What will an Extra $70 Get You? Radeon HD 4890 vs. Radeon HD 4870 1GB

The short answer is more performance. We see across the board improvement in performance from the highly clocked 4890. In some games the improvement is large while in others it is just a nice perk. But moving up to this price point we do still have diminishing returns. This isn't as significant as it is up above $300, but it's still a big price gap to cover for the gain. Only individual gamers can really decided whether they would benefit from the added performance enough.

The New $250 Price Point: Radeon HD 4890 vs. GeForce GTX 275 Another Look at the $180 Price Point: 260 core 216 vs. 4870 1GB
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  • 7Enigma - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link

    And just go and disregard everything I typed (minus the different driver versions). Xbit apparently underclocked the 4890 to stock speeds. So I have no clue how the heck their numbers are so significantly different, except they have this posted on system settings:

    ATI Catalyst:

    Smoothvision HD: Anti-Aliasing: Use application settings/Box Filter
    Catalyst A.I.: Standard
    Mipmap Detail Level: High Quality
    Wait for vertical refresh: Always Off
    Enable Adaptive Anti-Aliasing: On/Quality
    Other settings: default
    Nvidia GeForce:

    Texture filtering – Quality: High quality
    Texture filtering – Trilinear optimization: Off
    Texture filtering – Anisotropic sample optimization: Off
    Vertical sync: Force off
    Antialiasing - Gamma correction: On
    Antialiasing - Transparency: Multisampling
    Multi-display mixed-GPU acceleration: Multiple display performance mode
    Set PhysX GPU acceleration: Enabled
    Other settings: default


    If those are set differently in Anand's review I'm sure you could get some weird results.
  • SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link

    LOL - set PhysX gpu accelleration enabled.
    roflmao
    Yeah man, I'm gonna get me that red card... ( if you didn't detect sarcasm, forget it)
  • tamalero - Thursday, April 9, 2009 - link

    good to know you blame everyone for "bad reading understanding"

    let's see

    ATI Catalyst:

    Smoothvision HD: Anti-Aliasing: Use application settings/Box Filter
    Catalyst A.I.: Standard
    Mipmap Detail Level: High Quality
    Wait for vertical refresh: Always Off
    Enable Adaptive Anti-Aliasing: On/Quality
    Other settings: default
    Nvidia GeForce:

    Texture filtering – Quality: High quality
    Texture filtering – Trilinear optimization: Off

    you see the big "NVIDIA GEFORCE:" right below "other settings"?
    that means the physX was ENABLED on the GEFORCE CARD.

    you sir, are a nvidia fanboy and a big douché
  • SiliconDoc - Thursday, April 23, 2009 - link

    More personal attacks, when YOU are the one who can't read, you IDIOT.
    Here are my first two lines: LOL - set PhysX gpu accelleration enabled.
    roflmao
    _____
    Then you tell me it says PhySx is enabled - which is what I pointed out. You probably did not go see the linked test results at the other site, and put two and two together.
    Look in the mirror and see who can't read, YOU FOOL.
    Better luck next time crowing barnyard animal.
    "Cluckle red 'el doo ! Cluckle red 'ell doo !"
    Let's see, I say PhySx is enabled, and you scream at me to point out it says PhysX is enabled, and call me an nvidia fan because of it - which would make you an nvidia fan as well - according to you, IF you knew what the heck you were doing, which YOU DON'T.
    That makes you - likely a red rooster... I may check on that - hopefully you're not a noob poster, too, as that would reduce my probabilities in the discovery phase. Good luck, you'll likely need it after what I've seen so far.
  • 7Enigma - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link

    Looked even closer and the drivers used were different.

    ATI Drivers:

    Anand-9.4 beta
    Xbit-9.3

    Nvidia:

    Anand-185
    Xbit-182.08
  • ancient46 - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link

    I don't see the fun in shooting cloth and unrealistic non impact resistant windows in high rise buildings. The video with the cloth was distracting, it made me wonder why it was there. What was its purpose? My senior eyes did not see much of an improvement in the videos in the CUDA application.
  • SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link

    Maybe someday you'll lose you're raging red fanboy bias, brakdown entirely, toss out your life religion, and buy an nvidia card. At that point perhaps Mirror's Edge will come with it, and after digging it out of the trash can (second thoughts you had), you'll try it, and like anand, really like it - turn it off, notice what you've been missing, turn it back on, and enjoy. Then after all that, you can crow "meh".
    I suppose after that you can revert to red rooster raging fanboy - you'll have to have your best red bud rip you from your Mirror's Edge addiction, but that's ok, he's a red and will probably smack you for trying it out - and have a clean shot with ow absorbed you'll be.
    Well, that should rap it up.
  • poohbear - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link

    are the driver issues for AMD that significant that it needs to be mentioned in a review article? im asking in all honesty as i dont know. Also, this close developer relationship nvidia has w/ developers. does that show up in any games to significantly give a performance edge for nvidia vid cards? is there an example game out there for this? thanks.
  • 7Enigma - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link

    Look no further than this article. :) Here's the quote:

    "The first thing about Warmonger is that it runs horribly slow on ATI hardware, even with GPU accelerated PhysX disabled. I’m guessing ATI’s developer relations team hasn’t done much to optimize the shaders for Radeon HD hardware. Go figure."

    But ATI also has some relations with developers that show an unusually high advantage as well (Race Driver G.R.I.D. for example). All in all, as long as no one is cheating by disabling effects or screwing with draw distances, it only benefits the consumer for the games to be optimized. The more one side pushes for optimizations, the more the other side is forced, or risk losing the benchmark wars (which ultimately decides purchases for most people).

  • SkullOne - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link

    In the conclusion mentions Nvidia's partners releasing OC boards but nothing about AMD. There is already two versions of the XFX HD4890 on Newegg. One is 850 core and the other is 875 core.

    The HD4890 is geared to open that SKU of "OC" cards for AMD. People with stock cooling and stock voltage can already push the card to 950+MHz. On the ASUS card you boost voltage to the GPU which has allowed people to get over 1GHz on their GPU. As the card matures seeing 1GHz cores on stock cooling and voltage will become a reality.

    It seems like these facts are being ignored.

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