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
Putting this PhysX Business to Rest
Let me put things in perspective. Remember our Radeon HD 4870/4850 article that went up last year? It was a straight crown-robbing on ATI’s part, NVIDIA had no competitively priced response at the time.
About two hours before the NDA lifted on the Radeon HD 4800 series we got an urgent call from NVIDIA. The purpose of the call? To attempt to persuade us to weigh PhysX and CUDA support as major benefits of GeForce GPUs. A performance win by ATI shouldn’t matter, ATI can’t accelerate PhysX in hardware and can’t run CUDA applications.
The argument NVIDIA gave us was preposterous. The global economy was weakening and NVIDIA cautioned us against recommending a card that in 12 months would not be the right choice because new titles supporting PhysX and new CUDA applications would be coming right around the corner.
The tactics didn’t work obviously, and history showed us that despite NVIDIA’s doomsday warnings - Radeon HD 4800 series owners didn’t live to regret their purchases. Yes, the global economy did take a turn for the worst, but no - NVIDIA’s PhysX and CUDA support hadn’t done anything to incite buyer’s remorse for anyone who has purchased a 4800 series card. The only thing those users got were higher frame rates. (Note that if you did buy a Radeon HD 4870/4850 and severely regretted your purchase due to a lack of PhysX/CUDA support, please post in the comments).
This wasn’t a one time thing. NVIDIA has delivered the same tired message at every single opportunity. NVIDIA’s latest attempt was to punish those reviewers who haven’t been sold on the PhysX/CUDA messages by not sending them GeForce GTS 250 cards for review. The plan seemed to backfire thanks to one vigilant Inquirer reporter.
More recently we had our briefing for the GeForce GTX 275. The presentation for the briefing was 53 slides long, now the length wasn’t bothersome, but let’s look at the content of the slides:
| Slides About... | Number of Slides in NVIDIA's GTX 275 Presentation |
| The GeForce GTX 275 | 8 |
| PhysX/CUDA | 34 |
| Miscellaneous (DX11, Title Slides, etc...) | 11 |
You could argue that NVIDIA truly believes that PhysX and CUDA support are the strongest features of its GPUs. You could also argue that NVIDIA is trying to justify a premium for its much larger GPUs rather than having to sell them as cheap as possible to stand up to an unusually competitive ATI.
NVIDIA’s stance is that when you buy a GeForce GPU, it’s more than just how well it runs games. It’s about everything else you can run on it, whether that means in-game GPU accelerated PhysX or CUDA applications.
Maybe we’ve been wrong this entire time. Maybe instead of just presenting you with bar charts of which GPU is faster we should be penalizing ATI GPUs for not being able to run CUDA code or accelerate PhysX. Self reflection is a very important human trait, let’s see if NVIDIA is truly right about the value of PhysX and CUDA today.
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SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link
Oh great, a whole other sku to lose another billion a year with. Wonderful. Any word on the new costs of the bigger cpu and expensive capacitors and vrm upgrades ?Ahh, nevermind, heck, this ain't a green greedy monster card, screw it if they lose their shirts making it - I mean there's no fantasy satisfaction there.
Get back to me on the nvidia costs - so I can really dream about them losing money.
itbj2 - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I am not sure about you guys but NVIDIA has problems with their drivers as well. I have a 9400GT and a 8800 GTS in my machine and the new drivers can't make the two work well enough for my computer to come out of hibernation with out Windows XP crashing every so often. This use to work just fine before I upgraded the drivers to the latest version.FishTankX - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
For anyone who REALLY wants temp data..Firingsquad 4890/GTX275 review
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_489...">http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati...4890_nvi...
Idle
GTX 260 216 (45C)
GTX 285 (46C)
GTX 275 (47C)
4890 1GB (51C)
4870 (60C)
Load
4890 1GB (64C)
GTX 260 216 (64C)
GTX 275 (68C)
GTX 285 (70C)
4870 1GB (80C)
Power consumption
(Total system power)
Idle
GTX 275 (143W)
4890 (172W)
Load
4890 (276W)
GTX 275 (279W)
There, now you can can it! :D
SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link
There it is again, 30 watts less idle for nvidia, and only 3 watts more in 3d. NVIDIA WINS - that's why they left it out - they just couldn't HANDLE it....So, if you're 3d gaming 91% of the time, and only 2d surfing 9% of the time, the ati card comes in at equal power useage...
Otherwise, it LOSES - again.
I doubt the red raging reviewers can even say it. Oh well, thanks for posting numbers.
7Enigma - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Can anyone confirm whether or not the heatsink/fan has been altered between the 4870 and the 4890? I'm interested to know if the decreased temps of the higher clocked 4890 are due in part to a better cooling mechanism, or strictly from a respin/binning.Warren21 - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Yes, the cooler has been slightly revised. I believe it's a combination of both. I'll admit I'm a bit disappointed AT didn't explore the differences between the HD 4870 and the 4890 more in-depth.Comparisson:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canu...">http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/ha...phire-ra...
bill3 - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
"It looks like NVIDIA might be the marginal leader at this new price point of $250." you wroteBut looking at your own benches..
Since you run 3 resolutions of your benches, lets reasonably declare that the card that can win 2 or more of them "wins" that game. In that case 4890 wins over 275 in: COD WaW, Warhead, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, GRID, and Left 4 Dead. 275 wins over 4890 in Age of Conan. Either with AA or without the results stay the same.
The only way I think you can contend 275 has an edge is if you place a premium on the 2560X1600 results, where it seems to edge out the 4890 more often. However, it's often at unplayable framerates. Further I dont see a reason to place undue importance on the 2560X benches, the majority of people still game on 1680X1050 monitors, and as you yourself noted, Nvidia released a new driver that trades off performance at low res for high res, which I think is arguably neither here nor their, not a clear advantage at all.
Even at 2560 (using the AA bar graphs because its often difficult to spot the winner at 2560 on the line graphs), where the 275 wins 5 and loses 2, the margins are often so ridiculously close it essentially a tie. 275 takes AOC, COD WaW, and L4D by a reasonable margin at the highest res, while the 4890 wins Fallout3 and GRID comfortably. Warhead and Far Cry 2 are within .7 FPS although nominally wins for 275. Thats a difference of all of 3-2 in materially relevant wins, or exactly 1 game. But keep in mind again that 4890 is fairly clearly winning the lower reses more often, and to me it's wrong to state 275 has the edge.
SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link
The funny thing is, if you're in those games and constantly looking at your 5-10 fps difference at 50-60-100-200 fps - there's definitely something wrong with you.I find reviews that show LOWEST framerate during game when it's a very high resolution and a demanding game useful - usually more useful when the playable rate is hovering around 30 or below 50 (and dips a ways below 30.
Otherwise, you'd have to be an IDIOT to base your decision on the very often, way over playable framerates in the near equally matched cards. WE HAVE A LOT OF IDIOTS HERE.
Then comes the next conclusion, or the follow on. Since framerates are at playable, and are within 10% at the top end, the things that really matter are : game drivers / stability , profiles , clarity, added features, added box contents (a free game one wants perhaps).
Almost ALWAYS, Nvidia wins that - with the very things this site continues to claim simply do not matter, and should not matter - to ANYONE they claim - in effect.
I think it's one big fat lie, and they most certainly SHOULD know it.
Note now, that NVidia - having released their, according to this site, high resolution driver tweak for 2560xX , wins at that resolution, the review calmly states it does'nt matter much, most people don't play at that resolution - and recommend ati now instead.
Whereas just prior, for MONTHS on end, when ati won only the top resolution, and NVidia took the others, this same site could not stop ranting and raving that ATI won it all and was the only buy that made sense.
It's REALLY SICK.
I pointed out their 30" monitor for ATI bias months ago, and they continued with it - but now they agree with me - when ATI loses at that rezz... LOL
Yeah, they're schesiters. Ain't no doubt about it.
Others notice as well - and are saying things now.
I see Jarred is their damage control agent.
JonnyDough - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Why not just use RivaTuner or ATI Tool to underclock OC'd cards?Jamahl - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
How can the conclusion be that the 275 is the leader at the price point? The benchmarks are clearly in favour of the 4890 apart from the extreme end 2560x1600.