ATI Radeon HD 4890 vs. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on April 2, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
NVIDIA is competitive at this new price point of $250 depending on what resolution you look at. We also see some improvement from NVIDIA's new 185 series driver and get a new feature to play with in the form of Ambient Occlusion. We did look at PhysX and CUDA again, and, while we may be interested in what is made possible by them, there is still a stark lack of compelling content that takes advantage of these technologies. We can't recommend prioritizing PhysX and CUDA over performance, and performance is where a GPU needs to compete. Luckily for NVIDIA, the GTX 275 does.
The fact that its worst-case performance is still better than the GTX 260 core 216 and in the best case, it can hit that of the GTX 280 was a plus for the GTX 275. It often posted performance more in line with its bigger brothers than a $50+ cheaper part. This is pretty sweet for a $250 card, especially as many games these days rely very heavily on shader performance. The GeForce GTX 275 is a good fit for this price point, and is a good option. But then there's the Radeon HD 4890.
The 4890, basically a tweaked and overclocked 4870, does improve performance over the 4870 1GB and puts up good competition for the GTX 275. On a pure performance level the 4890 and GTX 275 trade blows at different resolutions. The 4890 tends to look better at lower resolutions while the GTX 275 is more competitive at high resolutions. At 1680 x 1050 and 1920 x 1200 the 4890 is nearly undefeated. At 2560 x 1600, it seems to be pretty much a wash between the two cards.
At the same time, there are other questions, like that of availability. With these parts performing so similarly, and price being pretty well equal, the fact that AMD parts can be bought starting today and we have to wait for the NVIDIA parts is an advantage for AMD. However, we have to factor in the fact that AMD driver support doesn't have the best track record as of late for new game titles. Add in the fact that NVIDIA's developer relations seem more effective than AMD's could mean more titles that run better on NVIDIA hardware in the future. So what to go with? Really it depends on what resolutions you're targeting and what the prices end up being. If you've got a 30" display then either card will work, it's just up to your preference and the items we talked about earlier. If you've got a 24" or smaller display (1920x1200 or below), then the Radeon HD 4890 is the card for you.
AMD tells us that most retailers will feature mail in rebates of $20, a program which was apparently underwritten by AMD. Could AMD have worried they weren't coming in at high enough performance late in the game and decided to try and throw an extra incentive in there? Either way, not everyone likes a mail in rebate. I much prefer the instant variety and mail-in-rebate offers do not make decisions for me. We still compare products based on their MSRP (which is likely the price they'll be back at once the rebate goes away). This is true for both AMD and NVIDIA parts.
There will also be overclocked variants of the GTX 275 to compete with the overclocked variants from AMD. The overclock on the AMD hardware is fairly modest, but does make a difference and the same holds true for the GTX 275 products in early testing. We'll have to take a look at how such parts compare in the future along with SLI and CrossFire. In the meantime, we have another interesting battle at the $250 price point.
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SiliconDoc - Tuesday, April 7, 2009 - link
Another red rooster who cannot argue with the facts and the truth, and doesn't want them known.Perhaps you'd notice, I didn't comment right away when the STORIED review came out, you FOOL.
I came days later, and made my comments after you had your bs fest of lies, so I don't expect a lot of responders, you DUMMY.
But you're here, and your response is calling for DEATH.
Now, if anyone needs to be banned, YOU DO.
Futhermore, I really don't care if you're here, and have enjoyed some of your posts, but the fact remains, where I have absolutely FACTUALLY retued your BS in some of your posts, you have no response - other than, your own personal rage.
I'll be glad to see how you can defend yourself, but you obviously cannot.
Go ahead, there's 22 pages, and I've pointed out your lies several times. Have at it. Good luck, just calling for DEATH, and spewing "ban him!" while carrying your torch of lies is just what I expect from someone who doesn't care what bs they spew.
You already claimed you can't understand - LOL - of course you can't, you'd have to straighten out yourself and your lies then.
Good luck doing that.
SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link
LOL - the folding was crap forever on ati, and now it's slower.We know the release date for both cards, and the nvidia is already listed on the egg dude.
When you're a raging red rooster, nothing matters to you but lying for the 2 billion dollar loser - ati.
sidk47 - Friday, April 3, 2009 - link
You cannot argue with facts and the fact of the matter is that you can't help the world find a cure for cancer or Alzheimer's by buying an ATI!So those of you with an Internet connection, should buy an NVidia and fold@home all the time to help make the world a better place!
Take that ATI and your associated fanboys!
x86 64 - Sunday, April 5, 2009 - link
Folding at home is a total waste and is just an excuse to be smug and think you're special, so there to both of you."Oh I'm going to save the world by buying overpriced hardware and letting some university use it for studying the human genome. I'm such a humanitarian."
Please, you can justify your over indulgence any way you want but it still doesn't cover up the fact that you're trying to justify sitting on your asses instead of doing some real community work to help change the world.
Folding@home = Too fat and too lazy to really make an effort.
SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link
Uhh, dude, they're doing it at college, on like triple TESLA machines with the "supercomputer" motherboards - so you know, go get an education and start whining about unbelievable game framerates - that's what's really going on -Professor cuda machine checker " What happened ? "
Gamer students " Oh, uhh, well it crashed again it was a Crysis, I mean uh, no crisis, last night and it took us about 5 hours to to reset the awesome TESLA cards. We'll come in tonight to keep an eye on it, and clean up the pizza boxes and lock up again professor."
" Very well."
WHO LOVES THE EDUCATION OF AMERICA? !!!
hahahahaha
LeonRa - Saturday, April 4, 2009 - link
Well, since you cannot argue with facts, it's a fact you are a stupid fanboy who doesn't know anything! Check your facts before you post something like that. It is a fact that you can do f@h with an ATI card, as I have been doing it for some time now. So STFU and go spill your hatred somewhere else!SiliconDoc - Tuesday, April 7, 2009 - link
You're not being honest there. A while back ati either couldn't do it all ( no port ) - or it was so pathetic - they had to make a new port - I know they did the latter, and as far having a long stretch where it wasn't available, or just not used much since it was so pathetically slow in compariosn, the fella has the right idea.Furthermore, unless something has recently changed significantly, the ati port is still WAY slower than the Nvidia for folding.
So anyway, nice try, but telling the truth might actually be something the red rooster crew should start practicing .... or perhaps not, considering lying a whole heckuva lot might make those 2 billion dollar ati loses into "sales" that make "overall a profit" a reality...
On the other hand, if people continuously notice the lying by the red fans, they might gravitate to the competition, for obvious reasons.
So, honesty, or more bs ? I think I know what you'll choose.
marraco - Friday, April 3, 2009 - link
I hope to see benchmarks with ATI in charge of graphics, and a Geforce in charge of PhysX.... kind of SLI/crossfire betwen ATIs and Geforces :)
A value-added of the geforces, is that, once you buy a new card, the old can unload Physics from the new card. Nice. I hate wasting old hardare.
On other side, most of the games on PhysX nvidia list don't relly work with GPGPU PhysX. Only with the old AGEIA cards.
Sadly, Crisys and Far Cry don't use PhysX. Only Havoc. And AMD still don't support it in hardware.
spinportal - Friday, April 3, 2009 - link
No mention of the death of the HD 4850X2 as the HD4890 trashes the power consumption, price, availability, speed and OC-ability. No mention of advantage of DX10.1 and the games available. Hey, even bad news is good news sometimes by spotlighting. What is really missing is the bang for buck quality (bucks spent for performance increase), and talk about price depression for the HD 4870 1GB model by 10$ to 15$ with $50 step increments.4850 (125)[20.9] 4870 (185)[27.9] 4890 (235)[31.7]
4870X2 (400)[35.0]
Nvidia is cramping its own style:
250 (150)[21.8] 260-216-55 (180)[27] 275 (250?)[31.3]
280 (290)[30.9] 285 (340)[32.8]
The GTX280 is dead now, overpriced for those trying to sneak into SLI. The GTX260 is overlapped with Core216 55nm you'd want to get, but Joe Consumer might mistakenly get the other 2 prior versions to clean out old inventory. The GTX285's price is not justified but more power to nVidia if they get the consumer's buck.
Gladly, by the low temps the dual slot blowback is voiding hot air properly so the vendors are finally manufacturing cards with common sense.
Too bad we have gone the way with power hungry beastly cards needing two 6-pins.
Also, too bad the effects of AF and 0x00, 2xAA, 4xAA and 8xMSAA modes are not investigated. It would be interesting to see how saturated the units get as AF and AA gets bumped and what are the best modes for nVidia and AMD.
Oh, nice blurb for nVidia's shadow enhancement, but ATi/AMD's tesselation enhancement is as much as a hit or miss feature. Will AMD have an tech edge when DX11 tesselation cometh?
SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link
Hmm, that said, Derek might be crying, since he couldn't stop crowing about that 4850x2 last review - oh boy, you know - I guess he had the heads up and ati told him what card he needed to help push...You know how things are.
Anyway, good observation.