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DIAMOND ATI HD-3870 - vs - DIAMOND ATI HD-4890

I was curious if there was a major difference in performance between them
that would be worth upgrading to this newer HD-4890 card.

Or should I stay put and wait for a newer card than the HD-4890.?

And also whats the performance difference between these 2 cards.


Thanks guys


.

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OldBuzzard

Your system and mine are very similar.

Personally, I don't see any video card on the market that I think is worth upgrading to. A pair of 3870's in crossfire, or a 3870 X2 has enough performance to run anything currently on the market at respectable frame-rates. Sure, they aren't the fastest, and you don't get 'e-pecker points' for having the fastest card available, but they are fast enough for now. I won't be upgrading until the next generation cards come out with DX 11 support.

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comp_ali

I tend to agree with Old Buzzard.

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Judas

there is a noticeable performance improvement... but i would even suggest sticking it out as the 3870 is a damn good performer..

i would suspect by june/july that ATI's 5xxx series will have arrived.

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Mac Daddy

There is a huge difference even my 9600gt can outperform a 3870 and also a 3850 easily with stock clocks.

I purchased my first ever Diamond card from Chaos this Diamond Viper 4870 512 and it is fast. On the 4890 I haven't checked it out yet but I feel the ATI 48xx series is completely different from the 3xxx series.

But then again I skipped the NV 88xx series because I thought it was too power hungry

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DJ BIG T

wave i look at it this way if your 3870 is playing all the new games great why waste money upgrading..i would wait until it cant handle games

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Nunyerbiz

(Sorry for the thread necro, but I joined this forum after finding this post in a google search. As I recently completed a similar upgrade, I thought I'd add my two cents.)

Anyways, I recently upgraded to an XFX 4890 1GB DDR5. This was to replace a Crossfire pair of Sapphire 3870 512MB cards. I'll agree with the previous posters who state that the upgrade might not be worth it at this time... but you can always play the waiting game. It's always a case of what you are trying to accomplish versus what you are willing to spend. I also wanted to hold out for a DX11 card, but I pretty much had money burning a hole in my pocket. My wife is quitting her job and going back to school full time, so either I got a minor upgrade now or took the chance of having no upgrade budget for the next 2-3 years. I have a buyer lined up for my Crossfire pair, so after that and rebates, this bump up to the 4890 will only cost about $75 out of pocket.

The performance difference is about what I expected. There is little real-world difference at lower resolutions / texture settings... the 3870s are just fine. When resolutions are set at 1920x1200 with high texture settings, that's when the 1GB DDR5 shows it's worth. Performance in most games is improved over the 2x512MB DDR4 from the older Crossfire pair at these settings. In certain games (an infamously clumsy console port like GTA4, for example), the memory on the secondary Crossfire card isn't even recognized... so texture settings are locked at medium. However, even in GTA4, the framerates don't shift much... It's just a case of being able to maintain FPS with everything set to high.

With 1900x1200, everything set to high (except textures set to medium), distance settings at 30, the XFire 3870s would average 37-39fps via the built-in benchmark. In real world playing, the game was a little clunky at these same settings for my taste, but certainly playable. When running the same settings on the 4890 with textures set to high, the framerates would average 41-43fps. So... a slight boost in framerate but with the ability to run high quality textures and generally less clunkyness in areas of high action.

I did some additional, and non-scientific, testing with Crysis and Call of Duty: World at War. Crysis got a noticeable real world benefit... 1900x1200, everything set to high, with 4xAA is playable. Shifting some post-processing settings to medium and 2xAA, the game is clear improvement over the 2x3870s at similar settings. Call of Duty: World at War was less pronounced. Slightly smoother gameplay with less stuttering during high action areas was recognized, but generally the 2x3870s handled this game just fine.

In general, I am happy with the upgrade. I wasn't expecting a huge leap in raw FPS performance... just the ability to kick up those texture settings. That's pretty much exactly what I got. The 4890 that I have doesn't seem to have a ton of overhead for OC work... Currently sitting stable at 40mhz over stock. The 3870, when in non-Crossfire mode, could hum along all day at 80-100Mhz over stock and could hold 60Mhz over stock when Crossfired.

As far as whether I would recommend an upgrade... that's always a tough call. Even though I don't game as much as I used to, I still like to roll over my video cards every 12-16 months... Not so much because I need the upgrade, but because that's usually the sweet spot for making the most money selling your old cards versus the price of my targeted upgrade having hit it's first price drop. In this case, I'm happy with what I ended up for the money considering the alternative was possibly riding the 3870s for another 24-36 months. Once the DX11 cards hit and take their first price drop, hopefully I'll be able to roll into one of those. If that's not in the budget, the single 4890 will probably serve me better over the long haul.

System info: e6750 @ 3.2Ghz, 4GB DDR2-800 cas5, Foxconn X38a mobo, Vista Ultimate 32bit

SeraphicSorcerer

Welcome to the forums "NunyerBiz" Thank you for that well informed and in detailed post, could not have put it better myself, the only thing I would add, is that the additional memory is the real benefit where games only recognize the one card.

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BlueMak

That was one great first post.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

swimtech

Great first post indeed! Thanks for that - I've wondered too...

Can't really add much to that at all other than to say that 2 3870 512mb cards should run about like a single 4850 512mb overall - and the 4xxx series handle AntiAliasing without slowing down much better.

A single 4890 over a single 3870 is a very large upgrade - makes the top end games of the past year or so (such as those DH uses in their reviews) run smoothly at 1680x1050 and up when a single 3870 is unplayably choppy at the same resolution with high quality settings or better.

As Judas implies, the 5xxx series should be much better than the 4xxx series, and are due out in what, a couple months?

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Nunyerbiz

Hey guys, thanks for the welcome / kind words.

Anyways, my main concern with waiting on the 5xxx series was not having the DX11 software at the same time. I haven't done a ton of research on them, but my concern would be getting DX11 hardware out the door as marketing / time-for-xmas gimmick before Microsoft even settled on a release version for the software.

I think the 4890 is a lot of card for the money... and if you turn over your video cards on a semi-regular basis anyways... I don't think you can go wrong with it versus the 3xxx series. Unless something has changed, I don't think we'll see DX11 software reach the masses until early-to-mid 2010 anyways... and from what I heard it's not going to be a huge leap from what we see today in DX10 / 10.1... with much of feature set designed to run on DX10 hardware.

If comparable DX11 hardware releases soon and the price-to-performance ratio is in line with the 4890... then it might make sense to wait. But I'd be concerned about a paying a price premium without really being able to put it through the DX11 ringer until months or possibly a year afterwards. By the time DX11 is released and games are fully utilizing it, you're probably looking at a much more reasonable price point for the first gen 5xxx series anyways.

Mac Daddy

Welcome to DH and great first post(s)

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isaak

I second that...3 posts and you already have more rep than me. GG!

+rep

ps. sorry i don't have much to add to the 3870 vs 4890

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Cow_160483

grate first post NunyerBiz just had to say that

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SeraphicSorcerer

I definitely agree it's alot of card for the money especially since alot of them can be had for less then $250.

I also agree about DX11 but it will be a "standard" part of Windows 7, So while it will be a marketing gimick. It will also be a platform later, My real problem with the first generation DX (Anything Cards) is that they tend to offer the support, but never the real muscle that's needed to run them at HIGH settings. If that makes sense.

Anyhow, I hope you stick around, you seem well informed, and we definitely welcome, and encourage these types of posts!

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Nunyerbiz

Yep. I agree with ya on DX11... Having the compatible hardware in a month or two is great. However, if you are looking at probably an additional 8-12 months before the first "must have / DX11 in all it's glory" title gets released... it's most likely not going to be worth any price premium you'd pay for being a bleeding edge adopter.

As far as my 4890. I continue to be impressed. I had picked up Far Cry 2 on sale a few months back but never bothered taking it out of the shrink wrap until the other day. (Like I said previously, just don't game as much as I used to... wife and two little sons are crampin my style!).

Considering that my combination of e6750, 4GB RAM and Vista 32bit are probably bottlenecking the card a bit anyways... 1920x1200, all settings set to "very high" and 4xAA results in a playable experience. Things do get a little jittery for my taste in the busier environments, so I bumped the resolution down to 1680x1050 and the AA down to 2x. This seems to be a great combination of eye candy vs buttery smooth FPS regardless of what's going down on screen. Similar performance can be maintained at 1920x1200 with AA completely off... but I thought the slighly lower resolution with 2xAA actually looked better.

(Maybe it's just me, but at these higher resolutions... high anti-aliasing just doesn't give much of a visual bang... I've found that 2x is a great setting on these ATI cards that never seem to play nice with it anyways. Takes enough of an edge off to be noticeable, but performance isn't really hit. Standing perfectly still in Far Cry 2 to take raw FPS out of the equation, the differences between 0xAA vs 2xAA aren't terribly different from 0xAA vs 8xAA unless you stick you virtual eyeballs 12 inches away from a helicopter model or something.)

BlueMak

The e6750 would bottleneck a nvidia 8800gts, I am sure it is not good enough for the 4890.
Still, great card.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

Nunyerbiz

Yea, I'm riding the e6750 @ 3.2Ghz... so it's not too bad... But I found a couple hundred bucks in an old savings account and I'm considering an interim LGA 775 based CPU upgrade. It will probably be a couple years before I can afford a new LGA 1366 platform.

EDIT: BlueMak, is that an A-7 in your avatar? Back when I was a kid, the Michigan ANG flew those out of the airbase that was near my house.

BlueMak

You could get a nice quad core cpu for that money and save plenty.

Yes, it is an A-7. Together with the F4-Phantom II and Dassault Rafale, my favourite aircraft.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

OldBuzzard

My system will run FC2 pretty well, but I was bothered by the 'jitters' as well. What I did was use the console command to limit the FPS. I have the FPS capped at 30, which is just fine for single player. With my settings I might see it drop to 28.9 but that's about as low as it will go. 30 FPS is plenty enough to get a good gaming experience, and with virtually no variation in FPS it's more enjoyable than having the FPS jump around in a range of 35 to 70 all of the time.

try this to see if it makes a difference:
in the game key in ~ to get the console
key in showfps 1 That will give you FPS in the upper left of the screen.
Monitor that during a place or two with a lot of action, and note how low it drops.

Once you get an idea of what the lowest FPS you are getting:
key the ~ again and then gfx_maxfps nn where nn = where you want to 'cap' the FPS.

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Nunyerbiz

Interesting idea OldBuzzard. I will definitely try that out... Seems to make perfect sense... locking in a baseline FPS to remove the variation would probably fool the minds eye into thinking things are running "better" when really they are just running more consistently.

As far as a CPU upgrade, the Q9550 is looking very promising for under $300... even tho my current windfall from my fantasy football savings account is only $220... I could probably weasel the wife into accepting the difference.

Also BlueMak, the F-4 is also one of my favorite jets of all time. In fact, it flew out of the same airbase at the same time as the A-7 did.

OldBuzzard

Yeah, your eyes really won't see much, if any, difference at anything in the 30 or over FPS range anyway. I know that there a of of people that claim othersise, but I think what they are really seeing is the VARIENCE, which capping the FPS eliminates.

As for the F-4...Big Ugly FTW

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Nunyerbiz

Hmm... my first run thru Far Cry 2 while capping FPS was somewhat counterintuitive. I know that human eyes supposedly can't recognize anything over 24fps, but that not what I noticed in FC2.

I'd get 55-60fps in relatively open areas using the settings I already had. Locking things to 30fps using the gfx_maxfps command led to a noticably less fluid experience when panning back and forth in those same areas... If the human eye shouldn't be able to differentiate between 30 or 50 or 500fps, then something else has to be in the mix here.

A few years back most of my friends where calling me crazy for holding out on the LCD revolution. Gaming for long periods at 60hz refresh still drives my eyes batty compared to my old reliable 100hz CRT... So I wonder if the refresh rate plays into things? I'll either have to start googling or maybe I should break the old CRT out of the storage room and do some testing.

OldBuzzard

I haven't noticed any difference in panning. I wonder if it's because I AM using a CRT (Sony FW900)?

There is another optino in the GAME section for SMOOTH MOUSE. I have that turned ON. Wasn't sure what it was really supposed to do. Maybe that has something to do with it?

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When looking for a reason as to why things go wrong, never rule out sheer STUPIDITY

BlueMak

Did you try disabling V-sync in game and driver?

__________________

The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

Nunyerbiz

I was able to get my e6750 to 3.6ghz without having to fiddle with any voltages. I guess those handful of BIOS updates I did since touching the OC settings made things more stable. With the CPU running at that clock, I can get 1920x1200, 2xAA, all settings to ultra with the FPS only dropping to the mid-30s during heavy action / very high poly areas.

So.. I might have reached the limit with the card... I guess it all will depend if I can get 3.8 or 4.0Ghz stable on air cooling with voltage bumps. If I get a chance this weekend, I'll start fiddling. If the FPS doesn't shift with more CPU cycles, then I found the limit of the 4890.... and if I toast the CPU, I got an airtight excuse to get a new one.

swimtech

Now that you've got your processor up to 3.6Ghz, I don't think you could eliminate the bottleneck any Core2 processor could cause unless you went to a Core i7.
Your processor is now running at better than former dual core "Extreme" specs, and Far Cry 2 doesn't use more than the two cores of your processor from what I've read - so any Core2 quad wouldn't run that particular game any better really.

The more I read about the 4890 the better it looks. Lower power consumption overall than the 4870 1GB card, 10-20% better frame rates than the 4870, about the same percentage increase in price over a 4870 1Gb (so equal in value...), basically matches performance of the best Nvidia single gpu cards in games viewed on a 24" monitor (or smaller) while costing less, and overclocks pretty well. Lots going for it...

BTW, y'all remember when the Navy Blue Angels flew shiny blue F4's? They must have given me my first taste of hearing damage - afterburners blazing just 200 yards in front of me during a high speed pass. They were AWESOME!

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It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

BlueMak

LOL, I thought that was a joke about the noise of ATI cards' fans.

__________________

The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.