GTX 295 or 2x4890's

[Mussels]

If you already owned one 4890 I'd say go CrossFire, but since you don't, get the GTX295. It will save you the extra five seconds of having to put in a second card. Plus, no matter the brand, a single card will have better compatability with more applications than two cards.

not really. the games still need to work with SLI, just like they'd need crossfire support with the ATI cards.


none of the dual GPU cards solve any of the compatibility problems - they still exist.

 

[eidairaman1]

yup because the Current GPU boards have a SLI/Crossfire Bus Chip Directly onboard.

 

[venomousdesigns]

I'm thinking that 2xSapphire 4890 Toxics (960/1050) will outperform the GTX295 and for cheaper correct?

 

[ShiBDiB]

295...

 

[ShiBDiB]

I'm thinking that 2xSapphire 4890 Toxics (960/1050) will outperform the GTX295 and for cheaper correct?

and their $40 more

 

[Hayder_Master]

Meh... I would go with the 295 since most games are optomized for Nvidia GPUs, plus you get physx (if that means anything to you). That and the 295 is a lot more compact than 2 4890s.

but miss something too , DX 10.1

But with the heat and mnoise deal... I say 295..

why everybody talk about ATI worm up and need to increase the fan speed , ATI card's design for high temp , so 90c is cool for ati isn't coll for nvidia

but CF scales better than SLI! IMO, get one 4890 or flip a coin if you really want one of the 2 choices... or if you actually mind more heat noise and no PhysX and suckyness of folding over a little bit of performance, then get the GTX 295 or else get the CF

CF better than SLI = agree

nope, can't go with triple sli GTX 285
unless i go with Q9550 or Q6600 instead of i7
and in this case it'd bottleneck the hell out of them

triple sli GTX 285 = what for !

take a nibble maybe, but eat one? not at all.

not to mention most wont actually clock stably to 1ghz, not to mentioned the added heat and noise over an already bulky, hot and noisy setup compared to a GTX295.

And hes already made his choice, so 2x4890 may well best the 295 on a technicality, but as you can see here, that hardly counts when 1xGTX295 is better in every way for this user.

my money is on an OC GTX295 besting 48XX anyway.

my friend i agree with GTX 295 is good chose for him but for me i think there is an waste money when you get high end nvidia card sometimes i prefer performance cards on SLI , cuz the high end card is the first one fall when new card's series release , remember these card's 7950 GX2 - 8800 ultra - 9800 GX2 = high end cards with high price when release , and you find people prefer 8800 GT&GTS than 7950 GX2 , 9800 GTX&GTX+ over 8800 ultra , GTX 260 over 9800 GX2 , and GTX 360 over GTX 295

I'd take the 2 4890's.

And PhysX=MEH

in fact physics make games look better , but we don't forget ATI havook will be solve the problem

If you already owned one 4890 I'd say go CrossFire, but since you don't, get the GTX295. It will save you the extra five seconds of having to put in a second card. Plus, no matter the brand, a single card will have better compatability with more applications than two cards.

agree with you , other think i see you change your avatar car , nice new car

 

[venomousdesigns]

Just to throw something else into the equation - what are your thoughts on the 'newish' ASUS 4870x2 Tri Fan card (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-174-AS) compared to say the likes of a GTX295 etc.

I ask this because its currently going for extremely cheap as opposed to me getting 2x4890 Toxics or GTX295.

Is it to late for the 4870x2 and I should just let it die or?

 

[h3llb3nd4]

GTX 295...
the single slot solution is out now....
and nVidia produces stable drivers (IMO)

 

[1Kurgan1]

the horribleness can be attributed to a few things.

Temps+noise, it was one or the other, 60-65 degree loads and two hairdryers in the room, or 85+ degree loads at an acceptable level.

Build quality, As i understand it release 4870's were all identical, and boy did the quality shock me. both cards buzzed, somewhat violently, and both had a cheap looking PCB, on which the white lines were printed crooked.

As for gaming, i started with one and added another, to notice largely that only max FPS was increasong and MIN was EXACTLY the same as a single 4870. Some games favour CF unnaturally, just like SLi, and those were pretty good.

My immediate move from 2x4870 512 in CF was a single GTX260 65nm, and my experience was worlds better for it. higher min FPS and lower max, so less variation, and MIN is really what matter to me, i coulnt care about anything over 120 fps, but below 60 shits me.

the GTX295 proved similar to CF, where i could often find myself on single GPU performance, the saving grace here is 1xGT200 with 240 Sp's, in my experiences, is a decent amount more to fall on that a single 48XX chip.

Albeit the 4890 does par a GTX275 on the whole, so really they should perform about the same, so performance aside, my other points are valid i believe. space, heat, noise, build quality. and something imonna throw in for the first time right meow, is drivers. IMO nvidian drivers take a steamy dump on ATi's, but each to their own.

I do got to agree, temps are I wish I had a card with better cooling to I could push some more volts through it, and my fan speed doesn't seem to give me much luck on temps dropping.

Sounds like you got bad luck on your card though, as I have had a Asus TOP 4850 and my Diamond 4870x2 and neither card has buzzed and the PCB looks fine. Your switch to a 260 was probably a good choice though as I assume you play at higher resolution, the 512MB in CF, aren't bad, but the 260 with more mem would perform pretty close I bet, and more consistently, but thats how CF/SLI works. But thats also probably part of the issue of your min not increasing is the res combo with only 512mb cards. But a min of 60 is crazy, the human eye isn't going to notice any difference down to the 30's, unless there is a big flux from like 120 to 40 instantly.

What I'm really curious about was I believe Asus's new caps, that card would be really interesting, as the PCB on the 4890 is different from the 4870 anyways, not sure about drivers though, I have had a 9800pro, x850pro, x1950pro, 3650xt, 1x 3870, 2x 3870, 3x 3870, 4850, and 4870x2 and I never had one driver issue with any of these cards. Either way glad to hear the issues, before it just seemed like flaming, all good sorry sounded like you had bad luck

 

[wolf]

I do got to agree, temps are I wish I had a card with better cooling to I could push some more volts through it, and my fan speed doesn't seem to give me much luck on temps dropping.

Sounds like you got bad luck on your card though, as I have had a Asus TOP 4850 and my Diamond 4870x2 and neither card has buzzed and the PCB looks fine. Your switch to a 260 was probably a good choice though as I assume you play at higher resolution, the 512MB in CF, aren't bad, but the 260 with more mem would perform pretty close I bet, and more consistently, but thats how CF/SLI works. But thats also probably part of the issue of your min not increasing is the res combo with only 512mb cards. But a min of 60 is crazy, the human eye isn't going to notice any difference down to the 30's, unless there is a big flux from like 120 to 40 instantly.

thanks, and yeah the 260 was great for 1920x1200 with AA, ive even moved back from my GTX295 to GTX260+ 1792mb SLi.

with the FPS difference, its not so much seeing the difference, its feeling it, the mouse responds differently at 30fps than 60, and when its bobbing in between.... that can be hell in TF2

Yeah I do actually consider myself unlucky with my 2 4870's ive had much MUCH better from ATi before, my Sapphire x1950Pro still ranks as one of the highest quality pcb/components ive seen.

With the 2 4870's i ended up water cooling both, and scrapping the loud stock cooler, but i wasnt able to fit it all back in my case, so i sold one, then sold the latter when i got the 260. I did however use a large component of the stock 4870 cooler to cool the memory and VRM's, worked a charm while i still had the watercooled one.

moral of the story, i go thru way toooo many cards

 

[Mussels]

1kurgan1: you're right on everything except one point. the human eye can see upto 300 FPS, due to "ghost" images. Our mind cant process every frame individually, but it can give us a few miliseconds in advance to recognise whats happening on screen.

100FPS = 100 frames per second = 1 frame ever 10 miliseconds.

30 FPS = 1 frame ever 33.3 miliseconds - now you tell me, if all those CSS gamers out there whine that an extra 20-50ms ping can lag them out, wouldnt seeing the opponent on screen 20ms earlier, be just as important?

My LCD's have a 2ms response time, so that 20ms difference is definately within the realm of possibility of being visually noticeable - its just damned hard to PROVE you saw it.

(my math could have failed here... its 1:30am, PLEASE correct me if its wrong. it should be right, 1000ms to the second and all)

 

[1Kurgan1]

I would say it's important if your latency is 0. A good example is in BF BC, shotguns will rewind time. I'll put my knife through their damn head, they pul lthe trigger and I'm dead and they just keep moving along.

The server lag just can't be made up, because those few ms of lag your having is greater o nthe other end of the line where you cannot make it up.

 

[miamimuscleboy]

4890s beat the 295 in almost every game at 1920x1200 4aa look at the review on this site of othe 4890 CF plus dual gpu cards by nvidia have always had little qurks and flaws EG NOaa on some games etc however the 295 has not has such probs as the 9800gx2. price is around the same but the drivers for CF by ati now are alot better and scale very well. up to you but i would go with ati. Dosent matter really in a few months something twice as fast will be out by both companies and the prices on these will drop to the ground , eyes cant tell past the sync framre rate of your monitor anyway meaning 60 FPS v sncd you dont even need a card this fast 150 fps and 60 fps look the same past a monitor refresh rate

 

[1Kurgan1]

eyes cant tell past the sync framre rate of your monitor anyway meaning 60 FPS v sncd you dont even need a card this fast 150 fps and 60 fps look the same past a monitor refresh rate

I knew I was forgetting something.

 

[Animalpak]

Be patient wait for GT300, that card will kill both GTX 295 and 2 x 4890.

And you can have :

-wicked extreme performance ( You have certainly read the rumors about GT300 )
-One GPU
-Less power consumption
-Less heat
-Less noise

 

[toyo]

I also can't see any reason to upgrade (considering you have a decent card) 'till the DirectX 11 stuff hits the stores. Even then, waiting for another 3-6 months for the price drop that'll come is recommended.
Some games will go with 30 fps, others like FPS may need 45-60 fps, at least in my view. A constant 60 vsync-ed framerate is way better then let's say 80-150 fluctuations.
Anyway, in the end it's all about the benjamins. If they push you out of the house and you have bad dreams 'cos you have so many $$$, knock yourself out and buy, buy, buy... keep nvidia amd and intel happy

 

[wolf]

...plus dual gpu cards by nvidia have always had little qurks and flaws...

like ATi's are perfect... you lose CF altogether in windowed mode.

im also not a big fan of their dual GPU design where 1 core idles a good 10-20 degrees hotter then the other. Nvidias single PCB GTX295 is a MUCH better design than a 4870X2 imo, and so is the sandwich version.

there will always be these flaws in any Multi GPU setup, it'll take a long time to be perfect.

i agree on waiting for GT300, but if you need a WinZ0r card now, 295 all the way.

 

[phanbuey]

1kurgan1: you're right on everything except one point. the human eye can see upto 300 FPS, due to "ghost" images. Our mind cant process every frame individually, but it can give us a few miliseconds in advance to recognise whats happening on screen.

100FPS = 100 frames per second = 1 frame ever 10 miliseconds.

30 FPS = 1 frame ever 33.3 miliseconds - now you tell me, if all those CSS gamers out there whine that an extra 20-50ms ping can lag them out, wouldnt seeing the opponent on screen 20ms earlier, be just as important?

My LCD's have a 2ms response time, so that 20ms difference is definately within the realm of possibility of being visually noticeable - its just damned hard to PROVE you saw it.

(my math could have failed here... its 1:30am, PLEASE correct me if its wrong. it should be right, 1000ms to the second and all)

1) many competitive CSS/CS gamers use CRTs still. +The human eye can be trained to see faster FPS.

2) Your monitor can display 60FPS if it refreshes at 60Hz... even if your going at 100FPS, your monitor is displaying 60Hz or 60FPS - the ms response has to do with how fast a pixel can change color - which is what causes ghosting, not how many times/sec a screen can show a new image. Old LCD's could draw new images faster than the pixels on their screen could adjust to the color to display them, which caused ghosting.

3) the pings in CSS have alot to do with the way a shot "registers," and less so with the speed of the display... alot of these guys will see the shot, shoot the opponent in the head, the texture on the opponent's head will register a bullet hole, but then the guy doesn't die, and instead you get shot. The other player runs around happily with a bullet hole texture on their head.

there is also the teleportation thing, where you shoot a guy and all of a sudden he disappears and reappears 3 inches over to one direction, which is extra annoying, since it is usually simultaneous with death.

 

[venomousdesigns]

like ATi's are perfect... you lose CF altogether in windowed mode.

ATi still suffers from Crossfire and Windowed Mode problems? Please do go on, I was ABOUT to purchase a 4870x2. I play WoW windowed, and most another applications?

 

[Mussels]

ATi still suffers from Crossfire and Windowed Mode problems? Please do go on, I was ABOUT to purchase a 4870x2. I play WoW windowed, and most another applications?

crossfire still works for me in windowed mode, in furmark. I cant test wow as i dont have it.

even if WoW only works in one window... a single 4870 will hammer it. that game aint GPU intensive.

 

[1Kurgan1]

Be patient wait for GT300, that card will kill both GTX 295 and 2 x 4890.

And you can have :

-wicked extreme performance ( You have certainly read the rumors about GT300 )
-One GPU
-Less power consumption
-Less heat
-Less noise

Yeah the next gen cards are going to rock, but I'm waiting on a 58xx card, gonna get rid of my 4870x2 then.

ATi still suffers from Crossfire and Windowed Mode problems? Please do go on, I was ABOUT to purchase a 4870x2. I play WoW windowed, and most another applications?

WoW doesn't use CF or SLI, so really I wouldnt suggest any CF/SLI setup for it, you might get 20% usage at max out of the second GPU, just not worth it. I would have sold my 4870x2 by now and just got a 4890 or single 4870 because of this, but prices have dropped and I flat out refuse to just give my beasty videocard away.

 

[eidairaman1]

crossfire still works for me in windowed mode, in furmark. I cant test wow as i dont have it.

even if WoW only works in one window... a single 4870 will hammer it. that game aint GPU intensive.

well since Wolf doesn't have a credible source of his accusation, it's considered smoke. With you mussels, You Attest to it working actually.

 

[venomousdesigns]

WoW doesn't use CF or SLI, so really I wouldnt suggest any CF/SLI setup for it, you might get 20% usage at max out of the second GPU, just not worth it. I would have sold my 4870x2 by now and just got a 4890 or single 4870 because of this, but prices have dropped and I flat out refuse to just give my beasty videocard away.

But in respect to Crysis, Far Cry 2 and other such games - the 4870x2 has issues with playing Windowed?

I see what you mean about purchasing a single 4890 this close to the next generation cards - however, I can currently purchase a 4870x2 for approx AUD $475 a Sapphire Toxic 4890 is going for approx AUD $375. In that situation?

 

[Mussels]

one thing to watch out for, is just because SLI doesnt work in windowed mode, doesnt mean crossfire doesnt.

While they're similar tech, there are some things they do differently - for example, SLI only worked with a single monitor last time i used it, but i was just playing a game with crossfire working while watching a movie on my secondary (using media keys to play/pause etc )

 

[Tatty_Two]

http://i1.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_4890_CrossFire/images/perfrel_1920.gif

What do you think 4890's are FAST.

But are they as fast as two GTX275's...... we shall find out next week