4890 Review Thread

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: soonerproud

Originally posted by: nib95
Why do ATI cards have such terrible idle power consumption? It really bothers me. Especially since my computer is on so often, and electricity in the UK isn't cheap!

That is what sleep and hibernate are for. Just set the pc up to go to sleep in 10 minutes if it is not used.

Or you can even use ATI Tray tool to underclock AND undervolt the card. I have my 4870 at 550(core)/400(mem) @1.08v for idle speeds.

 

[evolucion8]

ATi Tray Tool is a good idea for lowering the power consumption of the HD 4870. I used RBEDIT and modified my BIOS with some settings that were tested in many other HD 4870 and worked fine. My idle core speed remained the same 500MHz but with lower voltages, at 1.063 and I managed to lower the RAM at 450MHz (1.80GHz), somehow the VRAM ratio must be the in 2:1 so the screen won't flicker when it gets to full speeds. The power savings are up to 40W, the only annoying thing is that when I play a videogame or a movie, the screen flashes when the clocks are changing like the X1X00 series used to do, but that's not a problem for me.

 

[ironforge]

How does the 4890 do with empire total war? I have not seen many benchmarks using this game.

 

[SSChevy2001]

Originally posted by: ironforge
How does the 4890 do with empire total war? I have not seen many benchmarks using this game.

Here's a review, looks good.
http://www.driverheaven.net/re...reviewid=745&pageid=10

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001

Originally posted by: ironforge
How does the 4890 do with empire total war? I have not seen many benchmarks using this game.

Here's a review, looks good.
http://www.driverheaven.net/re...reviewid=745&pageid=10

The second graph shown above shows the performance achieved when we enable SSAO within the game, at this time the feature is completely broken on ATIs DirectX 9 driver and so those results are not included.

What's that about?

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001

Originally posted by: ironforge
How does the 4890 do with empire total war? I have not seen many benchmarks using this game.

Here's a review, looks good.
http://www.driverheaven.net/re...reviewid=745&pageid=10

The second graph shown above shows the performance achieved when we enable SSAO within the game, at this time the feature is completely broken on ATIs DirectX 9 driver and so those results are not included.

What's that about?

Isn't SSAO a direct X 10 only feature?

 

[Elfear]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001

Originally posted by: ironforge
How does the 4890 do with empire total war? I have not seen many benchmarks using this game.

Here's a review, looks good.
http://www.driverheaven.net/re...reviewid=745&pageid=10

The second graph shown above shows the performance achieved when we enable SSAO within the game, at this time the feature is completely broken on ATIs DirectX 9 driver and so those results are not included.

What's that about?

Come on Wreckage. Let's include the whole paragraph now.

"The second graph shown above shows the performance achieved when we enable SSAO within the game, at this time the feature is completely broken on ATIs DirectX 9 driver and so those results are not included. When a fixed driver is available we can only hope that ATI cards are impacted less than the Nvidia models which drop significantly in performance with that feature enabled. One for lower resolutions only."

 

[SSChevy2001]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001

Originally posted by: ironforge
How does the 4890 do with empire total war? I have not seen many benchmarks using this game.

Here's a review, looks good.
http://www.driverheaven.net/re...reviewid=745&pageid=10

The second graph shown above shows the performance achieved when we enable SSAO within the game, at this time the feature is completely broken on ATIs DirectX 9 driver and so those results are not included.

What's that about?

So your going to play this game @ 16fps avg with your GTX260?

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001

Originally posted by: ironforge
How does the 4890 do with empire total war? I have not seen many benchmarks using this game.

Here's a review, looks good.
http://www.driverheaven.net/re...reviewid=745&pageid=10

The second graph shown above shows the performance achieved when we enable SSAO within the game, at this time the feature is completely broken on ATIs DirectX 9 driver and so those results are not included.

What's that about?

So your going to play this game @ 16fps avg with your GTX260?

I don't play at that resolution so that feature will work just fine for me.

 

[Deville]

I had a 3870 X2, and just installed my new 4890 yesterday. I'm running a Phenom 2 940. Killer gaming rig!

3Dmark Vantage went from a GPU score of 8300 to just over 10,000. Of course, every test was notably faster, but the 3dMark test that really got my attention was the one the shows the aerial view of terrain in different lighting situations. My old 3870 struggled with this one. The new card tore through it like it was nothing. I can't wait to see if this improvement carries over to Flight Simulator X.

Fallout 3, maxed out at 19x12 (except set to 2xAA), and went from annoyingly choppy out in the Wastelands, to running brilliantly fluid.

This card did all I hoped it would for my system. Wish I had more time to game.

 

[zod96]

Got my 4890 today XFX from Newegg and its DOA I'm so pissed right now...

 

[Plutoburn]

Is it normal to have the video card to have an idle temp of 60 celcius?

GPU clock @ 950mhz, mem clock @ 1050

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: zod96
Got my 4890 today XFX from Newegg and its DOA I'm so pissed right now...

Sorry to hear that. Hope a replacement will make it up to you.

Is it normal to have the video card to have an idle temp of 60 celcius?
GPU clock @ 950mhz, mem clock @ 1050

That's 100MHz over stock clock, so unless you adjusted fan speed accordingly I'd say it's not an abnormal temp.

--

I just learned that there is a 2GB HD 4870 (not X2) out there.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814102826

I'm kinda curious how this thing performs @2560x1600. Does anyone have one?

Between that and HD 4890

Adv. 4870 - 2GB GDDR5, better cooling, HDMI output built-in
Adv. 4890 - Revised core and PCB design, better thermal characteristics, overall better performance when RAM isn't a factor

They're about the same price. ($250 give or take) I was kinda waiting for a 3rd party design 4890, and this Sapphire card is just that - except that it's 4870. :laugh:

Which one would you pick if you had a 30"? A 4870 with better cooling and 2GB, or a stock 4890 with 1GB?

 

[polarbear6]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster

Originally posted by: nib95
Why do ATI cards have such terrible idle power consumption? It really bothers me. Especially since my computer is on so often, and electricity in the UK isn't cheap!

It has to do with the GDDR5 iirc.

well here in india a unit costs 0.06$
thats a lot of money for me cause i use arnd 600 kwh a month
so iam not buying ATI

 

[MrK6]

Originally posted by: ganesh1

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster

Originally posted by: nib95
Why do ATI cards have such terrible idle power consumption? It really bothers me. Especially since my computer is on so often, and electricity in the UK isn't cheap!

It has to do with the GDDR5 iirc.

well here in india a unit costs 0.06$
thats a lot of money for me cause i use arnd 600 kwh a month
so iam not buying ATI

It's only like that at stock settings. If you use a program like ATI Tray Tools to lower the clocks and voltage a bit, they use next to nothing on idle.

 

[Plutoburn]

I am using CCC's overdrive to OC the video card, how do I adjust fan speed to lower idle temp while it would still know to adjust its speed under load?

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: ganesh1

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster

Originally posted by: nib95
Why do ATI cards have such terrible idle power consumption? It really bothers me. Especially since my computer is on so often, and electricity in the UK isn't cheap!

It has to do with the GDDR5 iirc.

well here in india a unit costs 0.06$
thats a lot of money for me cause i use arnd 600 kwh a month
so iam not buying ATI

The 4890 draws only 43.7 watts at idle. That's much less than the GTX 285 (59.9 watts) and is even below that of the GTX 260 (44.7 watts).

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...on-hd4890_6.html#sect0

Is 43.7 watts at idle really that terrible for a card this fast? It's not as if it was designed for HTPC's.

 

[SSChevy2001]

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: ganesh1

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster

Originally posted by: nib95
Why do ATI cards have such terrible idle power consumption? It really bothers me. Especially since my computer is on so often, and electricity in the UK isn't cheap!

It has to do with the GDDR5 iirc.

well here in india a unit costs 0.06$
thats a lot of money for me cause i use arnd 600 kwh a month
so iam not buying ATI

The 4890 draws only 43.7 watts at idle. That's much less than the GTX 285 (59.9 watts) and is even below that of the GTX 260 (44.7 watts).

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...on-hd4890_6.html#sect0

Is 43.7 watts at idle really that terrible for a card this fast? It's not as if it was designed for HTPC's.

That's not even considering that memory can still be downclocked to save even more power.

 

[zephyrprime]

So if the idle power draw is 43.7watts and assuming electricity is $0.10/kilowatt hour, then running the 4890 nonstop for 1 year will cost:

0.1*43.7/1000*24*365 = $38.2812/year

I'm not sure if this include power supply inefficiencies because I don't know how the 43.7 watt figure was arrived at.

 

[saiga6360]

Can underclocking do any kind of damage to the card if done improperly? I'm curious because I have a HD4870 1GB card in a small case and every little bit helps I guess.

 

[nib95]

I'm looking to pick one of these bad boys up. Can someone recommend which manufacturer to go with? The Asus Vanilla version is £203 but has the volt modding software included, or alternatively I can get the XFX XXX (pre OC'd) version for £210 along with the included copy of H.A.W.X. Which should I go for? Do you guys think the XFX XXX version will reach 1000mhz on the clock without any voltage changes?

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: nib95
I'm looking to pick one of these bad boys up. Can someone recommend which manufacturer to go with? The Asus Vanilla version is £203 but has the volt modding software included, or alternatively I can get the XFX XXX (pre OC'd) version for £210 along with the included copy of H.A.W.X. Which should I go for? Do you guys think the XFX XXX version will reach 1000mhz on the clock without any voltage changes?

If ASUS has gpu voltage control, is clear that it has more chances to hit 1000mhz. I'd go for that.

 

[lopri]

Price drop already began. Just saw this thread in Hot Deals forum.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2293769&enterthread=y

MSI 4890 - $183 after rebate and cash back
Gigabyte 4890 - $199+shipping (and possibly cash back)

Getting really tempted. Ugh.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: lopri
Price drop already began. Just saw this thread in Hot Deals forum.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2293769&enterthread=y

MSI 4890 - $183 after rebate and cash back
Gigabyte 4890 - $199+shipping (and possibly cash back)

Getting really tempted. Ugh.

That was awfully fast, wasn't it? From release on April 2nd at $249 dropping all the way down to $183 AR/CB w/free shipping on April 10th. That's barely over 1 week!

I couldn't hold out and ordered the MSI 4890, which is an OC model by the way. It's technically an OC at 880 MHz/4.0 GHz (stock is 850 Mhz/3.9 GHz), but that's really not very much of an OC.

I thought about holding off to see if other deals would pop up. But really, I can't see it dropping much below $183 anytime soon. And it could easily be awhile before a deal this good comes along again. So my 4850 gets bumped to the HTPC and the 3870 will go into my spare comp.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: Elfear

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001

Originally posted by: ironforge
How does the 4890 do with empire total war? I have not seen many benchmarks using this game.

Here's a review, looks good.
http://www.driverheaven.net/re...reviewid=745&pageid=10

The second graph shown above shows the performance achieved when we enable SSAO within the game, at this time the feature is completely broken on ATIs DirectX 9 driver and so those results are not included.

What's that about?

Come on Wreckage. Let's include the whole paragraph now.

"The second graph shown above shows the performance achieved when we enable SSAO within the game, at this time the feature is completely broken on ATIs DirectX 9 driver and so those results are not included. When a fixed driver is available we can only hope that ATI cards are impacted less than the Nvidia models which drop significantly in performance with that feature enabled. One for lower resolutions only."

:laugh: