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
Putting this PhysX Business to Rest
Let me put things in perspective. Remember our Radeon HD 4870/4850 article that went up last year? It was a straight crown-robbing on ATI’s part, NVIDIA had no competitively priced response at the time.
About two hours before the NDA lifted on the Radeon HD 4800 series we got an urgent call from NVIDIA. The purpose of the call? To attempt to persuade us to weigh PhysX and CUDA support as major benefits of GeForce GPUs. A performance win by ATI shouldn’t matter, ATI can’t accelerate PhysX in hardware and can’t run CUDA applications.
The argument NVIDIA gave us was preposterous. The global economy was weakening and NVIDIA cautioned us against recommending a card that in 12 months would not be the right choice because new titles supporting PhysX and new CUDA applications would be coming right around the corner.
The tactics didn’t work obviously, and history showed us that despite NVIDIA’s doomsday warnings - Radeon HD 4800 series owners didn’t live to regret their purchases. Yes, the global economy did take a turn for the worst, but no - NVIDIA’s PhysX and CUDA support hadn’t done anything to incite buyer’s remorse for anyone who has purchased a 4800 series card. The only thing those users got were higher frame rates. (Note that if you did buy a Radeon HD 4870/4850 and severely regretted your purchase due to a lack of PhysX/CUDA support, please post in the comments).
This wasn’t a one time thing. NVIDIA has delivered the same tired message at every single opportunity. NVIDIA’s latest attempt was to punish those reviewers who haven’t been sold on the PhysX/CUDA messages by not sending them GeForce GTS 250 cards for review. The plan seemed to backfire thanks to one vigilant Inquirer reporter.
More recently we had our briefing for the GeForce GTX 275. The presentation for the briefing was 53 slides long, now the length wasn’t bothersome, but let’s look at the content of the slides:
| Slides About... | Number of Slides in NVIDIA's GTX 275 Presentation |
| The GeForce GTX 275 | 8 |
| PhysX/CUDA | 34 |
| Miscellaneous (DX11, Title Slides, etc...) | 11 |
You could argue that NVIDIA truly believes that PhysX and CUDA support are the strongest features of its GPUs. You could also argue that NVIDIA is trying to justify a premium for its much larger GPUs rather than having to sell them as cheap as possible to stand up to an unusually competitive ATI.
NVIDIA’s stance is that when you buy a GeForce GPU, it’s more than just how well it runs games. It’s about everything else you can run on it, whether that means in-game GPU accelerated PhysX or CUDA applications.
Maybe we’ve been wrong this entire time. Maybe instead of just presenting you with bar charts of which GPU is faster we should be penalizing ATI GPUs for not being able to run CUDA code or accelerate PhysX. Self reflection is a very important human trait, let’s see if NVIDIA is truly right about the value of PhysX and CUDA today.
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SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link
Don't worry, it is mentioned in the article their overclocking didn't have good results, so they're keying up a big fat red party for you soon.They wouldn't dare waste the opportunity to crow and strut around.
This was about announcing the red card, slamming nvidia for late to market, and denouncing cuda and physx, and making an embarrassingly numberous amount of "corrections" to the article, including declaring the 2560 win, not a win anymore, since the red card didn't do it.
That's ok, be ready for the change back to 2560 is THE BESt and wins, when the overclock review comes out.
:)
Don't worry be happy.
tamalero - Thursday, April 9, 2009 - link
SD, you seriously have a mental problem right?I noticed that you keep bashing, being sarcastically insultive (betwen other things.) to anyone who supports ati.
SiliconDoc - Thursday, April 23, 2009 - link
No, not true at all, there are quite a few posts where the person declaring their ATI fealty doesn't lie their buttinski off - and those posts I don't counter.Sorry, you must be a raging goofball too who can't spot liars.
It's called LOGIC, that's what you use against the lairs - you know, scientific accuracy.
Better luck next time - If you call me wrong I'll post a half dozen red rooster rooters in this thread that don't lie in what they say and you'll see I didn't respond.
Now, you can apologize any time, and I'll give you another chance, since you were wrong this time.
Nfarce - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I just finished a mid-range C2D build, and decided to go with the HD 4870 512MB version for $164.99 (ASUS, no sale at NE, but back up to $190 now). This was my first ATI card and it was a no-brainer. While the 4890 is a better card, to me, it is not worth the nearly $100 more, especially considering I'm gaming at either 1920x1200 on a 40" LCD TV or a 22" LCD monitor at 1680x1050.Nvidia has lost me after 12 years as a fanboy for the time being, I suppose. What I will do here when I have more time is determine if buying another 4870 512MB for CrossFire will be the better bang for my resolutions or eventually moving up to the 4890 when the price drops this summer and then sell the 4870.
Thanks for the GREAT review AT, and now I have my homework cut out for me for comparisons with your earlier GPU reviews.
Jamahl - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Good job with tidying up the conclusion Anand.Russ2650 - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I've read that the 4890 has 959M transistors, 3M more than the 4870.Gary Key - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
That is correct and is discussed on page 3. The increase in die size is due to power delivery improvements to handle the increased clock speeds.Warren21 - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Maybe the tables should be updated to reflect this?Gary Key - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
They are... :)helpmespock - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I've been sitting on my 8800GT for a while now and was thinking about going to a 4870 1GB model, but now I may hold off and see what prices do.If the 4890/275 force the 4870 down in price then great I'll go with that, but on the other hand if prices slip from the new parts off of the $250 mark then I'll be tempted by that instead.
Either way I think I'm waiting to see how the market shakes out and in the end I, the consumer, will win.