Overclocking Extravaganza: Radeon HD 4890 To The Max
by Derek Wilson on April 29, 2009 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
All but two.
That's how many benchmarks in which our 1GHz/1.2GHz (core/mem) Radeon HD 4890 lead the stock NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285. That's nothing to sneeze at. Certainly it doesn't mean that the 4890 is faster or better than the GTX 285, especially because the GTX 285 can be overclocked as well to improve performance. What this does mean is that for about $100 less we have the potential to achieve the stock performance of NVIDIA's flagship single GPU part with a highly overclocked AMD GPU. From an end user value perspective, that extra $100 is there to ensure you get at least the performance of the GTX 285 along with any potential overclocking benefits you might have from the higher end part. There is still reason to buy the GTX 285 if you need even more power. But this is quite intriguing from an architectural perspective.
These tests show that there is the potential for a 959 Million transistor AMD GPU to consistently outperform a 1.4 Billion transistor NVIDIA GPU in the same power envelope at 55nm with similar memory bandwidth.
Yields and business being what they are, it doesn't make sense for AMD to push out a part at the extreme clock speeds we tested. But from an engineering standpoint, even with the smaller die, less is more, multiGPU at the top end strategy, AMD has built a part that can (when overclocked) best the stock performance of top of the line NVIDIA hardware designed to pack as much power into a single GPU as possible.
And that seems pretty significant.
At the same time, while we don't have any solid standardized OpenCL tests to run as of yet, it appears from some limited applications like folding@home and others that NVIDIA's approach may be better suited to GPU computing or more general purpose or flexible applications beyond gaming. We can't really confirm this theory yet, as there isn't a wide enough range of GPU computing applications, but it might not be that NVIDIA has been pushing CUDA so hard because they know it to be an advantage, not just in terms of software support and a feature check box, but in terms of a fundamental performance or architectural edge for these algorithms. The architectural path NVIDIA has chosen may well prove useful when DX11 hits and we see a further push away from DX9 towards really deep programmability and flexibility. Only time will tell on that front, though.
In the meantime, NVIDIA's margins are much tighter on their larger GPUs and now their single GPU performance advantage has started to erode. It seems the wonders of the RV7xx series have yet to exhaust themselves. Competition is indeed a wonderful thing, and we can't wait to see what comes out of the upcoming DX11 hardware battle.
For now, at resolutions below 2560x1600, the Radeon HD 4890 has the advantage. At 2560x1600, the lines become a little more blurry. For stock hardware the GTX 285 is still the fastest thing around in most cases. But if you want to take your chances with overclocking, 30" gaming on a single AMD GPU just got a lot more potentially attractive.
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PrinceGaz - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - link
Interesting certainly, but when I read Overclocking... to the max" my first thought that a large tub of LN2 would be used :pDerekWilson - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - link
heh ... i'd love to play with some liquid nitrogen. that'd be great fun. i don't think we're going there anytime soon though.Veteran - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - link
Why didn't you guys play with the fanprofiles? Added some VGPU with 3th party software? Just went to the realy maximum of the card. It would be amazing to see the results of that. Using 3th party software shouldn't be any limitation to overclocking if you ask me.DerekWilson - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - link
We did set the fan on 100% manually all the time. Sure, it's a leafblower at that speed, but we wanted to keep it cool. Sorry I didn't mention that.It is possible to get some 4890 cards higher, but this wasn't an article for the hardcore overclocker. Rather we wanted to talk about what the average user can do out of the box by clicking a few buttons in the driver. Which, in my opinion, is more impressive than if we'd gotten an extra couple percent increase in core and memory clock speeds.
Not that even I wouldn't be interested in knowing how fast you could get one of these beasts ... It's just a different article than the one I wanted to write here.
SiliconDoc - Saturday, June 6, 2009 - link
It will be a nice day when you don't have to apologize ten times in every ati vs nvidia article for your massive ati biased BS Derek.--
" We did set the fan on 100% manually all the time. Sure, it's a leafblower at that speed, but we wanted to keep it cool. Sorry I didn't mention that. "
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All you red roosters aren't sorry - the enthusiasts see your charts and head off to redland purchse while your lying CRAP misdirects them ! And you know it - and are sickeringly proud of it no doubt !
It's been going on forver by you here !
PERIOD!
Veteran - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - link
The title just imply different things then this review. That's all, i enjoyed reading it and see how the card responds to Core and Mem OC's. But if you use the words 'extravaganza' (very special) and 'to the max' people start thinking about dry-ice/ln2, voltage modifications etc.The article is awesome, the title is a little bit wrong
CyNics - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - link
to Derek: have you tried overclocking the GeForce GTX 275, or at least comparing an OC'ed gtx275 with an OC'ed 4890 before coming to such conclusion?DerekWilson - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - link
This is a pretty good question --These tests and the article took a while for me to put together. I am planning on doing a GTX 275 overclocking and seeing if anything interesting happens. If I get good results I'll put together an article on the subject.
I tried pretty hard to keep this article on the subject of the 4890 itself and where I made comparisons it was to hardware outside it's price class with the GTX 285.
No matter how well the GTX 275 does, the 4890 still did as well as it did versus the GTX 285 (and relative to itself).
If I screwed up and made direct comparisons between overclocked 4890 and GTX 275 or something, let me know and I'll fix it 'cause I didn't mean to. Otherwise I hope that this article is as appropriate as I wanted it to be.
Once I've also overclocked the GTX 275 I'll have something to say about it's relative value versus the 4890 in that regard.
SiliconDoc - Saturday, June 6, 2009 - link
THAT'S AN AMAZING BIT OF BS DEREK !" If I screwed up and made direct comparisons between overclocked 4890 and GTX 275 or something, let me know and I'll fix it 'cause I didn't mean to. Otherwise I hope that this article is as appropriate as I wanted it to be.
Once I've also overclocked the GTX 275 I'll have something to say about it's relative value versus the 4890 in that regard. "
First you say IF you used a non overclocked GTX275 and screwed up doing it - someone should point it out (because you obviously can't see it in your own charts - right red rooster?) - and if someone points out your massive idiots bias, you'll change it otherwise you won't... THEN YOU ADMIT YOU HAVEN'T OVERCLOCKED THE GTX275 YET ! PROVING ABSOLUTELY YOU DID IN FACT COMPARE IT NON OVERCLOCKED TO THE 4890 SPECIAL MANUFACTURERS EDITION SENT TO YOU !
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SO WHAT THE HELL DID YOU MEAN BY " If I screwed up and made direct comparisons between overclocked 4890 and GTX 275 or something, let me know and I'll fix it 'cause I didn't mean to." ?!!???
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YOU DID IT DEREK - YOU KNEW YOU DID IT, YOU DID IT "ON PURPOSE" THEN EVEN AS YOU DENY IT AFTER BEING QUESTIONED, YOU ADMIT IT INCRIMINATING YOURSELF !
YOU EVEN ASK THE QUESTONER POINT IT OUT WHEN YOU DID THE CHARTS AND THE TESTS HERE !
MY GAWD!
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Dude, if you think your BS is even passable, THINK AGAIN !
SiliconDoc - Saturday, June 6, 2009 - link
Yes, our great masterous "fair" and "unbiased" reviewer Derek.
DOESN'T EVEN KNOW WHEN HE IS COMPARING OC'ED SPECIAL MANU. TO STOCK !
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WHAT a genius! Keep that boy hired ! Must be worth a whole 50 cents an hour, if that !