Hardware What's the Fastest Current Graphics Card?

Not really, because they won't be the fastest nor the most expensive cards for long.

A few weeks/months down the line when the dust has settled they'll be going for much less than they are now, so this article is all the more relevant for anyone looking to pick up a bargain.

 

Excellent article Harry, really enjoyed reading that!

Is it me, or is that Richard in the DoW II screenshot, the first one with the Blood Raven?

 

Thankyou for that wonderful article.
I have this dreaded feeling that ATi will keep up its trend of higher power consump and lots of heat.. I really hope that is fixed up with better temps and lower consump

 

I'm not so sure... the idea of 'looking for a bargain' in the £250+ section is ridiculous to me, as the same cards that are already a fair bit cheaper and not that far behind in performance will once again be cheaper than these products. Besides, does anyone expect a High End DX10 card to really match DX11 cards? Even if the architecture is scalable and DX10 cards benefit from DX11. So I would still rather go with a Mid Range DX11 card around the £150 than pay £200 for these (by then) dated cards. I mean, would anyone see the point in spending right now £400 on an Extreme Core2 Processor...? I doubt it very much.

 

First pre-orders for 5870; price? 315 euro!!!

 

5870 needs to be alot faster than the older graphics cards for it to be worth it

 

I'd like to point out that, while the 4870x2 does have the highest temps, its deltaT was much lower at only 15 degrees. In fact, the 295 which you place as the victor has a detlaT of 23 degrees. It seems that perhaps if the 4870x2 was given better thermal paste or some such thing that its better cooling system would be better taken advantage of.

 

IMHO, I missed more games and the HD4890 and HD4850X2 in this review. One of them has probably a better performance than GTX285.

Here when I tested my HD4870X2 in my TV (2560x1600), Dawn of War 2 runs very smoothly and reaches easily 90 FPS on average during the game, but I'm using a Catalyst 9.5! I believe the 9.9 version will only fit better to DX11 new cards.

About multiple graphic units, I think it is a future tendency as a solution to solve heat crashes caused by overclocked monster engines that process many TFlops. Nowadays, the CPU manufactories are using 2, 3, 4 internal processing units and planned more and more for theirs CPUs. By the way, I think that multiple internal units are more elegant than multiple "external" ones, and 2 separated external units with 1 PCB are more elegant than 2 separated external units with 2 PCB solution.

About the thread's question, the fastest card should be the one that fits its purpose: to be stronger and faster at maximum and heaviest resolution with the better quality image. HD4870X2 fits its purpose, although many people consider the fastest card the one that runs better at 15" monitor. Cards like that were built to carry up weight not a feather, and the reviews shouldn't test these monsters without filters nor lower resolutions than 1920x1200.

 

As for the folding at home results for ATI, I really question those results, something must not have been configured right, it just seems way to off. Did you bother to do the tweaks for the ATI cards to take advantage of both GPUs? I dont fold but remember watching an episode of techzilla and they talked about this so ya...

 

Am I missing something? I have two identical 4870's running in Crossfire on an Asus P6T X58 Mobo Do I understand that the capability of these in Crossfire is less than a single 4870x2 GPU? ---and if so why?

 

But their current prices aren't really indicative of what they will be in a few months time, when they'll have fallen even further. The 4870X2 and GTX 285 are already sub-£250 and approaching £200, so if this generation offers better performance than the newer cards do at their release prices, it may make more sense to go with the one that performs better for a given budget, especially as it looks like the new cards are going to be super-expensive (~£300 for the 5870 doesn't seem unlikely), given that nVidia are arriving late to the party on this time round.

As for DX 11, I am yet to be convinced that it's going to be worth it at the moment. Hell, I don't think DX 10 was really worth it, so I'm not going to pay more for a card with features that I may or may not make use of before the end of its life cycle.

Yeah, they do seem a bit off. They should probably be about double that, as even a regular 4870 should be higher than that. The ATI cards are still miles off the nVidia cards in F@H performance though, so it's arguably irrelevant anyway.

 

Ok, so I made an error in judgement with the price point... my point still remains that a Mid/High GPU compared to High/Extreme GPU, or however you wish to put it... is a fair bit cheaper and not that far behind in performance.

As for DX10... no benefit? Yes DX10 was handled very poorly. But the current gen of GPUs while maybe not massive onn the DX10 front blew away pre DX10 hardware and did so from the off, we haven't really moved that much further since the 8xxx series in terms of overall performance. So yes, while DX11 is yet to be proved as a success, the performance of GPUs based around it should be better than current gen cards. But by how much? This is where you seem to back up my arguement yourself... you think upgrading to GTX285 is valied but do not think that updating to DX11 based GPUs won't be? That really doesn't make sense.

As for price... is it so hard to look at history? The High End cards will hit £350 - £400 as current GTX295s are and go down from there with the older GPUs being fased out, renamed, rebranded or just plain discounted.

 

You seem to be putting too much emphasis on the DX10/DX11 divide. All I'm saying is that it's likely you're going to get better performance from a DX10 card compared with a DX11 at the same price, so if I had the choice then yeah, I'd probably go with the DX10 option. Personally though, I wouldn't buy any of them as none of them are enough of an upgrade from what I already have, and admittedly the biggest discounts will be on the current mid-high end cards rather than the ultra-high end ones.

 

Firstly, might I say that I thought the article was worthwhile writing and worthwhile reading. I'm surprised, though, that a key problem with the GTX285 wasn't mentioned - the whistling for those on 220 V power supply. I understand that this was improved from the GTX 280 but still very annoying (correct me if I'm wrong). When bit-tech last mentioned the problem, they said that Nvidia would release an attachment to sort out the problem but I never heard anything else. MSI's PCB design was supposed to sort out the problem but it really shouldn't have been there in the first place and I want to choose whatever vendor I want. It was one reason I went for a 4870 this generation (upgrading from 7600GT, by the way).
Also, I know of someone with a GTX 295 where it causes his automatic garage door to open...

With regards to Crysis, it is unfortunate to see that we probably will still not have a graphics card (single GPU anyway) able to play it on maximum settings at a high resolution after the next set of releases. I hope to be surprised.

 

Disappointing article, comparing 2 nvidias x 1 ati with the most IMTBP games to be the fastest of the fastest.... where is the 4850x2 ???? and who the hell is interested in folding performance??? since it was born years ago this is nothing but a scientist tool.

 

I would imagine it was left out as it was a limited release card although I would agree that there shoud have been at least 2 ATI cards in the fray (the inclusion of the HD4890 would have been useful).

Suprisingly a large proportion of people who run this level of graphical horsepower are also interested in Folding. I was until I got the first electricity bill after starting..... not any more.

Taken from the Article:

I can remember when I used to run a HD4870X2 under Vista it was a nightmare trying to get it to fold properly. Certain work units would net a decent PPH yet others would barely crack 2k. My old laptop with a 8800mGTX usded to score vastly higher than the HD4870X2. Then of course we get into the issue of trying to run both cores under Vista which used to be (and possible still is) impossible.

 

From the rumours 5870 will be an ultimate card.
1. Overall 10fps faster than GTX 295, 60% faster than GTX 285.
2. Load power consumption 180W and idle 27W.
3. It's not running hot (due to low power consumption) and whispering quiet.
I'm gonna get this card :d

 

ATI only really has 1 top end card in the HD 4870 X2 - unless you count the non-existent Sapphire Atomic version of the HD 4890 the 4890 isn't going to trouble the GTX 285 in most tests - we're saving it for a mid-range graphics article of the same nature. The HD 4850 X2 was indeed left out due to its limited release.

In response to us using "The Way It's Meant To Be Played" titles - this has absolutely no bearing on whether a card performs well or not. Race Driver GRID was a TWIMTBP and ATI cards thrashed Nvidia in it. Even then, neither Call of Duty or STALKER or Fallout 3 are part of the program, so the point is larger null.

In the article itself I mention that Folding wont matter to many people, and even disregarding it, the 295 still comes out on top with three rounds to its name. However, not everyone is you, and Folding does play a some people's buying decisions, hence we include it!

 

Whilst I agree to an extent that the HD4890 won't trouble the GTX285 too much in most games it would have been interesting to include in the review simply to show what the fastest single GPU ATI card is capable of.

 

Harry, don't misunderstand me, it is just a tip and your article has a nice purpose!

Limited edition or not, the 2teraflop 4850X2 has power, price and sales to be there and reach the article purpose. It is not that "untouchable limited edition card". I think it is more "ordinary" than a properly exclusive one. And HD4890 is miles ahead of a mid-range card. I can't understand the reason to it be left aside.

According to my sleepy mind, GRID is not a title that was built in nvidia's platform and it was originally created for XBOX360 (ATI's platform). There is no nvidia's logo at start. The CRYSIS and COD (TWIMTBP titles) results are redundant, becauz everyone is "tired" of knowing their results even before reading this article, thus my criticism is why didn't use other new games?

I don't wanna be seen as a fckng ATI's lawyer, just a fair guy. btw I have a GTX275 SLI in one of my rigs.

regards