ATI just took the single gpu crown

ya'll got to get this one..

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3555&p=15

Anand also covered just how awesome 1GHz is with these cards. Definitely impressive and makes me wonder what they have in store for the 5xxx series.

It is not faster than a GTX 285, but getting a GTX 285 would be very silly considering this is out for far less.

How come the Atomic edition is slower than the 4890 reference of Sapphire?

Slower ?  

*sigh*. OC a 285 and it wins the crown back; comparing an OC card to a non-OC card is hardly a fair comparison, isn't it?

^ Well that is true  

well the thread's title was incomplete, it shouldve been "ATI just took the single gpu crown, relinquished it when reason took over"

Isnt the word "Top" after a Nvidia card an indication that its an overclocked/non standard card itself ?

Mactronix

Yeah, Crysis Warhead benchmark.

I hate technology.. I had to upgrade when I did or I wouldn't have had a computer for a month... still burns though, wish I had gotten a better lottery ticket with my 4890's and had been able to hit 1ghz.. but oh well... I'm still happy.. I guess.. lol.

I don't really hate technology of course.. but shinies are oh so pretty and now I want them (I have more self control than that though.. im set till dx11...)

I don't really understand this. The factory OC'd GTX 285 beats it in almost every game and resolution. The only way it wins (in some circumstances) is to OC the already factory OC'd HD 4890 further. Also, if you actually wanted to buy it right now good luck - I can't find one anywhere.

For all intents and purposes a GTX 285 is faster than an HD 4890 overall (just like its faster than a GTX 275). Nothing new there. Third party OC'd variants from either camp aren't going to change that (because you can always find some highly factory OC'd GTX 285 to compare them to).

GTX285 2GB still rules!!!!!!

^^ Exactly.

I have yet to see a review where 2gb is any more than 1fps better than 1gb. It seems like a profound waste of money since the cheepest on newegg is like 50 dollars more than an average 285..

Why not buy a factory OC'd card that would wipe the floor with the 2gig version if you are going to spend 50 more anyway..

More memory has distinct advantages at higher resolutions. Overclocks can't make up for more memory, just like allot of memory can't make up for an overclock. 24" monitors and up more memory is better.

but not that much memory, 1GB is plenty, even @ 2560x1600

exactly 1g is far enough we havent seen any gtx 285 run out of memory even at high res 2560x1600 well there are comparisons between 260 and 260 with double memory and the only diff is 1 frame 2 max and if u read alot u definitly came across that alot of websites say that adding more memory is basicly useless but u cant argue with the customers mind   about the subject i like the 285 and how it cholks the 4870x2 and the only gtx 285 that will win this is evga. because for some reason i dont know why they overclock the most go to overclockersclub and u will see a review about the 285 top and compare the oc results with the oc results of 4890 atomic u will see also 4890 wins but by a frame but i thight the result obtained from this oc is rubbish i mean alot of ppl got 730 on core and went over 3000mhz on mem look for stanbony on utube if u dont believe

Unless you have a monitor with a resolution I have yet to see (3840*2400 or something) 2gb will provide you with next to nothing. Though I have not seen any reviews on the 2gig 285 yet.. the reviews on the 2gig 4870 show a loss in some games, a gain in others of -1% to 1%... IMO not worth the cost, money is better spent on an improved cooler to get higher clocks on memory and core.

Perhaps the 285 can make better use of 2gig, but i doubt it would make a difference beyond what an overclock can give you, probalby not even close.. Besides that, regardless of whether 2gig is worth it or not we will see 2gig 4890's at some point so we can complain anew again...

1 gig is a massive improvement over 512 at native 24", 2gig over 1gig is not. At native 30" we start to see a small difference in a couple games.. but not much of one, and the highly over clocked cards keep up and surpase, for the same price.. Granted though, when we do start seeing resolutions in the 3000ish range 2gig will be a must... but why would I plan a purchase around something that wont happen until my card is far beyond obsolete?

Must we compare a 285 toa 4890 every day? Yes, the 285 is better and that is not goign to change. There is no point comparing an OC card to a stock card, except in a price/performance comparison. Obvisouly the 285 overclocks too...

no but you can compare an overclocked card to an overclocked card and the 4890 overclocked wins

Sorry, it does not. I'm by no means a "fanboy" (I'd love to have an HD 4890 - any kind!). The HD 4890 trades blows with a GTX 275, just like the HD 4870 traded blows with the GTX 260 (216). The GTX 280 was faster than either (but not a particularly good buy), and the same rule set applies to the current crop of cards. The GTX 285 stock is faster than either an HD 4890 or GTX 275. Not by much and not in all games, but overall is is a little stronger. And again, the same thing applies to factory OC'd varients (of which there are GTX 285s that run 729 Mhz if you want to spend the money).

I just bought 2x4770's for $202 so I guess I feel everything else is a total waste of cash.

Clearly the gtx285 is unbuyable at that price but even the 4890 looks overpriced considering what 2x4770's cost.

Wouldn't a 4770x2 be nice for $175?

I would pay the extra $30 for a 4890 any day to get the stability and crossfire versatility only a single GPU can provide. I'm sorry but I find it extremely foolish to take 2 4770s over 1 4890 when both solutions give the same performance, but the 4890 will give you an infinitely more consistent result. I am not against multi-GPU solutions, this just seems silly to me.

Problem is you're paying $30 more for up to 30% less performance with the 4890. You have to look really hard to find decent games that aren't utilising crossfire and sli properly these days.

I've heard it all before but really, what games aren't using crossfire and showing up worse in benchmarks? I haven't seen any in ages. Hexus are the latest and if this doesn't make up your mind then not much else will...

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=18281

Yeah. 4890 is better than 2 4770s. A single card is always better than two. But when it comes to power, a single 4890 consumes about 50W more than 2 4770s.

@jennyh You could've paid $13 more for a 4890.

In what games is the 4890 better than two crossfired 4770's? I've seen loads of benchmarks and have yet to see any reason why anyone would claim that the 4890 is better than 2 4770's.

Here's Crysis doing it at 4X AA:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-4770-crossfi...

Others show the dual 4770 neck for neck or a little higher than the single 4890. Myself, I'd rather spend the same (or close +/- to it) on one card up front and then buy a second one as budget allows later. That said, the CF vs. single card possibilities (IE: single Nvidia GTX vs. single ATI vs. dual ATI) are seemingly unlimited, based on games played, resolutions, and other personal factors like case space/heat/power preferences. I chose just that with a 4870 512MB (ASUS TOP model) and soon to be second 4870 later this month - hopefully with a nice price drop - if not, I'll wait.

Right now at 1920x1200 on high details, I'm running Crysis in benchmarks at an average of 36FPS, dipping to a 22 low and raising to a 48 high during that test. Livable for one card, but another for CF will raise those low dips, which are noticeable under heavy action, to above 30 and yield a solid 45 average FPS. My info is based on this bench, which was done with an i7 running at 3.2GHz - I have an E8400 running at 4.2GHz:

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/mutligpuupdate2gpufe...

Bottom line? If your budget only allows X amount of dollars with no multi-GPU upgrade in the near future, then yes, it is possible you are better off going the route of two lesser cards up front at once.

Yeah Hexus is kind of a no-name website out there so I trust Tom's findings more, not by much though.

I don't think a badly optimised game is a reason to buy one 4890 over two 4770's. If all you ever played was Crysis at 4xAA then sure, buy a 4890. In just about everything else the crossfired 4770's win, some by a huge margin. I noticed that the 4770's tend to do better in Crysis Warhead (because the game engine is better optimised) so that's something you might want to consider also.

For me it's pretty simple - unless you're playing at 2560x1600 and simply must have 8xAA or higher then crossfired 4770's are streets ahead of anything else you'd buy within $50 going up or down in cost.

Again, I don't disagree. It just depends on your budget. As I stated, if you can only afford X amount up front with no room for an upgrade in the foreseeable future, then you are probably better off going with 2 card setup for the most part. I just used Crysis as an example bench. I still play it and it is still gorgeous. And as ZZF said, you'd have to be a clueless moron to only use that as a build spec benchmark. But, like it or not, Crysis is still a PC back breaker and why it is still used by both fans and hardware sites. And as a side note, in my experience, people who trash talk it don't have a system to run it at high settings successfully.

Anyone can look at the L4D, FO3, and other game benches and determine their needs at various resolutions. Again, it just goes back to needs and capabilities: can your system handle 2 cards as is, and/or do you have the budget to buy a higher card at approx. the same price as 2 lower cards now and then upgrade to a second higher card later (as I'm doing)?

Two 4770s > than one 4890 if that's all you can afford for a while; but if you've got the money for one 4890 now and later another, then the obvious should be just that - obvious major pwnage.

LOL  

as Mactronix said the word TOP on the nvidia card indicates an overclocked card, or don't you read the review b4 posting

I personally don't put too much wieght in comparing Factory OC cards beyond a specific "Part" comparison (i.e. if i were to go out and buy a card, which specific card is best). There is just too much of a gambit.

I mean I could compare the new toxic 4890 to an already existing XT varient. One is 875mhz, and one is 1ghz.. but that would be silly.

I much prefer the performance and price vs specific competition to be plainly stated. Saying which card is the "best" is just silly.. there are too many variables in play. I'm sure one could find a OC varient of a 285 somewhere that beats everything, we cant be comparing a 5% OC that asus gives its average TOP cards to a crazy almost 20% this toxic card gets.

Sure, we could clearly state which card is faster between two specific models. We could say which is the best price/performance. But to expand this beyond a card to card comparison and say that one company is now the best because of some crazy OC is not rational. I could easily find some water cooled 285's that beat this toxic 4890, then water cooled 4890's that tie or beat that.. and so on and so on....

There are people who make a living on OCing parts.. must we battle back and forth to find the most ludacris OCs out there and compare them to state which card is faster based on that? The 4890 GPu and teh 285 GPU are both great. They have pro's and cons.. I think we are all mature enough to get past "Mine is better becasue..." rants when we can rationally just compare the pro's and cons and make a descision on a case by case basis.. Nothing in life is black and white, why do we have to pretend everything is with bantering like this?

Again the numbers show a 1-2 FPS difference and yet I have a feeling that 2 4890s will out perform 2 4770s. The reason I bring this up is that you will be able to crossfire a 4890 later down the road. Also note that these tests are using i7 CPUs and since you are not you need to subtract 5-10% of the performance off the 2 4770s. I'm not saying your setup is bad, its not it actually kicks major ass and should play most things great, but I don't feel it was the best decision given other variables. I'm not putting your system down, it kicks major ass, I'm just trying to let other people who are debating between 2 4770s and a 4890 that are reading this know what to consider.

I hate Crysis and my rig rips it apart with the best of them, so it is not a matter of hardware but a matter of taste.  

Thing is, if you have a crossfire mobo then why not put it to use? I don't really see the point in always hanging off until some future point when you may or may not decide to crossfire a 4890.

If you have it, make use of it now I say, and crossfired 4770's is as close to amazing gaming on the cheap that we've ever seen.

Each to their own i say some of you don't like multi card set ups some of you do. There isn't a right and wrong here.
As jennyh has said games that don't support multi GPU's are few and far between these days, so that argument is out of the window. There are still compatibility and driver stability issues to possibly worry about but its not the big risk it used to be. Not so long ago you needed to be really quite clued up to even think of running more than one card due to issues that could occur.
Personally i favor the single card option but that's just me. I have a 4770 and don't need any more performance so wont be adding another any time soon.
The problem with the planning to add another later, either when the price comes down, which means to me you either needed one at first or you just want one but have a sense of value. Or adding another when performance gets unacceptable. Is that you are either.
1 Selling yourself short in the first place
or
2 Going to end up buying a newer card anyway and not adding a second card at all.

I think the best way is to get the best single card you can and then selling it on towards a upgrade before it becomes not relevant or useful. Remember today's 4890 will become tomorrows 4670/3850 etc

Mactronix

Well, for me, I held off for CF'ing my 4870 build to 1) make SURE it will be worth it over the single card by establishing baseline benchmarks, 2) any wait is almost guaranteed to see a price drop on the second card, 3), I knew I could afford another card of the same caliber next month from a budget perspective, and finally 4), also on the budget, soon upgrading from a 1680x1050 22" LCD to a 25.5" for 1920x1200, where CF has been known to help enormously.

Like others have said, it's just really a matter of personal preference. BTW: the biggest bench spread I've seen on CF 4770s and 1 4890 is with FC2, and that narrows as resolutions go higher. But to your point, if I were on a closed budget for a one shot only build, I'd seriously consider 2 CF 4770s over 1 4890.

yup sli/crossfire only if u upgrade ur rsolution and u found that ur current single gpu is not givving u the performance u had or if stronger more demanding games spread throughout the market no need to sli/croosfire at the same time but dont forget it either. and no more tweeks to current graphic cards u dont want to narrow the performance gap betweeen 4800 series and 5800 series and since nvidia wanted to release the gt300 in september ati rushed and said its release date is june/july but now both r delayed to q4 and early 2010 but still u have the 4890x2 most likely will exist and new gtx295 with new pcb which although the same but higher memory speed