Ultimate Heavy-Weight Fight: Radeon HD 4890 CrossFireX vs. GeForce GTX 285 SLI
April 23, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
Despite the economic crisis the performance of powerful graphics solutions is still of extreme interest to dedicated gaming fans. Today we are going to witness another duel between multi-GPU systems built on the fastest ATI and Nvidia graphics cards.
The recent launch of the Radeon HD 4890 has changed the standings in the sector of single-chip graphics cards since AMD has got a product capable of rivaling the Nvidia GeForce GTX 285. Yet notwithstanding AMD’s strategy of filling the top market segment with dual-processor solutions, AMD’s graphics department is in no hurry to introduce a Radeon HD 4890 X2. Perhaps the company’s partners will be offered the opportunity to create such a product but AMD does not yet agree to it, and the Radeon HD series is still topped by the Radeon HD 4870 X2 which is somewhat inferior to the GeForce GTX 295 in performance (see this news story for details).
However, the arrival of the Radeon HD 4890 has provided the opportunity to build CrossFireX subsystems out of two, three or even four such cards. Even a dual-processor tandem should be no worse than a GeForce GTX 285 SLI, let alone a single GeForce GTX 295. And it is going to be cheaper because the recommended price of the Radeon HD 4890 is within $229-249. So, theoretically, a graphics subsystem made out of two such cards is going to cost you no more than $500. For comparison, the GeForce GTX 285 sells in retail for $330-340 and more, and a couple of such cards are going to cost more than $600.
The GeForce GTX 295 can be found selling at $500-550 but it will surely be inferior to a Radeon HD 4890 CrossFireX tandem, particularly because it has less of graphics memory available for 3D applications (896MB against 1024MB). This also refers to the GeForce GTX 275 SLI tandem that has higher clock rates but only 896MB of effective graphics memory and a cut-down GPU configuration with 28 raster back-ends per a core as opposed to the GeForce GTX 285 SLI’s 32 RBEs per a core. Thus, the most interesting thing is to compare the Radeon HD 4890 CrossFireX and GeForce GTX 285 SLI. The battle is going to be exciting if we put aside the factor of price and focus on gaming performance only.
Despite the global crisis, gamers are still interested in advanced and expensive multi-GPU configurations, and we will cater to our readers by performing a comparative test of Radeon HD 4890 CrossFireX and GeForce GTX 285 SLI tandems, especially as we’ve got four graphics cards necessary for such a test just in time. The “green” camp will be represented by EVGA GeForce GTS 285 FTW and Zotac GeForce GTX 285 AMP! cards. They will be opposed in this heavyweight fight by ASUS’s EAH4890 and EAH4890 TOP. Let’s now take a closer look at each of the fighters.
BFG GTX 275 OC Edition & SLI Testing
April 22, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
BFG has always been a front runner in getting new and interesting variants of GPU’s to market. While other vendors are often happy with just stock speeds on GPU’s, BFG offers a variety of models and speeds, many with different cooling solutions. Not only do they offer a wide variety of speeds, they are one of the “Enthusiasts” choices for purchasing a GPU because they offer high quality GPU’s and a limited lifetime warranty combined with unparalleled tech support
. With a resume like that, it’s hard not to pick a BFG GPU over lesser brands.
The advantage of buying a BFG factory overclocked GPU is that you get that little extra performance boost and it’s covered by the limited lifetime warranty. Many people want the performance boost but don’t have the experience or patience to overclock the GPU, so factory overclocked is good for them and it keeps the warranty intact. Not only do we have the BFG GTX-275 for you today, we also threw in some GTX-275 SLI results. So sit back and relax while we drive the GTX-275 like it was meant to be driven as hard as it will go, then pair it up with another GTX-275 and drive a pair of the enthusiast GPU’s like wild horses running from a prairie fire.
NVIDIA SLI Multi-OS unveiled for virtualized workstations
March 30, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
Professionals, such as digital artists, designers and earth scientists, can have complex workflows that require a combination of graphics-centric applications running on a variety of operating systems concurrently. In the past, this required managing multiple workstations in their work environment.
The latest generation of Intel-based workstations, with VT-d technology, enables the deployment of system virtualization technology to these workflows. When system virtualization is combined with the incredible performance boost of today’s workstations, opportunities for improved productivity and more efficient manageability of system resources are realized.
With the introduction of NVIDIA® SLI® Multi-OS technology, a user now has the ability to fully virtualize all resources in the workstation, including NVIDIA® Quadro® GPUs. An SLI Multi-OS enabled workstation operates in conjunction with workstation virtualization software. Through SLI Multi-OS technology, a user can directly assign a dedicated Quadro graphics board to both the host operating system and a range of optionally loaded guest operating systems.
Using an SLI Multi-OS virtualized workstation, a designer, artist, or engineer, can simultaneously run multiple, business critical 3D or compute applications using different operating systems, each taking full advantage of the processing power of Quadro professional graphics cards – reducing the need for a multiple system work environment.
Minimum System Requirements
|
|
Leadtek WinFast GTX 260 EXTREME+ in SLI Review
March 16, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
The GTX 260 has quickly become one of those confusing models. We had the card originally launch in June of 2008 and towards the end of last year word came of an updated model that would carry with it 216 shader processors over the original 192 we saw at launch.
Later on we heard more rumors that the card was going to move to 55nm technology; the only problem is that across this whole process the name of the card has never changed. This is no doubt a pain since NVIDIA has also renamed a number of other cards that haven’t had a single change.
Today we’re going to be looking at the Leadtek GTX 260 EXTREME+. While the card doesn’t carry the new 55nm core, it does carry the upgraded shader processors. Before we get stuck into the performance of the card, though, let’s take the time to have a quick look at the package along with a closer look at the card and the clocks it carries. Hopefully the card will warrant the Extreme name tag, so let’s not delay and get stuck into it.
Continue Reading…
Sphere: Related Content9800 GTX vs. SLI vs. 3-way SLI. vs. Quad SLI
May 5, 2008 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
In this article, [H]ardOCP looks at how a 9800 GTX in a Single, 3-Way and Quad SLI using their real world gamplay techniques to see how much any of these configurations improves one’s gameplay.
In this evaluation we are going to utilize three GeForce 9800 GTX video cards, as well as two GeForce 9800 GX2 video cards. All video cards are running at NVIDIA suggested clock speeds. Remember, each GPU on the GeForce 9800 GX2 actually runs at lower clock speeds than the GeForce 9800 GTX. Each GPU on the GeForce 9800 GX2 runs at 600MHz core (vs. 675MHz on the 9800 GTX) and 1.5GHz stream processors (vs. 1.688GHz on the 9800 GTX) and 2GHz memory (vs. 2.2GHz on the 9800 GTX.)
