4890 Cross Fire --> GTX 480 (sidegrade or upgrade?)

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Brampton_Boy

Limp Gawd
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Jul 28, 2005
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Though I don't have nearly as much time anymore to indulge in gaming, when I do, I like to have the best experience possible.

Playing Metro 2033, my frame rate often dips below 30 in large outdoor battles (1980x1080, Very High Quality, AAA Anti Aliasing).

I was thinking about making the switch to something with a little more power under the hood, but I can't seem to find benchmarks that compare 4890s in CF to the 480/5870.

Would a GTX 480 be measurably faster than two moderately overclocked 4890s?

Specs are in sig.

Thank you for the advice!

P.S: The 5970 is a little too rich for my blood, so my choices are between a 480 and the 5870.
 
It would be mostly a sidegrade, occasionally an upgrade. In games with decent CF scaling, its a sidegrade. In games with mediocre or poor scaling, its a moderate upgrade. In games with no CF scaling, its a huge upgrade.

Since you don't game much, you would probably be better off with a 5870. Not as fast as the GTX 480, but packs plenty of power for your resolution. It also has very low idle power usage, for when you aren't gaming. The GTX 480 is that extra bit faster, though, and does do better in Metro 2033. Depending on your sensitivity to FPS, that may or may not matter.
 
5870 so you can eyeinfinity later on with another one and more screens. But +1 on 480, if you don't mind the slight more heat and power draw.
 
I went from a hd4870x2 to a 480 and my min and avg fps improved quite a bit, I'm happy with the results.
 
a very good upgrade? what are you talking about? A 4870 x2 keeps up and beats a 5870 in cases, and im pretty confident 4890 crossfire will beat a 5870 most of the time. side grade or a very slight upgrade at the most.
 
Pliskin said:
a very good upgrade? what are you talking about? A 4870 x2 keeps up and beats a 5870 in cases, and im pretty confident 4890 crossfire will beat a 5870 most of the time. side grade or a very slight upgrade at the most.
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But again that all depends of multi-GPU scaling which is far from perfect not to mention that even when scaling is decent the single card 480 can often maintain higher minimum frame rates. Overall yes, it is a solid UPGRADE for for the fact of the matter that you'll have the overall best single GPU performance there is right now and that's still pretty important. The truth of the matter multi-GPU will just not often scale or cause other issues. Not all the time, maybe not even the majority of times but multi-GPU is far from bullet proof and there's issues that are just common.
 
The GTX480 is definitely an upgrade and it may even use less power idk off the top of my head. The 5870 is also a good choice. Neither is a bad decision.
 
Sorry but to spend $500 for 5%-15% more performance is ridiculous and not what anyone should call a "good" upgrade. Seriously, what game has been recently released, will max out a single 4890/275 at 1080, and wont support crossfire/sli? If the OP's concern is switching to a single card to get away from micro stutter or the like then its a totally different story, and the 480 would allow him to move to a single card without seeing a drop in performance relative to his current setup. Aside from dx11 it's a side grade. Wait another generation, you can still get plenty from those cards.
 
TheBlueChanell said:
The GTX480 is definitely an upgrade and it may even use less power idk off the top of my head. The 5870 is also a good choice. Neither is a bad decision.
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The GTX480 is definitely an upgrade but uses more power and more heat output.
 
its not a upgrade for sure, its more of a sidegrade.

its only upgrade in specific game that does not scale in CF, other than that, its not really worth for a sidegrade.
 
Pliskin said:
a very good upgrade? what are you talking about? A 4870 x2 keeps up and beats a 5870 in cases, and im pretty confident 4890 crossfire will beat a 5870 most of the time. side grade or a very slight upgrade at the most.
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And the 5870 is smoked by the GTX 480 at higher resolutions with goodies on what don't you understand? :rolleyes: Thats not even including adding a second GTX 480 later which scales extremely well.

I upgraded from a 4870 x2 (Diamond , per my bitch thread about there horrible support) and even when I only had one card installed it still smoked it. Benchmarks are benchmarks , real world performance is a different beast.

How many of you actually own a GTX 480 or 480 SLI?
 
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Taking the 5970 out of the picture, for Metro 2033 in particular, the GTX 480 is an UPGRADE. This is because GTX 4xx hardware is currently the fastest at rendering that game. No ifs ands or buts about it. The benefits of a powerful single GPU have been discussed in other threads and I won't rehash it except to say that it will provide you with more consistent minimum framerates.

PS You cannot compare DX10 performance vs DX11 performance. DX10 will yield much better framerates but you won't have the eyecandy and advanced DX11 features such as tessallation, etc.
 
Godmachine said:
And the 5870 is smoked by the GTX 480 at higher resolutions with goodies on what don't you understand? :rolleyes: Thats not even including adding a second GTX 480 later which scales extremely well.

I upgraded from a 4870 x2 (Diamond , per my bitch thread about there horrible support) and even when I only had one card installed it still smoked it. Benchmarks are benchmarks , real world performance is a different beast.

How many of you actually own a GTX 480 or 480 SLI?
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5870 is not smoked by 480 on higher resolution, unless the game demand much more VRAM, and only to that specific situation.

I move from 5870 to 480, I can tell you its hardly to notice the performance difference in actual game play until I boost my 480 up to 860/2000, then that is where its noticeable.

PS: was playing games on 1920*1200. had to downgrade to 1680*1050 due to single card isn't holding the performance that I want at higher resolution.
 
5870 -- Lower idle power, quieter, cooler and cheaper than the GTX480. Both give very good results in terms of graphical performance.
 
What isn't being taken into consideration AS MUCH as debating if it's an upgrade or not, are three things.

1) The 480 will be DX11 capable. While this doesn't mean much now, it will as the year goes on.
2) The 480 is physx ready and good to go, where as the 4890's are not.
3) The 480 has proven to be better at higher scale AA and AF than ATI cards, according to benchmark.

If you like Metro, then 1 and 2 are more important.
Keep in mind, I'm a hardcore ATi fanboi, and in no way, shape, or form like nVidia cards. I'm just playing devils advocate here, because I understand that it isn't my money in this scenario, and my personal preferences do not apply.

Also, if you buy the 480, that's two more 4890's on the [H] market. :)
 
Headcase said:
What isn't being taken into consideration AS MUCH as debating if it's an upgrade or not, are three things.

1) The 480 will be DX11 capable. While this doesn't mean much now, it will as the year goes on.
2) The 480 is physx ready and good to go, where as the 4890's are not.
3) The 480 has proven to be better at higher scale AA and AF than ATI cards, according to benchmark.

If you like Metro, then 1 and 2 are more important.
Keep in mind, I'm a hardcore ATi fanboi, and in no way, shape, or form like nVidia cards. I'm just playing devils advocate here, because I understand that it isn't my money in this scenario, and my personal preferences do not apply.

Also, if you buy the 480, that's two more 4890's on the [H] market. :)
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uh, 480 does not do better scale on AA and AF than 5870, only during the situation where it require more VRAM, like I state above.

and 480's AA is horrible TBH, tried different method, lots of alias still exist...while ATI is the opposite, even 32xAA + 8xTrSSAA still shit tons of alias in game, most obvious in CSS since I play the most now.
 
shansoft said:
uh, 480 does not do better scale on AA and AF than 5870, only during the situation where it require more VRAM, like I state above.

and 480's AA is horrible TBH, tried different method, lots of alias still exist...while ATI is the opposite, even 32xAA + 8xTrSSAA still shit tons of alias in game, most obvious in CSS since I play the most now.
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There is much debate and I think now with the advent of nVidia 3D Vision Surround that scaling needs to be looked at from two different perspectives, single monitor and multi-monitor gaming. My gut tells me from all that I've read, 2x GPU single monitor scaling is very competitive between the Red and Green teams but that multi-monitor and scaling beyond 2 tends to work better. Like I said just my gut but thus far I love Surround. I do have to turn down settings to down more often than not on newer games and AA tops out at 2xAA but the experience more than makes up for the loss of visual quality,

480 AA horrible, don't think I've heard any professional hardware reviewers mention anything like this.
 
I can work this out petty simply

1) A 5870 is basically two 4870s
2) A 4890 is slightly better than a 4870
3) A GTX 480 is slightly better than a 5870.
4) Therefore, the performance of a 4890x2 setup compared to a single GTX 480 should be extremely similar.
On power usage, a 4890 uses about 200W. A GTX 480 uses about 300W. The GTX 480 will use less power since it is one card.
 
heatlesssun said:
There is much debate and I think now with the advent of nVidia 3D Vision Surround that scaling needs to be looked at from two different perspectives, single monitor and multi-monitor gaming. My gut tells me from all that I've read, 2x GPU single monitor scaling is very competitive between the Red and Green teams but that multi-monitor and scaling beyond 2 tends to work better. Like I said just my gut but thus far I love Surround. I do have to turn down settings to down more often than not on newer games and AA tops out at 2xAA but the experience more than makes up for the loss of visual quality,

480 AA horrible, don't think I've heard any professional hardware reviewers mention anything like this.
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I cant comment anything on Multi-monitor on nVidia, since I have not yet have one to test.

but the AA, its seriously noticeable in CS Source compare to what I have on 5870 before, or maybe I just have a sharp eye that can tell what others cant :confused:

I will see if I can get a ATI card to show you on that. (its much more noticeable when moving than staying in same position.
 
Supertag said:
I can work this out petty simply

1) A 5870 is basically two 4870s
2) A 4890 is slightly better than a 4870
3) A GTX 480 is slightly better than a 5870.
4) Therefore, the performance of a 4890x2 setup compared to a single GTX 480 should be extremely similar.
On power usage, a 4890 uses about 200W. A GTX 480 uses about 300W. The GTX 480 will use less power since it is one card.
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This is correct.
 
Changed my mind a bit hold onto those 4890's a bit longer save up enuf cash for the next nvidia cards gonna be released like how ppl bought the first GTX280's that came out and had trade in or sell there 280's coz of the better performance of the GTX285's that came out like a month later.
 
Matthew Kane said:
Changed my mind a bit hold onto those 4890's a bit longer save up enuf cash for the next nvidia cards gonna be released like how ppl bought the first GTX280's that came out and had trade in or sell there 280's coz of the better performance of the GTX285's that came out like a month later.
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The 285 came out like 4 or 5 months later and it wasn't even suprise as rumors of the 285 were out before the 280 was launched. But the 285 was a pretty minor upgrade, kept my three 280s for almost two years, pretty much a record for me on the same GPU on my main gaming rig.
 
heatlesssun said:
The 285 came out like 4 or 5 months later and it wasn't even suprise as rumors of the 285 were out before the 280 was launched. But the 285 was a pretty minor upgrade, kept my three 280s for almost two years, pretty much a record for me on the same GPU on my main gaming rig.
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Im a bit outdated, sorry :( Got carried away by my 5970's.
 
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