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
Final Words
NVIDIA is competitive at this new price point of $250 depending on what resolution you look at. We also see some improvement from NVIDIA's new 185 series driver and get a new feature to play with in the form of Ambient Occlusion. We did look at PhysX and CUDA again, and, while we may be interested in what is made possible by them, there is still a stark lack of compelling content that takes advantage of these technologies. We can't recommend prioritizing PhysX and CUDA over performance, and performance is where a GPU needs to compete. Luckily for NVIDIA, the GTX 275 does.
The fact that its worst-case performance is still better than the GTX 260 core 216 and in the best case, it can hit that of the GTX 280 was a plus for the GTX 275. It often posted performance more in line with its bigger brothers than a $50+ cheaper part. This is pretty sweet for a $250 card, especially as many games these days rely very heavily on shader performance. The GeForce GTX 275 is a good fit for this price point, and is a good option. But then there's the Radeon HD 4890.
The 4890, basically a tweaked and overclocked 4870, does improve performance over the 4870 1GB and puts up good competition for the GTX 275. On a pure performance level the 4890 and GTX 275 trade blows at different resolutions. The 4890 tends to look better at lower resolutions while the GTX 275 is more competitive at high resolutions. At 1680 x 1050 and 1920 x 1200 the 4890 is nearly undefeated. At 2560 x 1600, it seems to be pretty much a wash between the two cards.
At the same time, there are other questions, like that of availability. With these parts performing so similarly, and price being pretty well equal, the fact that AMD parts can be bought starting today and we have to wait for the NVIDIA parts is an advantage for AMD. However, we have to factor in the fact that AMD driver support doesn't have the best track record as of late for new game titles. Add in the fact that NVIDIA's developer relations seem more effective than AMD's could mean more titles that run better on NVIDIA hardware in the future. So what to go with? Really it depends on what resolutions you're targeting and what the prices end up being. If you've got a 30" display then either card will work, it's just up to your preference and the items we talked about earlier. If you've got a 24" or smaller display (1920x1200 or below), then the Radeon HD 4890 is the card for you.
AMD tells us that most retailers will feature mail in rebates of $20, a program which was apparently underwritten by AMD. Could AMD have worried they weren't coming in at high enough performance late in the game and decided to try and throw an extra incentive in there? Either way, not everyone likes a mail in rebate. I much prefer the instant variety and mail-in-rebate offers do not make decisions for me. We still compare products based on their MSRP (which is likely the price they'll be back at once the rebate goes away). This is true for both AMD and NVIDIA parts.
There will also be overclocked variants of the GTX 275 to compete with the overclocked variants from AMD. The overclock on the AMD hardware is fairly modest, but does make a difference and the same holds true for the GTX 275 products in early testing. We'll have to take a look at how such parts compare in the future along with SLI and CrossFire. In the meantime, we have another interesting battle at the $250 price point.
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sbuckler - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Big difference between Havok Physics and HavokFX physics. With physx you can just turn on hardware acceleration and it works, with havok this is not possible - unlike physx it was never developed to be run on the gpu. Hence havok have had to develop a new physics engine to do that.No game uses the HavokFX engine - it's not even available to developers yet let alone in shipped games. The ati demo was all we have seen of it for several years. It's not even clear HavokFX is even a fully accelerated hardware physics engine - i.e. the version showed in the past (before intel took over havok) was basically the havok engine with some hw acceleration for effects. i.e. hardware accel could only be used to make it prettier explosions and rippling cloth - it could not be used to do anything game changing.
Hence havok have a way to go before they can even claim to support what physX already does, let alone shipping it to developers and then seeing them use it in games. Like I said the moment that comes close to happening nvidia will just release an OpenCL version of physX and that will be that.
z3R0C00L - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
It's integrated in the same way. Many game developers are already familiar with coding for Havok effects.Not to mention that OpenCL has chosen HavokFX (which is simply using either a CPU or a GPU to render Physics effect as seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCaGb40Bz58">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCaGb40Bz58.
Again... Physx is dead. OpenCL is HavokFX, it's what the consortium has chosen and it runs on any CPU or GPU including Intel's upcoming Larrabee.
Like I said before (you seem to not understand logic). Physx is dead.. it's proprietary and not as flexible as Havok. Many studios are also familiar with Havok's tools.
C'est Fini as they say in french.
erple2 - Friday, April 3, 2009 - link
I think you're mistaken - OpenCL is analogous to CUDA, not to PhysX. HavokFX is analogous to PhysX. OpenCL is the GPGPU compiler that runs on any GPU (and theoretically, it should run on any CPU too, I think). It's what Apple is now trying to push (curious, given that their laptop base is all nVidia now).However, if NVidia ports PhysX to OpenCL, that's a win for everyone. Sort of. Except for NVIdia that paid a lot of money for the PhysX IP. I think that the conclusions given are accurate - NVidia is banking on "everyone" (ie Game Developers) coding for PhysX (and by extension, CUDA) rather than HavokFX (and by extension, OpenCL). However, if Developers are smart, they'll go with the actually open format (OpenCL, not CUDA). That means that any physics processing they do will work on ANY GPU, (NVidia and ATI). I personally think that NVidia banked badly this time.
While I do believe that doing physics calculations on unused GPU cycles is a great thing (and the Razor's Edge demo shows some of the interesting things that can be done), I think that NVidia's pushing of PhysX (and therefore CUDA) is like what 3dfx did with pushing GLide. Everyone supported Direct3D and OpenGL, but only 3dfx supported Glide. While Glide was more efficient (it was catering to a single hardware vendor that made Glide, afterall), the fact that Game Developers could instead program for OpenGL (or Direct3D) and get all 3D accelerators supported meant that the days of Glide were ultimately numbered.
I wonder if NVidia is trying to pull the industry to adopting its CUDA as a "standard". I think it's ultimately going to fail, however, given that the industry recognizes now that OpenCL is available.
Is OpenCL as mature as CUDA is? Or are they still kind of finalizing it? Maybe that's the issue - OpenCL isn't complete yet, so NVidia is trying to snatch up support in the Developer community early?
sbuckler - Friday, April 3, 2009 - link
CUDA is in many ways a simplified version of OpenCL - in that CUDA knows what hardware it will run on so has set functions to access it, OpenCL is obviously much more generic as it has to run on any hardware so it's not quite as easy. That part of the reason why CUDA is initially at least more popular then OpenCL - it's easier to work with. That said they are very similar so to port from one to the other won't be hard - hence develop for CUDA now then just port to OpenCL when the market demands it.All in my opinion Ati want is their hardware to run with whatever physics standard is out there. Right now they are at a growing competitive disadvantage as hardware physics slowly takes off. Hence they demo HavokFX in the hope that either (a) it takes off or (b) nvidia are forced to port PhysX to openCL. I don't think they care which one wins - both products belong to a competitor.
Nvidia who have put a lot of money into PhysX want to maximise their investment so they will keep PhysX closed as long as possible to get people to buy their cards, but in the end I am sure they are fully aware they will have to open it up to everyone - it's just a matter of when. From our standpoint the sooner the better.
erple2 - Friday, April 3, 2009 - link
Sure, but my point was simply that HavokFX and PhysX are physics API's, whereas OpenCL and CUDA are "general" purpose computing languages designed to run on a GPU.Is CUDA easier to work with? I don't really know, as I've never programmed for either. Is OpenGL harder to program for than Glide was? Again, I don't know, I'm not a developer.
ATI's "CUDA" was "Stream" (I think). I recall ATI abandoning that for (or folding that into) OpenCL. That's a sound strategic decision, I think.
If PhysX is ported to OpenCL, then that's a major win for ATI, and a lesser one for NVidia - the PhysX SDK is already free for any developer that wants it (support costs money, of course). NVidia's position in that market is that PhysX currently only works on NVidia cards. Once it works elsewhere (via OpenCL or Stream), NVidia loses that "edge". However, that's a good thing...
SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link
I guess you're forgetting that recently NVidia supported a rogue software coder that was porting PhysX to ATI drivers. Those drivers hit the web and the downloads went wild high - and ATI stepped in and slammed the door shut with a lawsuit and threats.Oh well, ATI didn't want you to enjoy PhysX effects. You got screwed, even as NVidia tried to help you.
So now all you and Derek and anand are left to do is sourpuss and whine PhysX sucks and means nothing.
Then anand tries Mirror's Edge ( because he HAS TO - cause dingo is gone - unavailable ) and falls in love with PhysX and the game. LOL
His conclusion ? He's an ati fabbyboi so cannot recommend it.
tamalero - Monday, April 20, 2009 - link
the ammount of fud you spit is staggeringz3R0C00L - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
On one hand you have OpenCL, Havok, ATi, AMD and Intel on the other you have nVIDIA.Seriously.
z3R0C00L - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I'm an nVIDIA fan.. I'll admit. I like that you added CUDA and Physx.. but are we reading the same results?The Radeon HD 4890 is the clear winner here. I don't understand how it could be any different.
CrystalBay - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I agree if nV wants to sell more cards they need to include the video software at no charge...