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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7Enigma - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Deja vu again, and again, and again. I've posted in no less than 3 other articles how bad some of the conclusions have been. There is NO possible way you could conclude the 275 is the better card at anything other than the 30" display resolution. Not only that, but it appears with the latest Nvidia drivers they are making things worse.Honestly, does anyone else see the parallel between the original OCZ SSD firmware and these new Nvidia drivers? Seems like they were willing to sacrifice 99% of their customers for the 1% that have 30" displays (which probably wouldn't even be looking at the $250 price point). Nvidia, take a note from OCZ's situation; lower performance at 30" to give better performance at 22-24" resolutions would do you much better in the $250 price segment. You shot yourselves in the foot on this one...
Gary Key - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
The conclusion has been clarified to reflect the resolution results. It falls right into line with your thoughts and others as well as our original thoughts that did not make it through the edits correctly.7Enigma - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Yup, I responded to Anand's post with a thank you. We readers just like to argue, and when something doesn't make sense, we're quick to go on the attack. But also quick to understand and appreciate a correction.duploxxx - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Just some thoughts:There is only 1 single benchmark out of 7 where the 275 has better frame rates for 1680 and 1920 resolution against the 4890 and yet your final words are that you favor the 275???? Only in 2560 the 275 is clearly the better choice. Are you already in the year 2012 where 2560 might be the standard resolution of the sales, it is only very recent that the 1680 became standard and even then this resolution is high for global OEM market sales. Your 2560 is not even few % of the market.
I think you have to clarify your final words a bit more with your choice.... Perhaps if we see power consumption, fan noice etc that would be added value to the choice, but for now, TWIMTBP is really not enough push to prefer the card, I am sure the red team will improve there drivers as usual also.
anything else i missed in your review that could counter my thoughts?
SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link
Derek has been caught in the 2560 wins it all no matter what with the months on end of ati taking that cake since the 4870 releasse. No lower resolutions mattered for squat since the ati lost there - so you'll have to excuse his months long brainwashing.Thankfully anand checked in and smacked it out of his review just in time for the red fanboy to start enjoying lower resolution wins while nvidia takes the high resolution crown, which is- well.. not a win here anymore.
Congratulations, red roosters.
duploxxx - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
just as addon, I also checked some other reviews (yes i always read anandtech first as main source of info) and i saw that it is cooler then a 4870 and actually consumes 10% less then a 4870 so this can't be the reason either while the 275 stays at the same 280 power consumption. Also OC parts are already shown GPU above 1000....cyriene - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I would have liked to see some information on heat output and the temperatures of the cards while gaming.Otherwise, nice article.
7Enigma - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
This is an extreme omission. The fact that the 4890 is essentially an overclocked 4870 means with virtually nothing changed you HAVE to show the temps. I still stick by my earlier comment that the Vapo-chill model of the Sapphire 4870 is possibly a better card since it's temps are significantly lower than the stock 4870, while already being overclocked. I could easily imagine that for $50-60 less you could have the performance of the 4890 at cooler temps (by OC'ing the vapochill further).Comon guys, you have to give thought to this!
SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link
Umm, they - you know the AT bosses, don't like the implications of that. So many months, even years, spent on screeching like women about nvidia rebranding has them in a very difficult position.Besides, they have to keep the illusion of superior red power useage, so only after demand will they put up the power chart.
They tried to get away with not, but they couldn't do it.
initialised - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
GPU-z lists the R790 as having a surface area of 282mm2 while the R770 has 256mm2 but both are listed as having the same transistor count.