ATi Radeon HD 4790 vs Nvidia GeForce GTX 275

The battle between ATi and Nvidia seems to be getting fiercer everyday and each one of them is trying to gain the upper hand be releasing new, faster and better GPUs every now and then. Today, nvidia has released GTX 275 which is a lower variant of GTX 285 and ATi has thrown in HD 4890 which is a slightly faster HD 4870. Both are based on the same 55nm fabrication process and not 40nm and both are similarly priced.

HD 4890

4890 is slightly higher clocked than 4870 to start with. It also has 1 GB GDDR5 memory as opposed to 4870’s 512MB (though we did see some manufacturers releasing 1GB variants). Power consumption under full stress is about 30W higher than the 4870.

GTX 275

It is clocked slightly slower than GTX285, has 896 MB 448-bit memory. It needs two 6-pin power connectors. The temperature can be anywhere between 45 degrees in idle mode and about 80 degrees under full load.

Far Cry 2

Clear victory for team green.

Call of Duty : World at War

4890 leads up to 1929x1200 but both cards show equal performance at 2560x1600.

Crysis Warhead

Victory for Nvidia Here

Verdict

At nearly the same price and performance, the choice is pretty much yours. Mind you, none of them offers anything revolutionary compared to their predecessors. So a 4870 or GTX 260 SP216 will do just fine with even lower prices. ATi has an advantage of being DirectX 10.1 capable so expect a performance increase in compatible games.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 295

  We all love really fast graphics cards don't we? After launching two dual GPU cards (7950GX2 and 9800GX2), which were both pretty ill fated, Nvidia is brave enough to have another go! ATi was much more successful with their dual GPU cards (HD 3870 X2 and HD 4870 X2). Let's see if Nvidia is third time (un)lucky...

The Card

You can say that GTX295 is basically two GTX 280s glued together but wait there's more. GTX 295 has the core of GTX 280 and amount of memory and memory speed of GTX 260. GTX 295 is built of the 55nm fabrication process and has 480 shader processors. GDDR3 Memory is used in the card just because the chipset doesn't support GDDR5 memory. For a GTX 295 in your system, you need to have at least 700W PSU and if you want to go for two of then, then you will have to have a 1000W PSU.

Power Consumption

Our test system  consumed about 220W in idle and with full GPU stress, it draws about 420W. For a quad GPU set up, add another 300W to that. Sorry mother nature, crysis is the first priority. Caution : Get a quad GPU solution only if you don't mind environmentalists harassing you and a big dent in your pocket.

Test System

We used the following components                                  Motherboard : Asus x58 Rampage II extreme                Processor : Core i7 965 3.7GHz                                        Memory : 3x1GB DDR3 1800MHz                                               OS : Windows Vista 32 Bit SP1

 

Far Cry 2

As you see, GTX 295 shows quite some power by thumping HD 4870 X2.

Call of Duty 5

Scaling issues here, nvidia is has not been able to optimize their drivers to make use of the pull potential of two GTX 295 in quad SLi. Crossfire X fails miserably here. ATi has got a lot of driver issues to fix.

Crysis Warhead

At 2560x1600, all cards run out of memory which spoils the show. The game doesn't quite scale well with multiple GPUs. Again, two 4870 X2 are rendering with only two GPUs instead of four.

Verdict

GTX 295 is a great product it is definitely worth considering. Quad GPUs don't quite scale well with some games but if you've got a cabinet with good ventilation and a huge pocket, then you can go for if for bragging rights. 4870 X2 is still a good product to buy if you are an ATi fan.