A Challenge for anyone considering an AMD 4890 or Nvidia GTX275

[badass]

Try to find one single benchmark at any resolution in any situation where either:
The AMD Radeon HD 4890's performance increase over the 4870 1GB makes any noticable and useful difference to any game.
The Nvidia Geforce GTX 275 is noticably better than the GTX 260 Core 216.
I'm not taking about meaningless numbers that are only useful for boasting about your e-peen.
I'm also not asking anyone to compare the Geforce cards to the Radeon cards. There are cases where one makes a noticable difference to the other.
30 FPS vs 33 FPS is NOT a noticable difference.
10 vs 12 FPS might be noticable, but since both are unplayable it's a waste of time.
A 10 FPS difference may seem good, but if the slower card is chucking out 70 FPS then you can't see the diffrerence any way. Therefore it is not a noticable difference.
To be valid, both cards must be using the same driver.

Can you see what I'm getting at here?
Anyone that buys either a 4890 or a GTX 275 right now is wasting their money.

[kalniel]

Crysis, various res:
46 vs 39 fps is noticeable. 41 vs 36 is noticeable. 39 vs 33 is noticeable, 36 vs 31 is probably noticeable.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/graphi...eon-HD-4890/p3

COD5 2560x1600:
43 vs 37 is noticeable
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon...review-test/10

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Crysis, various res:
46 vs 39 fps is noticeable. 41 vs 36 is noticeable. 39 vs 33 is noticeable, 36 vs 31 is probably noticeable.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/graphi...eon-HD-4890/p3

With Crysis it is all about minimum framerates. As long as they do not dip under 25 and stay at about 30 on average the gameplay is quite smooth. Crysis is playable unlike some other games at lower framerates.
I have tried this with an HD3870,HD4830 and a 8800GTS 512mb and this was the case with all of them.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Anyone that buys either a 4890 or a GTX 275 right now is wasting their money.

It really depends on the resolution you are playing at and what game TBH. The GTX275 and HD4890 are going to drop under £200 anyway. The GTX275 looks like it has the performance of a GTX285 at a lower price and the HD4890 does look at least 10% faster and can attain much higher clocks than an HD4870.

For someone gaming at 1680x1050 for instance the HD4870 1gb and GTX260 should be more than enough. I would imagine that at 1920x1080 and above the slightly better performance of the GTX275 and HD4890 may help to make gameplay smoother though.

I do agree though there some people who will upgrade for the sake of it. Also there are those who like having 3 or 4 graphics cards too,£400 motherboards and £1000 processors. I suppose some people like to waste their money that way. But hey - why should I complain?? It keeps jobs at retailers intact!!

[Georgy291]

i agree, i got a 4870 and i think 4890 is definately not worth it since its not notisable 46 vs 39 is not notisable to general public

normal standart tv is 25fps and no one moans about that lagging? so how would you notice?

[badass]

Crysis, various res:
46 vs 39 fps is noticeable. 41 vs 36 is noticeable. 39 vs 33 is noticeable, 36 vs 31 is probably noticeable.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/graphi...eon-HD-4890/p3

COD5 2560x1600:
43 vs 37 is noticeable
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon...review-test/10

Whether it is noticable is at best arguable. Whether it is useful enough to make a difference to the game experience is easy. It isn't.
Are they using the same drivers?

[TooNice]

Whether it is noticable is at best arguable. Whether it is useful enough to make a difference to the game experience is easy. It isn't.

Both statement are subjective. You still get people who claim that 25fps is perfectly smooth, at that, I say more power to them. And you can't get any more subjective than 'gaming experience'.

The 4890 is a refresh. Not too unlike the Radeon 9700 Pro to the 9800 Pro (for some reason, those two came to my mind first). We've had better refreshes in the past but what we are seen here is not out of the norm as far as refreshes are concerned. A minor performance boost (~10% performance boost is only ever going to yield so many frames where you can always argue is irrelevant), and a minor power optimisation. As a new product, it is poorer value on release compared to the older products retailers are trying to clear.

Plus, products at this range are always going to suffer from some diminishing returns - the same argument can often be made for the 4830 vs 4850 and 4850 vs 4870. I am by no mean recommending the 4890 over the 4870, but I think that anyone who've read the review know roughly what they are getting with those cards, and can decide whether they subjectively consider the gains to be worth the added cost.

[badass]

Both statement are subjective. You still get people who claim that 25fps is perfectly smooth, at that, I say more power to them. And you can't get any more subjective than 'gaming experience'.

You can objectively measure it using a blind test. 2 sets of 2 machines in 3 different rooms, a sample of gamers and no way of telling which one has which card. Do not let them even see each other until they have submitted their opinions. Each gamer is told that they have to either state one is faster than the other or both machines are the same in each room. They are allowed to play only one at a time however and cannot see them side by side.
As long as one of the rooms has both a faster equipped machine and a slower equipped machine, the contents of the rest of the rooms do not matter, they can be one of each, both faster or both slower.
Ask each gamer to write down which ones have which graphics card, or to say that they all seemed the same.

Hexus, how about an article doing something similar?
In fact, based on the results of this, Hexus may even find they adjust their bang4buck formulas.

I will adjust my first statement somewhat about the GTX 275 however. It's got a faster clock and another Shader array enabled so is potentially 20 odd% faster than the GTX 260 216 core cards. I was unaware that it also had a significantly faster clock.

[Netjock]

Hexus, how about an article doing something similar?
In fact, based on the results of this, Hexus may even find they adjust their bang4buck formulas.

Interesting concept but is the graphics cards manufacturers going to let it happen. I doubt it. If you want to upgrade from a 4870 to 4890 so you can get from 90fps to 99fps who is going to tell you that you can't see it.

To some extent this is a numbers game. I play CSS on a 9300M @ 1200x800 and I can't tell... it sure isn't lagging badly

[Georgy291]

i come back to my tv point freview is 25 fps

blu ray is 24 i think or even 23.....i dont see anyone say a word about that

[jim]

You can't make that comparison, partly because television frames use motion blur. And also, you aren't waiting for the television to react to a change you made, so there is no comparable sensation of lag.

Furthermore, PC games are often measured in average framerates, which isn't always the best benchmark. As Cat suggested, minimum framerates are more important, so you want to push averages a lot higher than 30 to ensure that minimum never drops below 30.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You can't make that comparison, partly because television frames use motion blur. And also, you aren't waiting for the television to react to a change you made, so there is no comparable sensation of lag.

Furthermore, PC games are often measured in average framerates, which isn't always the best benchmark. As Cat suggested, minimum framerates are more important, so you want to push averages a lot higher than 30 to ensure that minimum never drops below 30.

Let me add to this!! A game like Crysis which makes good use of motion blur will give you a very smooth experience as long as you do not dip below 25fps. However other games which do not use motion blur need to have at least 30fps as a minimum for smooth gameplay IMHO.

[Will404]

blu ray is 24 i think or even 23.....i dont see anyone say a word about that

23.976 acctually

[Georgy291]

23.976 acctually

YAY i got it right na na na na na nah

i said the range lol

[Badbonji]

YAY i got it right na na na na na nah

i said the range lol

Yeah TV you actually aren't waiting for an image to be updated so you can control it or anything, you are just watching and take in less detail than a pc game. It needs to be more smooth so you can actually play without any "lag" or stuttering.

[dfour]

Isnt it also more relevant to what your upgrading from?? A 4870 - 4890 isnt worth it but a 4830/4850 (or below) will be a much bigger upgrade. The sam as a 260 - 275 isnt worth bothering with but a 8800 series or a 9800+/250 to the 275 would show improvements and allow the use of AA and higher AF in games.