Allo all you lovely bit techers, I'm in the market for a new gfx card, having looked at price, power consumption and performance i've come to these 2 cards, 1) XFX ATI 4890 Black Edition 2) XFX Nvidia GTX275 XXX Basically, from what i can see, the gtx uses loads less power when idleing, which is a big plus as even though its going into a gaming rig 90% of the time it'll be idleing. The performance is pretty much on par(i think) i cant be sure as the ati card is oc'd to 1000mhz core and there are no benches on bt with that performance so i cant be wholely accurate. Finally, any problems with either of these cards. I've not gone with nvidia for about 6 years now so dont know if there is anything i should note, as for ati i'm happy buying any of their gear as i trust them but if anyone has had a bad experience, or an overly exceptional experience then i'd love you know. Thanks for you time, peace FATMAN
there is a little review of the 4890 here, don't know if you may find it useful. Personally out of the two cards you have chosen I would go for the 4890, it may be noisier, but it has GDDR5 where as the 275 gtx uses GDDR3, and the 4890 has 1GB of memory. I know memory is nothing unless its used properly, and I think both of these cards are 448 bit, but I may be wrong. Which ever one you decide to go for, you won't be disapointed as they're both great cards. Gaz
I'm using the 4890's older brother, the 4870 1GB for a while now and I can say it isn't loud and he gives great performance
lol...worried about power consumption when you have a 2900 xt in your rig...good stuff. i didn't click the links, so basically i would make my decision as follows...play tons of crysis or fold? gtx 275...no to the previous 2 questions? whichever is cheaper...but after seeing your board, probably the 4890 since that supports crossfire. unless you plan on going i7 soon...then back to the previous criteria...
I found this bargain: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-124-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=
I deliberated on whether to get a 275 or 4890 as they are pretty much neck and neck on performance and I was starting to lean towards the 4890 due to having a crossfire capable mobo. In the end the fact that the 275 is less power hungry, cooler and less noisy (according to reviews) sealed the deal for me. I ended up buying This one due to custom pc's reviews of it. It's even more lean on power usage as well by all accord.
Just wondering, how does one compare which card is cooler than the other? Unless you take the same cooler and put it on both cards and bench test it to see the temps. But if you dont do that then its somewhat useless to say that one card puts out less heat than the other one does. As the hotter card could simple have a less effective cooler on it. when looking at heat with two seperate cards, I would be more concerned with which one will put more heat into the case. Are there any places that look at that when reviewing cards? Or is it simple, card "a" heats up to temp "x" and card "b" heats up to temp "z" And because x is lower than z, card a must be the cooler card out of the two. Even though in reality card a is puts out more heat. but has a better cooler.
Just what I have read as I stated, I dont know their methods. I expect they use programs like gpu-z etc to get gpu, pcb and mem temps, they may also measure ambient temps around the cards and at the exhaust vents with temps probes. Maybe one card does have a less effective cooler on it but isn't that the point, it still makes it hotter running doesn't it?? Anyway I was just explaining my reasoning as to why I bought the 275 be it right or wrong.
lol cheers mate, i got hold ofthe 2900xt on launch when i was back at uni and wanted to support ati/amd and power consumption wasnt such a big thing for me. i like your way of deciding between the cards though. i'll take it into consideration, thankyou! thanks for bothering to reply chris, but your reply had no relevance to my question, and you simply pursued in picking apart what someone else had said. Not welcome here seen as it was solely based on the fact that he said one card was cooler than the other, i'm not worried about the heat or necessarily the noise of the cooler on load as i'll be gaming.
It's a neck comparison. Strangely though I want to suggest getting a HD4870 1Gb or a GTX 260C216 as they're quite a bit cheaper and can be pushed towards their bigger brothers.
Personal opinion would be a 275... I'm actually looking into the two cards myself for pretty mich the same reasons you are (power consumption and folding ability for me). Based on what I've read the 275 is the better choice, especially when scaling to multiple cards.
The "noise" argument against a HD4890 only holds true for cards with the reference cooling. Unless I was forced to I'd never go with reference cooling on any card I'd buy. It's much the same with CPU cooling. Who really uses the reference cooler? What is interesting is that AMD/ATi has had DX11 features for quite some time in their DX10 hardware (a tesselation engine for instance). If these features could be enabled in Windows 7 that could make an ATi card the better buy. From a DX10 point of view, the GTX 275 might be the better card, however.
While looking for which card to get all the 4890's I looked at seemed to have the same reference cooler are their any 4890's that have custom coolers yet. The same pretty much went for the 275, I think there was only the palit/gigabyte one with the twin fans and the MSI N275 Twin Frozr but the later was around £55 more than the one I bought which I thought was a bit steep. Can anyone link me to a 4890 in the uk with a custom cooler on it, I'm interested even though I've already bought my 275.
I found one possibility. I haven't found a review for it yet. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-102-PC&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1403
Not living in the UK I don't know many UK (r)etailers, but I can see that OcUK lists a Sapphire HD4890 Atomic. Yoyotech, on the other hand, lists a HD4890 Toxic. Both are on pre-order, however. In Denmark, where I live, the Sapphire HD 4890 Toxic and Vapor-X are readily available, but not the Atomic. As for custom cooled GTX 275s, the Gainward/Palit one is among the cheapest (about £8 more than the cheapest reference version), while the MSI TwinFrozr equally costs about £8 more than the Gainward one (which costs about £200, by the way). Of course, that doesn't help you in any way, but I'm a bit taken aback that the Sapphire HD4890 versions aren't as readily available in the UK as they are here.
From what I have been led to believe the palit and the gianward are the same card as gainward apparentt own palit so why the difference in price between the two cards, unless gainward offer a beter warranty or something. I really really wanted that MSI card but just couldn't warrant the extra £55, at that sort of price their is a 4870X2 avaiable. Oh well my 275 is due any minute so will be interesting to see how well it holds up.
You can't actually buy the Palit GTX 275 in Denmark, at least to my knowledge. But, as you correctly stated, the two cards are identical. Not too surprising, since Gainward is a subsidiary of Palit. I'm actually in the market for a new graphics card as well, and I'm also torn between a HD 4890 (because of the possible DX11 subset) and a GTX 275 (because it's slighty faster here and now). As for the HD 4890, that would either be a Vapor-X (about £175) or a Toxic (about £200). GTX 275-wise I'm of course looking at either the Gainward or the MSI. Considering that all cards are roughly equal performancewise I'm mostly looking at the noise level. A close tie is power consumption, since lower power consumption means lower heat means less cooling means less noise. The verdict is still out, though, whether the Gainward or the MSI is the more silent. Oh, and have fun with that new GTX 275...
al most no difference in them only difference is if you do foliding go for 275 and if you prefere ati to nvidia or what ever like said above both good cards just depends which company you prefer
I placed the order today, went for the 4890 as it was on offer at oc's, the xfx version for £140 clocked at 850core with 1 gig of ram, not that that'll matter as i'm on 32bit system already with too much ram. I hope this card delivers, will be nice to see! Thankyou all for your input. peace fatman
