Upgrading my 8800gts 512 sli to hd 4890

[Puffnstuff]

Well over the years I used to go back and forth between nvidia and ati for my gpu's. It's been about 6 years since I bought a radeon as my last was a aiw 9800pro which was a decent card at the time. Well now I'm going to give them another try with a HIS HD 4890 which was way cheaper than the last 8800gts 512 I purchased for sli. I'm hoping for performance increase plus lower power consumption along with heat reduction. I'm also looking to regain the use of the lower slots on my mb for other cards. I've already dl'd the latest catalyst driver in preparation for the swap plus I'll run a driver cleaner to eliminate any stray nvidia driver entries in the registry before I install it.

I am curious though if anyone else has moved from a sli setup to a single hd 4890 and what were your thoughts on it? I'm tired of the microstutter plus some strange squiggly lines that appear every so often with the nvidia drivers. One release may not produce it but the next two will. Well anyway I've already made the decision to go back and have already made the purchase from newegg. I got the his hd 4890 for $224.99 w/free shipping and a $25 mir so it was way cheaper than a gtx 275.

 

[cubeless]

i show slightly better benchmark numbers with sli 8800gts than a 4890... this is with a q8200@3.15 in a 750sli... didn't leave the 4890 in, was just testing... the 4890 seemed to be pretty close in actual game play, tho... this was at 1600x1200...

 

[OCGuy]

In games that scale, that is more like a sideways step. In some cases, the 8800GTS SLI will be faster.

 

[mhouck]

I moved from the 9800GX2 to the 4890 and that's basically you're set up since I had a decent overclock on it.

I've notice smoother game play. GRID (which may not be a fair comparison considering how much better ATI cards run in it) used to run butter smooth on the GX2 and then when the smoke or the Tokyo drift course can up it would stutter like crazy. On the 4890, its fluid the entire time. Fallout 3 is about the same but it was fluid to begin with. Crysis gameplay may be slightly better but not a huge improvement.

I'm happy with the switch but I don't think you will be wowed by it. The biggest difference is only the moments when I would get a stutter from GX2 are gone. It used to drive me crazy but now its not an issue.

 

[lopri]

Huge difference. "Smoother" game play. "Free" x8AA.

AF quality is lacking, however. Not likely you'll notice it especially when you're impressed by the above mentioned, but if you have them side-by-side you can easily tell the superior filtering quality of NV cards.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: lopri
Huge difference. "Smoother" game play. "Free" x8AA.

AF quality is lacking, however. Not likely you'll notice it especially when you're impressed by the above mentioned, but if you have them side-by-side you can easily tell the superior filtering quality of NV cards.

When "upgrading", you usually hope for more than a little more AA (which most people cant even tell the difference between 4 and 8X) and "smoother", something that cannot be measured and is subjective.

Now 2X 4890....we're talkin.

 

[SickBeast]

It's unacceptable that AMD has poor AF filtering considering they had great filtering in the past.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: OCguy


Now 2X 4890....we're talkin.

i agree, 4890 crossfire has incredible performance.

Hopefully you have something other than the 750i, like a p45 or x58 to add another 4890 to down the road.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I still see this as an upgrade. Even if a program takes advantage of both of my 8800gts 512's the performance is only slightly better than a single gtx 260 not to mention the power required for both of them vs a single hd4890 which performs closer to a gtx 285. More gpu power with less power draw is a win win situation for me plus that power is available all the time and no more microstutter.