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
The New $250 Price Point: Radeon HD 4890 vs. GeForce GTX 275
Here it is, what you've all been waiting for. And it's a tie. Pretty much. These cards stay pretty close in performance across the board.
Looking at Age of Conan, we see something we didn't expect. NVIDIA is actually performing on par with AMD in this benchmark. NVIDIA's come a long way to closing the gap in this one, and for this comparison it's paid off a bit. Despite the fact that this one is essentially a tie, NVIDIA gets props for being competitive here.
While NVIDIA usually owns Call of Duty benchmarks, the 4890 outpaces the GTX 275 at 16x10 and 19x12 while the GTX 275 leads at the 30" panel resolution. As long as its still playable, then this isn't a huge deal, but the fact that most people have lower resolution monitors who might want one of these GPUs isn't in NVIDIA's favor.
Crysis Warhead is really close in performance again.
AMD leads Fallout 3, and this is the first game we've seen any consistent significant difference favoring one card over another.
FarCry 2 takes us back to the norm with both cards performing essentially the same.
The 4890 does have a pretty hefty lead under Race Driver GRID. The gap does close at higher resolution, but it's still a gap in AMD's favor.
Left4Dead is also pretty much a tie with the card you would want changing depending on the resolution of your monitor.
Overall, this is really a wash. These parts are very close in performance and very competitive.
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Lonyo - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I haven't checked the benchmark numbers yet, but you list Forceware 185's on the NV side, and Cat 8.12's on the AMD side.Any reason why you are using brand new drivers for one side and 4 set old drivers on the other?
Sure, NV might not support a card on older drivers etc, but it's more useful to see newest driver vs newest driver, since there are performance changes from 8.12's to 9.3's in various games, but it just seems silly to use 3+ month old drivers which have been superseded by 3 revisions already. Would anyone buy a brand new card and then use drivers from 3~4 months ago?
Gary Key - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
The setup chart has been updated. We utilized previous test results from the HD4870 with the 8.12 HotFix drivers. The HD 4890 results were with the 9.4 beta drivers. I just went through a complete retest of the HD4870 with the 9.3 drivers and just started with the 9.4 betas on the AMD 790FX and Intel P45/X58 platforms. Except for a slight performance improvement in Crysis Warhead on the P45/X58 systems, the 9.3 drivers offered zero performance improvements over the 8.12 HotFix. The 9.3 drivers do offer a few updated CF profiles and improved video playback performance, but that is it.Nfarce - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
"the 9.3 drivers offered zero performance improvements over the 8.12 HotFix."Not only that, but if you read the ATI forums, a lot of people have been having MAJOR problems with 9.2 & 9.3. I downloaded 9.1 for my new 4870 build and have had no problems.
SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link
Now now, ati doesn't have any driver problems, so don't you DARE go spreading that lie. You hear me ?Hundreds of red roosters here have NEVER had a driver problem with their ati cards.
Shame shame.
Rhino2 - Monday, April 13, 2009 - link
Stop posting, seriously, you're stupidity is causing me pain.SiliconDoc - Thursday, April 23, 2009 - link
Another personal attacker without a single counterpoint to the many lies I've exposed. Good job brainwashed fool.Frallan - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Thanx - good to know.StormyParis - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
The Inq or The Reg is pretty adamant about the 275 being there just to spoil the 4890 launch, but never really in stores, and reviewers getting special hi-specs, hi-overclock hand by nVidia instead of the manufacturers.Did your card come from an anonymous purchase, or was it a special review sample ?
Gary Key - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
We mentioned in the article that we received a review sample from NVIDIA. The clock speeds are the same as the retail cards that should start arriving later next week with widespread availability around the week of 4/13. Our retail review samples will arrive early next week.As we stated several times in the article, this is a hard launch for AMD and yet another paper launch for NVIDIA, although according to the board partners the GTX275 is coming quickly this time around.
evilsopure - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I also feel confused and somewhat misled by the conclusion that the GTX275 is "the marginal leader at this new price point of $250".That conclusion doesn't seem true outside of resolutions of 2560x (30" monitor). Plus, $250 cards aren't even targeted or seriously considered for gaming at that resolution.
I came up with a different conclusion after thoroughly reading this review:
At the $250 price point and 1680x or 1920x gaming resolutions (where these cards primarily matter), the 4890 holds the majority performance advantage. However, at 2560x the GTX275 performs a bit better than the 4890. Realistically though, at 2560x or on 30+" displays, you're best served by a dual GPU or SLI/Xfire solution.
Something's fishy about the reviewers' conclusion.