray tracing and upscaling (DLSS/FSR) are not supported.

4. Professional Tasks: Time is Ruthless

Video Editing and 3D Modeling

The card is unsuitable for modern editors like DaVinci Resolve or Blender due to:

- Lack of support for Vulkan API and modern versions of OpenCL.

- Low memory capacity.

Scientific Computing

CUDA cores (NVIDIA) are absent, and OpenCL performance is too low even for simple tasks.

5. Power Consumption and Thermal Output

TDP and PSU Requirements

The card’s TDP is 300W. A power supply of at least 600W with two 8-pin connectors was required for stable operation.

Cooling

The two-slot system with a turbine cooler is noisy even at low speeds. In 2025, cases with open layouts and additional fans are recommended.

6. Comparison with Competitors

2008 Rivals

- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280: Lagged in performance but was more energy-efficient (236W TDP).

- HD 4870 X2 vs. SLI Configurations: Often outperformed two GTX 260s in SLI but suffered from micro-stuttering.

Modern Analogues

Today, the HD 4870 X2 can be compared to budget cards like the AMD Radeon RX 6400 (priced at $100-150), which is ten times more energy-efficient and supports 2025 technologies.

7. Practical Advice

Power Supply

Even in 2025, the HD 4870 X2 requires a power supply with at least 80+ Bronze efficiency and a 600W rating.

Compatibility

- Platforms: Only compatible with systems using PCIe 2.0/3.0. Compatibility with PCIe 4.0/5.0 is not guaranteed.

- Drivers: Official support ended in 2015. Issues may arise with Windows 10/11 and Linux.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros

- Historical value for collectors.

- High performance in games from 2008-2012.

Cons

- Noisy cooling.

- No support for modern APIs and technologies.

- Limited compatibility with new software.

9. Conclusion: Who is the HD 4870 X2 For?

This graphics card is an artifact of its era that should be considered only in two cases:

1. Retro Gaming: For running classics from the 2000s on original hardware.

2. Collecting: As a part of the history of the GPU industry.

In 2025, the HD 4870 X2 serves no practical purpose for everyday tasks. However, if you want to indulge in nostalgia or build a retro PC, this card would be a great choice. Prices for new units (if available) may reach $300-500 due to collector's value, but typically, it is acquired on the secondary market for $50-100.

P.S. If you are looking for a GPU for work or modern gaming, consider the Radeon RX 7700 XT or GeForce RTX 4060. The era of the HD 4870 X2 has passed, but its legacy lives on in AMD RDNA 4 technologies.

Basic

Label Name

ATI

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

August 2008

Model Name

Radeon HD 4870 X2

Generation

Radeon R700

Bus Interface

PCIe 2.0 x16

Transistors

956 million

Compute Units

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

55 nm

Architecture

TeraScale

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

1024MB

Memory Type

GDDR5

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

256bit

Memory Clock

900MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

115.2 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

12.00 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

30.00 GTexel/s

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

240.0 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

1.176 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

800

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

256KB

TDP

286W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

N/A

OpenCL Version

1.1

OpenGL

3.3

DirectX

10.1 (10_1)

Power Connectors

1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin

Shader Model

4.1

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Suggested PSU

600W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

1.176 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

FirePro V8750

1.224 +4.1%

Radeon HD 7950 Monica BIOS 2

1.204 +2.4%

Radeon HD 4870 X2

1.176

Radeon R9 M275X

1.16 -1.4%

Iris Pro Graphics P580

1.129 -4%