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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Hauk - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Congrats ATI, the 4890 is a strong performer! So much chatter about what constitutes rebadging; at the end of the day it's performance that matters. 4890 does a great job for the money.The GTX 275 performs well but lacks excitement IMO. Nothing surprising or exciting; we've already seen a 240 shader enabled gpu on a 260 style interface (x2). If anything, the 285 receives strong competition from both 4890 and 275. Makes little sense to remain at it's price point. It's price should be $300.
Times are tight. Cheers to competition...
slickr - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I can't believe how biased anandtech has become.I've checked all other review sites and in all the GTX275 was winning by a pretty big margin, here it actually looses to the HD4890.
Now I'm not a fanboy for either, I've had 2 nvidia graphic cards and 2 ATI cards, the current one is ATI, but this bias thing can't go un-noticed.
Some investigators must be summoned to deal with anandtech, this has been going for quite a while now.
z3R0C00L - Friday, April 3, 2009 - link
I see the difference.. those "other reviews" used the Catalyst 9.3 drivers.Anandtech, HardOCP and Firingsquad used the new 9.4 Beta drivers.
No bias on Anandtech's part. Rather a bias from those other sites who used the new nVIDIA BETA driver but not the ATi one that has proper support for the 4890.
B3an - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I dont normally take notice of comments like this on here, but it does seem a little like it. It's as if NV have pissed off Anandtech with there dirty tactics (understandable), and Anandtech are being a little bias because of this.JarredWalton - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I've looked at three reviews (FiringSquad, THG, and HardOCP - also Xbitlabs, but they didn't have the GTX 275 in their results). I'm not quite sure what horribly biased and inaccurate results we're supposed to have, as most of the tests are quite similar to ours. Two sites - HardOCP and FiringSquad - essentially end up as a tie. THG favors the 275, at least at lower resolutions and without 4xAA, but then several of the games they test we didn't use, and vice versa. (The 4970 also beats the 275 there if you run 4xAA 2560x1600.)Obviously, we had a lengthy rant on CUDA and PhysX and discussed the usefulness of those features (conclusion: meh), but with all the marketing in that area it was something that was begging to be done. Pricing, availability, and drivers are still areas you need to look at, but it's really a very close race.
If you have reviews that show very different results than what I'm seeing, post the name of the site rather than making vague claims like, "I've checked all other review sites and in all the GTX275 was winning by a pretty big margin, here it actually looses to the HD4890."
SkullOne - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
That's different then what I've seen. I dunno what sites you visit but all of the ones I've been to show them just about neck and neck or the 4890 just edging out the 275.Personally I give the edge to the 4890 due to it's high overclockability.
SkullOne - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
That's different then what I've seen. I dunno what sites you visit but all of the ones I've been to show them just about neck and neck or the 4890 just edging out the 275.Personally I give the edge to the 4890 due to it's high overclockability.
Spoelie - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
p=2 As we can clearly see, in the cards we *r*estedp=11 particles are one of the most difficult things to do on the CPU *thanks*
Drivers? test table says 8.12 hotfix but we're at 9.3/9.4 now...
Yojimbo - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
First you say you aren't concerned about the 4890 being a rebadge because at the end of the day it's performance that matters, and then you said the GTX 275 lacks excitement because "we've already seen a 140 shader enabled gpu on a 260 style interface (x2)," whatever the significance of already seeing that is.Aren't these contradictory statements?
SiliconDoc - Thursday, April 23, 2009 - link
Of course it's contradictory, it's a red rooster statement. Then the 3m they use to just crank a few more mhz is the rework.. LOLPay homage to the red and hate green and spew accordingly with as many lies as possible or you won't fit in here - been like that for quite some time. Be smug and arrogant about it, too, and never amdit your massive errors - that's how to do it.
Make sure you whine about nvidia and say you hate them in as many ways as possible, as well - be absolutely insane mostly, that's what works - like screaming they can take down nvidia when the red rooster shop has been losing a billion a year on a billion in sales.
Be an opposite man.
Of course it's contradictory. Duhh.. they're insane man - they are GONERS.