Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel i7 920 @ 3.8GHz (190MHz x 20)

Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P (Supplied by Noctua)

Motherboard(s): GIGABYTE EX58-UD5 (Supplied by GIGABYTE)

Memory: 3 X 2GB OCZ Technology PC-12800 DDR-3 8-8-8-24 (OCZ3G1600LV6GK)

Hard Disk(s): Western Digital 300GB Velicorapter (Supplied by Western Digital)

Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2, Windows Vista SP1 64-Bit

Drivers: Catalyst 9.1, ForceWare 181.20

Today we'll see how the HIS HD 4870 IceQ4+ TURBO goes against its little brother, the HD 4850 and against the NVIDIA 9800 GTX+.

While both cards are cheaper than the HIS offering, we want to see if it's worth spending the extra $20 - $30 buying the HD 4870 over the 9800 GTX+. Both cards have been out for a while now and have under-gone some heavy price drops. Let's get stuck into the performance of them to see where your money is best spent.

3DMark Vantage

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.1

Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com

Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmarkvantage/

Buy It Here

3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware.

3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.

Under Vantage the HIS HD 4870 IceQ4+ TURBO performs well against the other cards here with it coming out ahead.