4850X2 VS 4890
-
INTRODUCTION
Ati recently released the 4890 and with a bang it hits the market,with its awesome performance per dollar and great overclocking potential this card earns due respect,but wait is there any other ati card you should opt above this one at this range,you might be thinking about the 4850X2.
-
Some Basics
Lets start with the basics,id ask you 4870 out performs the 4850???
lets jus analyze why ?
Ans :Though both have same number of streamprocessors and transistors 4870 has almost double bandwidth due to the whooping ddr5 bus . Faster the bus transfer more will be the bandwidth for every count of memory clock.
-
Power of 4890
In 4890 if we observe the clocks of the 4870 has been raised with an increase in transistors count and we have the 4890 ,for me the 4890 is nothing but a 4870 sonic edition .
-
Power of 4850X2
Now let us see the 4850X2, here we have 800X2(4890 has 800) stream processors and though we have ddr3 bus speed, here we have 2X256 bit width of the bus so decent gain in bandwidth over the single ddr3 256 bit bus.
-
Comparision
4850X2 has double number of stream processors,and almost same bandwidth.
The 4890 has more number of trasnsistors but half number of stream processors .
SO specifications says it all ,the 4850X2>4890 in terms of raw FLOPS.
-
Other thoughts
Now though 4850X2 is stronger but it doesnt perform as per its specifciations.
X2 ’s are 2 cards glued together on a single die,so there will be some talking time to each other , i.e synchronizing delay ,so it will perform 10-15% less as it should as per its specifications .
The 4850X2 is stronger gpu no doubt on that but games should be well optimized also (i see future games will be well optimized for the dual cards ,many present games are also doing g8)
If u will test in old games the single gpu will win but future will be for dual cards.
-
Power consumption 4850X2 vs 4890
Coming to the power consumption the HD4850X2 consumes 158W at idle & 325W at peak load,where as the 4890 takes 178 watts when idle and 285 on load .
The 4890 is seen to be more power efficient ,hence considered to have an edge here but the 4890 oc which comes close to 4850X2 performance consumes even more power than the 4850X2 stock so i dont see any great edge for the 4890 over the 4850X2 ,again any thing less than the corsair tx 550 is not recommended for a system equiped with any of these two monsters.
My conclusion: i would choose the 4850X2 over the 4890 if i am on a deal at almost same price for both.
by srikar.s
I was just searching for about this when I discovered your blog post. I’m simply dropping by to say that I definitely enjoyed reading this post, it is very well written. Are you considering writing more about this? It appears like there is more fodder here for later posts.
@Srikar
Very gud review but some very important points which u have not mentioned in this review are:
ATI HD 4890 vs. Sapphire HD 4850X2
Which one would u choose ?
I’ll put my money on 4890 for reasons below:
1) 4890 has a lot of potential compare to 4850×2. I run my board at 1000core/1050mem without any issues.
2) Games that don’t run with crossfire you will get 4890 performance not 4850.
3) 4890 crossfire has less exposure to driver issues than 4850×2 x2 (CF).
4) There are a lot of choices for 4890 and only Sapphire for 4850×2.
^^^dude u have copy pasted that reply of someone from the toms hardware forum,btw for all ur questions or points u mentioned i have written the relevent answers above,there is also a point i mentioned abt dual cards optimazation in games and also abt overclocking and power consumption ,so i think i need ans abt that ,just read the article once carefully ull have ur answers
hmm kind of ..btw way thanx for ur words ….really encourageing
Hi, have u got any kind of benchmarks ?
Any problems with stability and driver issues ?
There’s nothing worse than spending big bucks on gpu and then not being able to play the game…
i dont think there are any more drivers isues ,the catalyst 9.6 specially shows remarkable boost in CF and dual card performance,there are some indirect comparisions,btw i would suggest u not to go with any of the above cards as dx 11 cards about to realse spending so much money on these cards arent worthy
for now the gtx 260 sp216 is best buy ,its jus 15% slower than a 275/4890 ,or another smart move would be jus take a 4770 for now (99% games would run @max
if u have a 19 screen(1440*900) and also it will do fine on a 22 screen(1600*1200) and later upgrade 2 a 5XXX series dx 11 gpu.
here i found benchmarks for 4850×2 ,u can compare it with 4890 whose benches are easily available
http://vr-zone.com/articles/sapphire-hd-4850×2-first-look–tested/6157.html?doc=6157
Hi, pcgamersera.com to GoogleReader!
Thanks for article. Everytime like to read you.
Elcoj
nice article
[...] http://pcgamersera.com/2009/05/4850×2-vs-4890/ And this link: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid…uarez-2_4.html __________________ Xfire [...]
[...] http://pcgamersera.com/2009/05/4850×2-vs-4890/ And this link: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid…uarez-2_4.html [...]
[...] or 4850×2 is the better buy and really there is no right answer but this might give you an idea: 4850×2 vs 4890 – Pc Gamers Era -taboo_ __________________ I put my name on [...]