XFX GTX 260, XFX Radeon HD 4890 or Gainward GeForce GTX 550 Ti GS

[MarksDog]

my motherboard died so i bought my mates computer off him in which the psu had died and put the best of both together. i spent hours researching online to figure out if i should use my Radeon 5770 or the one from my mates computer the XFX GTX 260, eventually i chose the 260. now my dad bought himself a new graphics card and said i could have his old one but he had 2 sat there, a XFX Radeon HD 4890 and a Gainward GeForce GTX 550 Ti GS. i've spent hours trying to fiure out what's a better card and i've got fed up, it took me days to decide between the first two and now i've got the same problem only a week later!

the 550 supports DX11 but has lower memory bandwidth and loads have people have said things against it but it does beat the 4890 on the rating chart (http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html), where the standard GTX 550 ti ranks 73 and the XFX Radeon HD 4890 isn't on there but it has the same specs as the ASUS EAH4890 which is and is ranked 74! (the standard Radeon HD 4890 is ranked 97).

i've read several forums where people question between the two but always standard versions and they always say go for the 4890 and stay away from 550s but i would like it if someone could help with knowledge of the different versions because even some places say stick with the GTX 260!

i've got which ever card i want, i just don't know what one is better. any help would be appreciated.

it's between:
XFX GTX 260
XFX Radeon HD 4890
Gainward GeForce GTX 550 Ti GS

 

[blazorthon]

To be honest, these are all very similarly performing cards. It won't make much difference in performance which way you go. The GTX550 Ti, simply be virtue of supporting DX11, may be the best option since some of today's games and more and more of future games may require DX11 to run (crysis 3, for example).

Going purely by performance, I can say that the Radeon 4890 should be slightly faster than the GTX 550 Ti. IDK for sure about the GTX 260, but I don't think that it beats the 4890.

 

[Bejusek]

4890 was direct competitor for GTX285. It's much better than GTX260.

GTX550 performs similar to HD4890, except higher resolutions, where better memory subsystem of HD4890 shows its advantage. So for 1920x1080 I would go with HD4890. Its infamous downside is high temperature, caused by high power consumption and no DX11 support.

HD 5770 is better than GTX550. I would stay with it, if it is the option. It has DX11 and low power consumption / low temps. Looks like the optimal solution.

IMHO, the best solution would be to sell all these cards and buy something powerful from HD7900 or GTX600 series (used).

 

[MarksDog]

the standard 4890 was high ranked of mid range cards in 2010 but the 550 was low ranked in mid range 2012. looking myself i found it had to figure out about which would be faster because the specs i could find (that i understand) on these version are core clock (550 - 1ghz, 4890 - 850mhz), memory clock (550 - 4.4ghz, 4890 - 3.9ghz) and the bus (550 - 192bit, 4890 - 256bit). so really the only thing that the 4890 beats the 550 on is bus width and is that actually going to be more important than all the other specs?

 

[MarksDog]

HD 5770 is better than GTX550. I would stay with it, if it is the option. It has DX11 and low power consumption / low temps. Looks like the optimal solution.

stupid me thinking that the GTX 260 outdid the HD5770 meant that i sold it to help recoup cost of getting the computer of my mate!

 

[Bejusek]

Clocks aren't everything. I'd rather go with previous generation top model than newer generation lower-mainstream one.

Call of Duty 4:
4890 http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4890_PCS/6.html
550ti http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GeForce_GTX_550_Ti_Cyclone_II/9.html

Crysis:
4890 http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4890_PCS/9.html
550ti http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GeForce_GTX_550_Ti_Cyclone_II/12.html

Test platform is almost the same. It has more RAM for 550ti.

 

[MarksDog]

Clocks aren't everything. I'd rather go with previous generation top model than newer generation lower-mainstream one.

Call of Duty 4:
4890 http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4890_PCS/6.html
550ti http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GeForce_GTX_550_Ti_Cyclone_II/9.html

Crysis:
4890 http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4890_PCS/9.html
550ti http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GeForce_GTX_550_Ti_Cyclone_II/12.html

Test platform is almost the same. It has more RAM for 550ti.

that's really helped, it's got all four cards so i can see how they match up in the same test, which has been hard to find myself (i know i've already sold the hd5770 but it stops me feeling stupid for selling it and i could get my mate to swap for a different card if need be). i don't think the golden sample over clocking will make that much of a difference.

 

[MarksDog]

should have added that the XFX HD 4890 looks like the one to go for.

also most of the time i refuse to buy games at launch price, so i normally play games that are a year old anyway. if i wanted to pay £40 ($61) a game i would have bought an Xbox!

 

[MarksDog]

if anyone reckons i should put one of the others in the computer say. i'll wait a couple of days anyway before i put the chosen one in because once it's in i won't want to change it (i try to open the computer as little as possible).

 

[MarksDog]

i just looked up the dates on crysis and call of duty 4 and they're both 2007 games. newer games may fare differently. can anyone link me to more recent games benchmarked on these cards please.