Having a hard time to decide on 4890 or GTX 275

Mr Anonymous

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Jul 25, 2009
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I'm having a tough time deciding which card to get - HD 4890 1GB or 896MB GTX 275

My current system is:-

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 @ 2.66Ghz (stock)
4GB DDR2 RAM
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L Mobo
512MB Radeon HD 4850
Antec TruePower II 550W PSU (will be upgrading to an 850W PSU)

My goal is to play at the native resolution of my 22" screen (1680x1050) with everything on MAX and AA if possible.

I don't want to spend the extra cash on a GTX 285 since DirectX 11 is on the horizon.

I'm not sure which way to go 4890 or GTX 275, but furthermore, which brand to go for. I've looked at a few such as:-


Gigabyte GV-N275UD-896I
GTX275 896MB PCI-E 2.0 DDR3 512-bit 633/2268MHz, Dual Dual-Link DVI, HDMI, HDCP, Fan.

XFX 11X-GTX275-896X
PCIe GTX275 896MB xXx GPU Clk: 670MHz, Shader Clk: 1404MHz


XFX HD-489A-ZDDC
PCIe HD4890 1GB xXx w/ HawX GPU Clk: 900MHz, Stream Processors: 800

XFX 11X-HD4890-1GBETCH
PCIe HD4890 1GB Extreme w/ HawX GPU Clk: 875MHz, Stream Processors: 800

MSI R4890-T2D1G-OC
ATI HD4890 PCI-E 2.0 1GB CORE 880MHZ MEMORY 3996MHZ DDR5 256-BIT

Then there are various 4890's at stock GPU clock speeds.

Some important things that are also influencing my purchase are temperature levels (idle/load) and also how noisy the fan gets. I've read that with the XFX HD 4890 900Mhz gpu clock, the fan can get very noisy.

I guess the difficulty with all this is finding the right balance.

Any help would be awesome.

Thanks!
 

ill b ben

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Mar 5, 2009
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Thats more of a marketing gimmick if you ask me.. Go for a 4890 try a 950/1000 mhz core. reference is fine aswell easy to up the voltage and core speed on it, so either way is fine. Also why exactly are you upgrading your psu? since that psu has enough juice to power the 4890/275
 

vjcsmoke

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Jul 29, 2009
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They are both comparable in power. But which one will fit into your case? Depending on the alignment of the PCIE 16x card slot, a longer card might interfere with some of your components. So scope that out before you decide, because a 10.5 inch Nvidia card is a VERY tight fit.

I know, I've tried to put a 10.5 inch gtx 260 in my case. GTX 275 is the same length as the 260. I decided it was too long, so went with a 4890 vapor-x instead. It's an inch shorter and the vapor-x is apparently the quietest cooling solution for 4890 out there so far.