HEXUS.bang4buck, analysis, power-draw, and noise
In a rough-and-ready assessment of the cards' bang per buck, we've aggregated the 1,920x1,200 frame-rates for five games, normalised them* and taken account of the cards' prices.
But there are more provisos than we'd care to shake a stick at. We could have chosen five different games, the cards' prices could have been derived from other sources and pricing tends to fluctuate daily.
Consequently, the table, below, highlights a metric that should only be used as a yardstick for evaluating comparative performance with price factored in. Other architectural benefits are not covered, obviously.
| Graphics cards | BFG GeForce GTX 275 OC 896MB | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 896MB | BFG
GeForce GTX 260 896MB |
Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 OC 1,024MB | XFX Radeon HD 4890 XXX 1,024MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 1,024MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 4770 X2 1,024MB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actual aggregate marks at 1,920x1,200 | 375.56 | 364.28 | 326.75 | 371.73 | 371.84 | 318.63 | 445.06 |
| Aggregate marks, normalised*, at 1,920x1,200 | 335.12 |
328.52 |
301.27 | 334.17 |
334.02 |
291.71 |
367.56 |
| Current pricing, including VAT | £210 | £199 | £160 | £212 | £210 |
£160 | £157 |
| HEXUS.bang4buck score at 1,920x1,200 | 1.596 | 1.651 | 1.883 | 1.577 |
1.591 |
1.823 | 2.341 |
* the normalisation refers to taking playable frame rate into account. Should a card benchmark at over 60 frames per second in any one game, the extra fps count as half. Similarly, should a card benchmark lower, say at 40fps, we deduct half the difference from its average frame rate and the desired 60fps, giving it a HEXUS.bang4buck score of 30 marks. The minimum allowable frame rate is 20fps but that scores zero.
The HEXUS.bang4buck score only takes the performance and price into account, of course.Analysis
Take the performance numbers in isolation, without the commentary on frame-rates, and the Radeon HD 4770 CrossFire's HEXUS.bang4buck is excellent, helped by a low (combined) price and high scores at 1,920x1,200.
Even so, the majority of observed problems take place at 2,560x1,600, and we don't imagine that many folks use a 30in monitor on a day-to-day basis. Run at 1,680x1,050 or 1,920x1,200 Radeon HD 4770 CrossFire is a tasty option for the money.
Power-draw and noise
| Power consumption - idle | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| XFX HD 4890 OC 1,024MB | BFG GTX 260 896MB | BFG GTX 275 OC 896MB | NVIDIA GTX 275 896MB | Sapphire HD 4770 XF 1,024MB | Sapphire HD 4890 OC+ 1,024MB | Sapphire HD 4870 1,024MB |
| 156 | 126 | 130 | 129 | 159 | 158 | 160 |
| Power consumption - load (3D) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| XFX HD 4890 OC 1,024MB | BFG GTX 260 896MB | BFG GTX 275 OC 896MB | NVIDIA GTX 275 896MB | Sapphire HD 4770 XF 1,024MB | Sapphire HD 4890 OC+ 1,024MB | Sapphire HD 4870 1,024MB |
| 251 | 243 | 266 | 268 | 228 | 255 | 244 |
Taken as a pair and evaluated for the whole system, the idle power-draw figure falls in line with HD 4890s, but it's around 30W higher than a single GeForce GTX 275. Under-load power-draw is the best of all, yet we imagine that the cards will be idle for the majority of the time.
