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GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Intro

The GeForce GTX 280 uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 602 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1107 MHz on this specific model. It features 240 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, which comes with clock speeds of 1000 MHz on the GPU, and 975 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB 190 Watts
GeForce GTX 280 236 Watts
Difference: 46 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 280 is 14% quicker than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280 141696 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB 124800 MB/sec
Difference: 16896 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be a bit (approximately 20%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280 48160 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB 40000 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 8160 (20%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 280 is superior to the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280 19264 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB 16000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 3264 (20%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

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GeForce GTX 280

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 280 Radeon HD 4890 1GB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year June 17, 2008 Apr 2, 2009
Code Name G200 RV790 XT
Memory 1024 MB 1024 MB
Core Speed 602 MHz 1000 MHz
Memory Speed 2214 MHz 3900 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 236 watts 190 watts
Bandwidth 141696 MB/sec 124800 MB/sec
Texel Rate 48160 Mtexels/sec 40000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 19264 Mpixels/sec 16000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 240 800(160x5)
Texture Mapping Units 80 40
Render Output Units 32 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 512-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 55 nm
Transistors 1400 million 959 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.1 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 280

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Comments

One Response to “GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon HD 4890 1GB”
Ati 4890 sau Gtx 280 says:

[...] dap...din pacate pentru cei care au ales 4890 m-am axat pe evga gtx 280 sc maine dau avansul ,iar luni/marti ajunge la mine ,din ce am vorbit cu ,el,vanzatorul este expert in [...]

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