4890 CF vs 5850 vs 5870?

[nOOky]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-310-5970,2491.html

Tom's guides if you don't go over there.

 

[crisium]

Tom's is getting kind of weird. The hierarchy chart has become rather troublesome. For some reason a 4890 is closer to the 5770 than to the GTX 280, and the 4870X2 is above the 5870. I guess that's what happens with drugs.

The price recommendations aren't bad, but don't take too much stock in the hierarchy chart. It's just... dumb.

 

[lopri]

I'd take a single 5850 over two 4890s. Heck when I couldn't find a 5850/5870, I was going to replace a 4890 with a 5770.

 

[jvroig]

I'd take a single 5850 over two 4890s. Heck when I couldn't find a 5850/5870, I was going to replace a 4890 with a 5770.

Why? Is it because of DX11, lower power consumption, smaller size?

 

[T2k]

The Radeon 4890 is the only upper-middle tier card worth buying. GTX 260, 275, Radeon 4870, 5750, 5770 are all over priced when compared to the 4890. You either want a lower-middle tier Radeon 4770 at $99 or a 4890 at ~$195. Everything in between is priced much worse than it was just a few months ago.

What a load of illogical nonsense: 5770 (DX11, better architecture, far superior filtering, less power hungry - more OC-friendly etc etc) is overpriced for $160 but the past-gen, soon-to-be-discontinued 4980 (DX10, power-hungry) is not over priced for $195?

And on top of this crap then you turn around and say a 4770 - utterly crippled PoS nowadays - is good at $99?

I really doubt people read what they type...

 

[T2k]

Why? Is it because of DX11, lower power consumption, smaller size?

That and much better AA, very fast memory (even on 128-bit it has more bandwidth per SP than a 5850 does, as someone just pointed out in the other topic.)

 

[crisium]

It's called price-to-performance ratio. 4770 at $99 (sadly that deal is currently gone) was a master at it. But that was only recommended as a temporary solution.

The 4890 also beats the 5770 in that ratio. 185/165 for the cheapest options right now. The 4890 is generally more than 15% faster, so I'll leave you with the simple math of deciding which one is a better bang for your buck. The high power consumption is regrettable, but sometimes of less importance than that 16% or so performance increase.

Illogical nonsense? Or different emphasis on importance? You lack perspective; stop thinking you're always right.

 

[happy medium]

How do 2 5770s compare to 2 4890s?

EDIT: Nevermind, they barely beat just one 4890, two should demolish them.

What? 2 5770's in cross fire will sometimes beat a 5870 and woop a single 4890. They are also cheaper then a 4890 unless you jump through hoops ,stand on your head, and depend on cash back rebate crap.

5770's scale very well with crossfire.

Did you read the benchmark I posted?

 

[ChorniyVolk]

What? 2 5770's in cross fire will sometimes beat a 5870 and woop a single 4890. They are also cheaper then a 4890 unless you jump through hoops ,stand on your head, and depend on cash back rebate crap.

5770's scale very well with crossfire.

Did you read the benchmark I posted?

2 5770's are cheaper than one 4890?

Yeah, they beat the 4890 (though in certain games it's close, which was my point), but if two 4870s can beat two 5770s, and the 4890 is more powerful than a 4870, one would logically conclude that two 4890s would beat two 5770s, no?

Your first link doesn't work anymore, and the second doesn't have 4890 CF stats, but thanks anyway, the more benchmarks the merrier.

 

[ChorniyVolk]

And before you say that 2 5770s are much cheaper than 2 4890s, I'll say this: not if we're talking about prices outside of new straight from the factory, like new stuff on ebay or used stuff anywhere. Even a 4870x2 would cost about the same if not less, for more performance. Power isn't a problem, I'll be grabbing a high quality 750w PSU, but I'm not saying I don't value less power munching and noise making, but I'll only take it into consideration if the difference in power isn't that high, which depending on what we're talking about, might be (like a 5770 vs a 4890, not exactly super close).

 

[happy medium]

And before you say that 2 5770s are much cheaper than 2 4890s, I'll say this: not if we're talking about prices outside of new straight from the factory, like new stuff on ebay or used stuff anywhere. Even a 4870x2 would cost about the same if not less, for more performance. Power isn't a problem, I'll be grabbing a high quality 750w PSU, but I'm not saying I don't value less power munching and noise making, but I'll only take it into consideration if the difference in power isn't that high, which depending on what we're talking about, might be (like a 5770 vs a 4890, not exactly super close).

Sorry for the broken link.

Here is crossfire 5770's putting the smackdown on the 4870x2.
Look closely there are crossfire benchies in there to.
It looks like trifire 5770's have driver problems except in far cry2.

The 5xxx series seems to scale better when crossfired.

So we have.....

1. far lower power consumption
2. better feature set
3. better performance then the 4870x2 and probrobly 4890 crossfire also or at least real close.
4. much quieter
5. cooler running by far
6. cheaper @ 164$
7 better resale value in 6 months

Did I miss something?

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5770-in-3way-crossfirex-review-test/5

 

[ChorniyVolk]

Woah woah woah, now we're jumping ahead. The 5770s don't get consistently better performance than the 4870x2, they even lose some battles (like Crysis). And strangely, Anandtech's benches have the 4870x2 beating the 5770 CF by quite a few frames in a few games like HAWX, while on guru3d they end up losing by quite a few frames. Now I don't know who to trust.

But where are the benches for 4890 CF? You can't just assume it's going to be beaten or matched, when the 4870x2 itself is pretty close, if not matching/beating in some games.

But the rest of your points do sound good. My only other problem is prices, $320+ for 2 5770s wherever I look, while the 4870x2 can be found for less (yeah, the $200 deal was probably a rare opportunity, but $250-$300 isn't all that far off). 2 4890s can easily be found for the same price as well.

And I'm sorry if I come off as a douche, I'd just like to be 100% on any choices I make and when there's doubt, then it's not 100%.

 

[happy medium]

Woah woah woah, now we're jumping ahead. The 5770s don't get consistently better performance than the 4870x2, they even lose some battles (like Crysis). And strangely, Anandtech's benches have the 4870x2 beating the 5770 CF by quite a few frames in a few games like HAWX, while on guru3d they end up losing by quite a few frames. Now I don't know who to trust.

But where are the benches for 4890 CF? You can't just assume it's going to be beaten or matched, when the 4870x2 itself is pretty close, if not matching/beating in some games.

But the rest of your points do sound good. My only other problem is prices, $320+ for 2 5770s wherever I look, while the 4870x2 can be found for less (yeah, the $200 deal was probably a rare opportunity, but $250-$300 isn't all that far off). 2 4890s can easily be found for the same price as well.

And I'm sorry if I come off as a douche, I'd just like to be 100% on any choices I make and when there's doubt, then it's not 100%.

I'm not debating you, I was trying to help you.
I agreed in earlier post that 200$ for a 4870x2 was great.

In my opinion crossfired 5770's are better then 4890's for the price.
How do I know how crossfired 4890's perform?
Just add about 5 fps to the 4870x2 marks.

good luck.

 

[ChorniyVolk]

Yeah, I know; hell, you're the one who posted the deal in here.

I guess I'll have to think it over. But what about the mixed bench results? If anandtech is right, and using your logic, the dual 4890s would have quite a large lead in a few games, and a moderately sized lead in everything else.

Hmm, I suppose I'll have to think it over, but this is good, progress, there aren't 20 different options to choose from, just a few. Thanks.

 

[ChorniyVolk]

Hey wait a second, are all nvidia cards bad? The gtx 260 216 is about the same price as a 5770 depending on where you get it, and one performs better than one 5770, what about in SLI? I've read they do better than the 4870x2.

 

[crisium]

Huh? The GTX 260 is generally (though not always) a bit faster than a 5770. It also has the advantage of Physx support, while lacking DX 11. Slightly higher power consumption as well. For the exact same price, I can definitely see GTX 260 being a good buy.

But keep in mind it's usually a tad more than a 5770, and close to the 4890. The 4890 beats the GTX 260 most of the time. If you start playing the "pay a little more" game you're gonna run into problems like this.

Get 2x 5770s if you care about power consumption and DX11, get 2x 4890s if you don't care about those and instead want the best outright performance. Get 2x GTX 260 if you value Physx.

 

[ChorniyVolk]

What's the single card equivalent of 2 GTX 260s? Is there one? Like the 5970 is 2 5870s, and all that.

 

[happy medium]

gtx 295, which is exspensive!

 

[nOOky]

I believe the GTX295 is two GTX275's on a single card...

 

[happy medium]

What's the single card equivalent of 2 GTX 260s? Is there one? Like the 5970 is 2 5870s, and all that.

Close enough.

 

[crisium]

5870 and 4870x2 perform very close to 2x 260s as well. But the price on them... ugh. Same with GTX 295 which is definitely faster... but too pricey.

 

[ChorniyVolk]

I don't know, I don't think the 5770s are worthwhile at their current price, power consumption isn't a concern for me, and DX11 currently doesn't interest me (so far only 3 games use it and I'm only interested in 1, STALKER, the rest are coming out months from now). I can get 2 4890s for a little under $290 (even less if I sell the games that come with them), so it's either them or the 260s for quite a bit more for physx, the idea being that once the next tier of cards come out I can sell one 260, and use the other for a dedicated physx card in one slot and a decent single-slot card for my main video processing.

Hmm...what to do what to do....

I'll have to go check out which games use physx, if it's less than 5 that use it that I want, then fuck it, 4890s it is, because either way I'll get physx with a cheaper card, the 260s will just offer better physx support (though at the cost of total processing power). I googled a thread and even when the 4890 cost quite a bit more than the 260, most people said to go with the 4890. I wonder if driver changes in the last 5-7 months would change that, but I'm doubting it.

 

[ChorniyVolk]

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_home.html

That's quite a short list.

So assuming that I get a dedicated physx card with the 4890s, the only reason to get the 260s is to have one as an even more powerful physx card in the future when I get a better single card from the next generation; I don't count better physx processing now because even if I have 2 260s running and processing physx, I'll be destroying their performance otherwise, so in games that use physx they'll get better physx support but lose terribly to the 4890s in pure performance, if I don't use physx or play a game without then they'll still lose to the 4890s, and if I get a 3rd card for physx then there's no point in getting them in the first place.

So 2 4890s seem like the best choice. I'm sorry I have to ask this, but I question every choice of my mine: any objections to my logic-based conclusion?

 

[toyota]

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_home.html

That's quite a short list.

So assuming that I get a dedicated physx card with the 4890s, the only reason to get the 260s is to have one as an even more powerful physx card in the future when I get a better single card from the next generation; I don't count better physx processing now because even if I have 2 260s running and processing physx, I'll be destroying their performance otherwise, so in games that use physx they'll get better physx support but lose terribly to the 4890s in pure performance, if I don't use physx or play a game without then they'll still lose to the 4890s, and if I get a 3rd card for physx then there's no point in getting them in the first place.

So 2 4890s seem the most logical choice? I'm sorry I have to ask this, but I question every choice of my mine: any objections to my logic-based conclusion?

as for as I know physx usually doesnt work with SLI. you have to run one card for physx and one for graphics. really I think physx would be a silly reason to chose your gpu setup. Batman is the only game that had decent effects and even those are not all that impressive and can actually cause glitches(floating leaves etc). in fact most of the effects such as destructible walls that were in the Batman demo and promo vids were actually removed from the final game. do not let physx sway your gpu decision.

 

[ChorniyVolk]

Really? It doesn't work with SLI? Well shit, fuck that then.

I suppose it was silly, even if that weren't true, I was so convinced it was a huge part, but even in the short list of games where it's supported it's not an integral part of the game. I think it has something to do with the fact that I just put in a tinfoil hat, and suddenly any positive emotions I had towards nvidia vanished. Damn corporations and their mind control.

I still think it'll be worthwhile to get a sub-$100 card for physx processing, maybe like a $40-$50 card just to see the cool things that it can do. Plus, aren't there other things that can use a dedicated graphics-turned-physx card like fun physics based software? Like PHUN or something like that. No?

New question though, the motherboard I want to get doesn't support 16/16/8, only 16/16/1 or 16/8/8. If it turns out that the physx card is being bottlenecked by an x1 bandwidth slot, and I switched to the second set up, would I lose a lot of performance out of the 4890s going at x8/x8 instead of x16/x16 (assuming that the second card in an x8 slot would bring down the first one in an x16 slot down to x8 to work together properly)?

I found this: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5850,2433-14.html

It says that 2 5850s in CF at x8/x8 are close or equal to them running at x16/x16, right? And if that's true, then the slightly less powerful 4890s in CF would be the same way and I could safely go x8/x8 with them and not lose anything while giving the physx card x8 worth of bandwidth (more than enough I believe).