NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 beats ATI Radeon HD 4890?

Posted on Monday, March 30 2009 @ 13:31 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Legion Hardware has published a preview of the GeForce GTX 275 and Radeon HD 4890 by emulating the performance of these cards with a Radeon HD 4870 and GeForce GTX 295. The Radeon HD 4870 was overclocked to match the clockspeeds of the Radeon HD 4890, while one GPU of the GeForce GTX 295 was deactivated to simulate the performance of the GeForce GTX 275. Both cards are expected to be released very soon for around $250, you can check out some benchmark results of seven games over here to get an idea of how they will perform.

The reviewer concludes NVIDIA is likely the winner of this round as the GeForce GTX 275 is expected to offer good price per performance while the Radeon HD 4890 is likely not much faster than its predecessor. Based on the simulation, the Radeon HD 4890 is 25 percent more expensive than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB but offers only 5-6 percent more performance. The GeForce GTX 275 on the other hand is expected to be 30 percent cheaper than the GeForce GTX 285 but performance will be only 8-12 percent less. It's an interesting article, but we'll have to wait for real Radeon HD 4890 and GeForce GTX 275 reviews to know who will be the winner of the latest graphics battle. The Legion Hardware article assumes the RV790 is just an overclocked version of the RV770, but there are some rumours that the RV790 will have architectural enhancements.
If the GeForce GTX 275 comes in at around $250 US as well, it will be 29% cheaper than the GeForce GTX 285 while it will also be 25% more expensive than the GeForce GTX 260. This is interesting because the GeForce GTX 275 was just 8% slower than the GeForce GTX 285 in Crysis Warhead, 8% slower in Enemy Territory Quake Wars, 8% in Far Cry 2, 12% in Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X, 11% in The Last Remnant, 7% in Unreal Tournament 3 and 10% in World in Conflict.

So then it looks as though gamers will save almost 30% when buying a GeForce GTX 275 opposed to the GeForce GTX 285, and as a result they will only suffer an 8 – 12% performance loss. Therefore, while the Radeon HD 4890 could turn out to be a failure in terms of value, it could be a very different story for the GeForce GTX 275. The only problem for Nvidia here is that they could be shooting themselves in the foot with the GeForce GTX 275, as it makes the GeForce GTX 285 somewhat pointless.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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