Hardware Radeon HD 4890 vs GeForce GTX 275

so what about the rumours i'm hearing that the 275 will be much less available then the 4890?

Another thing, it seems the 4890 has some headroom in the prices too... there's one for 199 euros in the netherlands...

 

This really should have been included in the review to qualify the language you used.

If you don't see the fallacy of calling a card hot and loud throughout a review but posting graphs that show the card as running cool with a slower fan, then I don't know what to say.

 

General question about power consumption if i may - in the review "total system power consumption" for the nVidia was 364 watts.

Does that mean that the test system could quite happily run on a 500watt PSU with room to spare?

 

I figure so. I run my OC'd E8400 & GTX 260 on a 500W PSU.
Edit: I think some sites like bit-tech may use the most basic PC to benchmark, like 1 or 2 HDD/CD/DVD, your wattage will be higher, but not much imo.
By room to spare if you mean SLI then I'd say no. Wattage is 1 thing, but amps and enough power cables is another.

 

Bit-Tech use a 'Core i7 940 processor operating at 3,709MHz' an ice cap melting beast, compared to your eco dual core!

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2009/04/03/radeon-hd-4890-vs-geforce-gtx-275/4

 

same can be said for Nvidia, your point?

 

eco dual core =] I read the article and I think they're relaying what the average plug and play user is going to experience- looks like the pricing is a bit different too in the uk also than here in the states.. I mean they can only write what they saw themselves despite what others are getting.. have to appreciate the honesty over paid off sheep like toms hardware

from the other reviews on the 4890 it looks like 1k on the core is definitely not a pipe dream- but the other sites may have done what most enthusiasts do.. took the card apart and re-did the tims- added extra cooling in to keep it stable, volt mods ect.. seems to me this aims more at what you'd see in a set it and forget it situation (where the user just wants it to work- doesn't care to oc) and most know how bad the tim is applied on these cards stock- like it came out of some caulking gun and was applied by a 3 year old

we need more honest out of the box reviews like this.. 1k is not a mild overclock, and not everyone is going to volt mod either- I think it's fair to show what the cards do out of the box- because let's face it, some guy buys one of these cards and looks on bits review.. thinks oh yeah 1k.. he tries it and roid rages because he doesn't know much about ocing- that's going to get him knocking the nuts off the sides of his monitor

 

None of the other reviews I've read state that they've tampered with the hardware to reach 1GHz on the HD4890. Apparently, none of the four HD4890s at bit-tech's disposal could do 1GHz.

Come to think of it, given that bit-tech received 1 GTX275 and 4 HD4890s, which of the HD4890s was tested? Were they all tested? If so, were there differences of any kind (other than the obviously different sticker on every card)? Inquiring minds want ...nay, NEED to know!

 

I would like to know too, although I have a feeling that the Pre-OC'ed cards would most likely fare better on the road to 1GHz.

Still I'm waiting for another Price drop, then i can grab either a HD4890/GTX 275 for under $200, and have something better than my HD4850(going to my brother of course).

 

bit-tech did the tests on review samples supplied by AMD and nVidia. the retail cards are listed there so people know what is available, and what each comes with

 

That can't be right, because if it were right then more than one GTX 275 would be listed.

If anything then the GTX 275 is a review sample. The other cards are retail cards and from the wording of the article bit-tech got those 4 cards to review.

 

Not in this article...
wasn't a specific blame on ATI cardmanufacturers... Just pointless to use two pages of articlespace to introduce 4 cards that essentially just have a different bundle and colourscheme.

And yes, NVidia's board partners aren't any better. Reference design galore...

What happened to the Zalman-Arctic-cooling-whatever changed cards?

It's not like the reference design is sooooo quiet that there's no room for improvement.

 

Expect custom cooler versions of both cards in the next couple of weeks. As we said in the article, Sapphire is prepping a Vapor-X cooler at the moment that it aims to release in a couple of weeks. The QA on a 'new' GPU and board takes a while, hence the delay.

 

The AMD ones were actually supplied by partners, although the 275 was from Nvidia because no one else had one

 

Fs, why can't i ever find a article not using beta drivers and/or tested like 1 or two moths after to give fair reviews...?


We all know when cards come out the results you are seeing are from "untuned'" beta drivers, yet we still use them?

For once i would like to see cards mature for like 1month or two and the drivers are fully ready, then reviews done to prove what ones are better.

 

Hey Sebbo, yes it's true that the HD 4890 GPU is relatively cool, but the card itself is a furnace. The heatsinks, the cooler backplate, even the PCB - all are very hot to the touch.

I'm not saying that heatsinks that get hot are bad (the purpose of a heatsink is to get hot, after all) but considering the loud fan and the jet of hot air that comes out the back of the card, it's disappointing that nowhere near all of the heat is being sucked from the card, and that the card is still radiating lots of heat into your case.

The GTX 275 meanwhile does a better job of getting the heat from the entire card out the rear vent, though obviously it's not a 100 percent success rate.

Hope that clarifies that when the review states that the HD 4890 runs hot, we're saying that the card as a whole is hot.

 

that's fair enough then claave, just would have been nice and easier on all of us if this was clarified in the review, especially if the reason for a statement being made on a product isn't obvious to anyone who hasn't worked with the product under review. though we wouldn't have had all this fun now would we ;-)

I and many others keep hearing rumblings about Sapphire bringing out a 4890 with their Vapour-X cooler... this is surely a given right? or are we hoping too much? And speaking of Sapphire, as they're the only ones with a 4850x2 out, how likely is a 4890x2 going to be from them? i mean, the 4890 board is basically the same as the 4870 board (i might be simplifying this?) just with beefier power regs, so the 4890x2 compared to the 4870x2 should be mostly the same deal? (coupled with a decent cooler of course)

and a question to the forum members themselves - how many will be going for the 4890, and how many are hanging out for AMD's 5000 series? with Windows 7 not too far away, and thus DX11, surely its only about 6 months away

 

Yep, Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 is imminent (2 weeks or so).

The HD 4890 is bigger than the HD 4870, so creating a HD 4890 X2 design is not just a case of upping the VRMs and dropping the new chip in. X2 card designs come from ATI anyway, and I doubt it'll let anyone make a HD 4890 X2 without consent. That pretty much means that if it happens, it'll be an official ATI SKU for all board partners to use and sell.

And yes, reading the review back, we could have made the language regarding the temperatures clearer. In fact, let's add that to the review now.

 

Sorry to be so anal about it, but given that you received 4 HD4890s to test, which one did you test? And were they all equally hot?

 

The two stock cards we had are identical to every other reference card. In fact, ALL the cards are built by ATI and rebranded with a sticker - the only difference is the BIOS increasing the speeds on the overclocked ones.