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ASUS GeForce ENGTX275 vs. ASUS Radeon EAH4890 |
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Written by Nebojsa Todorovic
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Monday, 15 June 2009 |
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Page 1 of 5   With its HD 4890 model ATI raise a lot of dust and made huge impact on
graphics card market. Despite the fact that this card should have been
“just” optimized Radeon HD 4870, it was much, much more than that.
RV790 is capable of withstanding frequencies that were unimaginable for
“old” RV770, and just the fact that it can operate at 1GHz is
completely different story. It is clear that this kind of overclocking
freedom made this card a very interesting purchase for all enthusiasts.
Some of you might think that because of this overclocking capabilities,
HD 4890 is overrated, but, actually it isn’t. It is clear that HD 4890
is faster than GTX260+, and its real competitor is GeForce GTX275.
Reason why we didn’t compare these two earlier is unavailability of
GTX275 in larger quantities on the market but now even that parameter
has been satisfied. So, this time, we have in the red corner ASUS
Radeon HD4890 1GB Vtweak and in green corner ASUS GeForce ENGTX275
896MB, which is actually an Kramer vs. Kramer situation.
ASUS GeForce ENGTX275 896MB
ASUS GTX275 came in a packaging that besides the card itself contained necessary cables, adapters, drivers and manual. No additional software. Cooling solution is very similar to other GTX2XX models that we tested so far, which means that it is very quiet and efficient despite the fact that GPU itself has decent dimensions. Under the bonnet can be found hybrid between GTX260(+) and GTX285. It inherited from GTX260 narrower 448bit bus, and from GTX285 true-bred GT200b chip with its 240 Stream Processors. This also means that the rest of the specification is almost the same, so we don’t expect any surprises when it comes to performances of this graphics card but its existence on the market could change few things. First of all, prices of GTX260+ because of GTX275 will drop significantly. Secondly, price of piled up GTX280 could also drop. All this should influence prices of competitors’ products so end users have more than one reason to be satisfied. ASUS GeForce ENGTX275 operates at frequencies that NVIDIA has recommended: 633MHz for GPU and 1404MHz for Stream Processors. Memory operates at 2268MHz which clearly indicates that it is consisted of GDDR3 chips at 0.8ns latency. Two 6-pin power connectors will be necessary for this card, and since this card demands 220W for its proper functioning some good (branded) power supply is necessary.
ASUS Radeon EAH4890 1GB Voltage Tweak
ASUS provided us also with second contestant is this review, and we must admit that we liked the concept of this graphics card. In most graphics cards that use referent design Voltera VT1165 chips for GPU power regulation are used, so all these cards and their GPU voltage settings can be modified with third-party software solutions or directly from BIOS of graphics card. If it could be done only by modifying BIOS VTweak application would be great new tool, but since RivaTuner can do the same with any HD 4890 it actually isn’t that big deal. Besides Voltage Tweak application that came with this card, this is actually the same card as any other HD 4890. Content of the box of EAH4890 is the same as for previous card. Since this card is actually based on referent design, cooling system is the same as on any HD 4890 card: aluminum body with two heat pipes. All this is covered with characteristic ATI transparent plastic cover and noisy blower type fan. Specifications are the same as already tested HD 4890 << http://www.insidehw.com/Reviews/Graphics-cards/PowerColor-HD4890-1GB/Page-8.html >>. Memory bus is 256bit wide which in combination with GDDR5 chips at 950MHz gives nice memory bandwidth of 124.8GB/s. Along with memory, GPU also operates at frequencies defined by ATI: 850MHz.
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Graphics cards 
