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
The Latest CUDA App: MotionDSP’s vReveal
NVIDIA had more slides in its GTX 275 presentation about non-gaming applications than it did about how the 275 performed in games. One such application is MotionDSP’s vReveal - a CUDA enabled video post processing application than can clean up poorly recorded video.
The application’s interface is simple:
Import your videos (anything with a supported codec on your system pretty much) and then select enhance.
You can auto-enhance with a single click (super useful) or even go in and tweak individual sliders and settings on your own in the advanced mode.
The changes you make to the video are visible on the fly, but the real time preview is faster on a NVIDIA GPU than if you rely on the CPU alone.
When you’re all done, simply hit save to disk and the video will be re-encoded with the proper changes. The encoding process takes place entirely on the GPU but it can also work on a CPU.
First let’s look at the end results. We took three videos, one recorded using Derek’s wife’s Blackberry and two from me on a Canon HD cam (but at low res) in my office.
I relied on vReveal’s auto tune to fix the videos and I’ve posted the originals and vReveal versions on YouTube. The videos are below:
In every single instance, the resulting video looks better. While it’s not quite the technology you see in shows like 24, it does make your videos look better and it does do it pretty quickly. There’s no real support for video editing here and I’m not familiar enough with the post processing software market to say whether or not there are better alternatives, but vReveal does do what it says it does. And it uses the GPU.
Performance is also very good on even a reasonably priced GPU. It took 51 seconds for the GeForce GTX 260 to save the first test video, it took my Dell Studio XPS 435’s Core i7 920 just over 3 minutes to do the same task.
It’s a neat application. It works as advertised, but it only works on NVIDIA hardware. Will it make me want to buy a NVIDIA GPU over an ATI one? Nope. If all things are equal (price, power and gaming performance) then perhaps. But if ATI provides a better gaming experience, I don’t believe it’s compelling enough.
First, the software isn’t free - it’s an added expense. Badaboom costs $30, vReveal costs $50. It’s not the most expensive software in the world, but it’s not free.
And secondly, what happens if your next GPU isn’t from NVIDIA? While vReveal will continue to work, you no longer get GPU acceleration. A vReveal-like app written in OpenCL will work on all three vendors’ hardware, as long as they support OpenCL.
If NVIDIA really wants to take care of its customers, it can start by giving away vReveal (and Badaboom) to people who purchase these high end graphics cards. If you want to add value, don’t tell users that they should want these things, give it to them. The burden of proof is on NVIDIA to show that these CUDA enabled applications are worth supporting rather than waiting for cross-vendor OpenCL versions.
Do you feel any differently?
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Lonyo - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I haven't checked the benchmark numbers yet, but you list Forceware 185's on the NV side, and Cat 8.12's on the AMD side.Any reason why you are using brand new drivers for one side and 4 set old drivers on the other?
Sure, NV might not support a card on older drivers etc, but it's more useful to see newest driver vs newest driver, since there are performance changes from 8.12's to 9.3's in various games, but it just seems silly to use 3+ month old drivers which have been superseded by 3 revisions already. Would anyone buy a brand new card and then use drivers from 3~4 months ago?
Gary Key - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
The setup chart has been updated. We utilized previous test results from the HD4870 with the 8.12 HotFix drivers. The HD 4890 results were with the 9.4 beta drivers. I just went through a complete retest of the HD4870 with the 9.3 drivers and just started with the 9.4 betas on the AMD 790FX and Intel P45/X58 platforms. Except for a slight performance improvement in Crysis Warhead on the P45/X58 systems, the 9.3 drivers offered zero performance improvements over the 8.12 HotFix. The 9.3 drivers do offer a few updated CF profiles and improved video playback performance, but that is it.Nfarce - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
"the 9.3 drivers offered zero performance improvements over the 8.12 HotFix."Not only that, but if you read the ATI forums, a lot of people have been having MAJOR problems with 9.2 & 9.3. I downloaded 9.1 for my new 4870 build and have had no problems.
SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link
Now now, ati doesn't have any driver problems, so don't you DARE go spreading that lie. You hear me ?Hundreds of red roosters here have NEVER had a driver problem with their ati cards.
Shame shame.
Rhino2 - Monday, April 13, 2009 - link
Stop posting, seriously, you're stupidity is causing me pain.SiliconDoc - Thursday, April 23, 2009 - link
Another personal attacker without a single counterpoint to the many lies I've exposed. Good job brainwashed fool.Frallan - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Thanx - good to know.StormyParis - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
The Inq or The Reg is pretty adamant about the 275 being there just to spoil the 4890 launch, but never really in stores, and reviewers getting special hi-specs, hi-overclock hand by nVidia instead of the manufacturers.Did your card come from an anonymous purchase, or was it a special review sample ?
Gary Key - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
We mentioned in the article that we received a review sample from NVIDIA. The clock speeds are the same as the retail cards that should start arriving later next week with widespread availability around the week of 4/13. Our retail review samples will arrive early next week.As we stated several times in the article, this is a hard launch for AMD and yet another paper launch for NVIDIA, although according to the board partners the GTX275 is coming quickly this time around.
evilsopure - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I also feel confused and somewhat misled by the conclusion that the GTX275 is "the marginal leader at this new price point of $250".That conclusion doesn't seem true outside of resolutions of 2560x (30" monitor). Plus, $250 cards aren't even targeted or seriously considered for gaming at that resolution.
I came up with a different conclusion after thoroughly reading this review:
At the $250 price point and 1680x or 1920x gaming resolutions (where these cards primarily matter), the 4890 holds the majority performance advantage. However, at 2560x the GTX275 performs a bit better than the 4890. Realistically though, at 2560x or on 30+" displays, you're best served by a dual GPU or SLI/Xfire solution.
Something's fishy about the reviewers' conclusion.