CrossFire-X, eXplored

Welcome to Part 3 of our Diamond HD4890-XOC complete examination. Karan did a great job with the preview and we continued on with the benchmarks in Part 2. We are now testing with Catalyst 9-5 which you can directly compare with Catalyst 9-4 from our last article for the Diamond HD4890-XOC, the HD4870 and the HD4870-X2. You can directly judge the progress ATi is making with their drivers.  However, since this review is completely about CrossFire and CrossFire-X scaling, we have not updated Nvidia’s drivers since last article’s 182.08 – in fact, we will not be comparing Nvidia hardware at all!  That is reserved for our next Big GPU Shootout, Revisited that we are benchmarking for you right now.

This CrossFire-X eXplored review features Diamond’s HD4890-XOC (925/1050) compared with a stock HIS HD4890 (850/975) and also in various CrossFire and CrossFire-X configurations.  By doing this, we compare HD4890 and HD4890 CrossFire against last generation’s HD4870 and HD4870-X2; the  4870-X2 representing HD4870 CrossFire.  We are also exploring TriFire, Diamond’s HD4890-XOC paired with AMD’s fastest card HD4870-X2 as compared to the more usual configuration, HD4870-X2 plus HD4870.

We are continuing to test at two of the most popular demanding wide-screen resolutions, 1680×1050 and 1920×1200, 4xAA plus 16xAF and with maximum DX10 details whenever it is available and with our Q9550S overclocked to 4.0 GHz. We are particularly going to pay attention to our Diamond HD4890-XOC in CrossFire-X configurations compared to the older HD4870 in similar configurations; and we will even overclock the older card further (750/900 to 800/1050) to see how it scales in CrossFire-X compared with our HD4890’s scaling.

Our single GPU reference cards are:

• HD4870 (750/900 & 800/1050) – stock and overclocked
• HD4890 (750/900, 850/975 & 925/1050) – underclocked, stock and overclocked

CrossFire/CrossFire-X are represented by:

• HD4870-X2 (750/900) stock speeds – very similar to 4870 CrossFire at stock speeds
• HD4870 (750/900) + HD4890 (750/900) – stock 4870 plus 4890 underclocked to 4870 speeds
• HD4890 (925/1050) + HD4870 (750/900) – stock 4890 plus stock 4870
• HD4890 (925/1050) + HD4870 (800/1050) – overclocked 4890 plus overclocked 4870
• HD4890-CrossFire (850/975) – 4890 stock clocked CrossFire
• HD4890-CrossFire (925/1050) – overclocked 4890 CrossFire

Tri-Fire CrossFire-X3 is represented by:

• HD4870-X2 + HD4870 (750/900) – stock 4870-X2 plus stock 4870
• HD4870-X2 + HD4890 (925/1050) – stock 4870-X2 plus overclocked 4890

We are paying particular attention to HD4890 scaling in CrossFire and also paired with HD4870 and HD4870-X2 in CrossFire-X configurations.  We do want to note here that we observed some irregularities with Catalyst 9-5 drivers compared with last month’s 9-4.  Two games that we tested were noticeably faster with Catalyst 9-5 than with Catalyst 9-4 for HD4890, but slower for HD4870.  Overall, we would say that CrossFire results were overall positive but mixed for HD4870-X2 with Catalyst 9-5 as compared to the earlier drivers.

Test Configuration

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550S (engineering sample reference 2.83 GHz and overclocked to 4.0 GHz – i.e. 470 FSB.)
  
• ASUS Rampage Formula (Intel X48 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire 16x+16x).
• 4 GB DDR2-PC8500 RAM (2×2 GB, dual-channel at PC6400 speeds)
• ATi Radeon HD4890-XOC by Diamond (1 GB, Diamond reference clocks 925/1050; also underclocked to 750/900 and to 850/975)
• ATi Radeon HD4890-XOC by HIS (1 GB, HIS reference clocks 850/975)
  
• ATi Radeon 4870 by ASUS (1GB, reference clocks, also overclocked to 800/1050)
• ATi Radeon 4870-X2 (2GB, reference clocks) by VisionTek
• Onboard SupremeFX-II (ASUS P5e Deluxe motherboard daughter-card)
• 2 – 250 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drives

Test Configuration – Software

• ATi Catalyst 9-5; highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver, Catalyst AI set to “Standard”
• Windows Vista 64-bit SP1; very latest updates
• DirectX March 2008.
• All games patched to their latest versions.

Test Configuration – Settings

• vsync is off in the control panel and is never set in-game.
• 4xAA enabled in all games and “forced” in Catalyst Control Center for UT3; all in-game settings at “maximum” or “ultra” with 16xAF always applied
• All results show average, minimum and maximum frame rates except as noted.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Vista 64, all DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths

3DMark06

3DMark06 still remains the number one utility used for a system benchmark. We find that it is mostly useful for tracking changes within a single system. There are four “mini-games” that it uses for benchmarking graphics, as well as two CPU tests. The scores are weighed and added together to give an overall “score” and there is a further frame rate breakdown possible with these mini games that we are charting for you.

Here is a scene from the demo in 3DMark06 which is not used to benchmark performance. These tests will still give your PC a real workout even though its default resolution is only 1280×1024.

Here are the results of our 3DMark06 benchmark comparison using the benchmark at its default settings:

The results are just scores. Often a little variability will occur by just running the tests over and over.  Now the mini-game frame rates:

 

‘Playing’ the 3DMark06 Mini-games on the HD4890 would clearly edge out play with the HD4870 and the overclocked HD4890 scales nicely. The overclocked Diamond HD4890-XOC is slightly faster than the stock HIS HD4890 in these synthetic mini games and the overclocked HD4890 CrossFire is slightly faster than TriFire except in the SM 3.o test.   So, let’s move on to our second synthetic benchmark, Vantage.

Vantage

Vantage is Futuremark’s latest test. It is really useful for tracking changes in a single system – especially driver changes.  There are two mini-game tests, Jane Nash and Calico and also two CPU tests, but we are still focusing on the graphics performance.

Here is a scene from Vantage’s second mini-game.

Let’s go right to the graphs and first check the Basic Tests with the default benchmark scores:

We see more scores which progressively increase uniformly as the clocks speeds increase.  Now let’s look at the mini-game frame rates:

 

In this synthetic test, the HD4870 is beaten solidly by the HIS HD4890 and in turn by the overclocked Diamond HD4890-XOC. The TriFire HD4870-X2+4890-XOC is the king here, followed by regular TriFire and then by overclocked HD4890 CrossFire and right on down the line in a very linear fashion. Let’s move on to real games and real world situations and see what practical frame rate changes there are by under or overclocking the HD4890/HD4870 when paired in CrossFire-X.  Enough of the synthetics as we move on to PC games!

 

Call of Juarez

Call of Juarez is one of the very earliest DX10 games. Techland’s Call of Juarez is loosely based on Spaghetti Westerns that became popular in the early 1970s. Call of Juarez features its Chrome Engine using Shader Model 4 with DirectX 10. Our benchmark isn’t built into Call of Juarez, but is an official stand-alone that runs a simple flyby of a level that is created to showcase its DX10 effects. It offers good repeatability and it is a good stress test for DX10 features in graphics cards, although it is not quite the same as actual gameplay because the game logic and AI are stripped out of this demo.

Performing Call of Juarez benchmark is easy. You are presented with a simple menu to choose resolution, anti-aliasing, and two choices of shadow quality options. We set the shadow quality on “high” and the shadow map resolution to the maximum, 2048×2048. At the end of the run, the demo presents you with the minimum, maximum, and average frame rate, along with the option to quit or run the benchmark again. We always ran the benchmark at least a second time and recorded that generally higher score.

Call of Juarez DX10 benchmark at 1920×1200:

Now at 1680×1050:

Call of Juarez scales amazingly linearly with GPU clockspeeds.  We see real scaling with our overclocked HD4890-XOC consistent with their overclock over the stock HIS HD4890.  The HD4890 beats the HD4870 significantly and the HD4870-X2’s frame rates are completely satisfactory at 1920×1200 with completely maxed out details and with 4xAA/16xAF applied.  The HD4870-X2 is consistently beaten by all flavors of Crossfire and Tri-Fire wins out over everything else; the HD4870-X2 paired with the HD4890 is faster than one paired with the HD4870.  We also see it takes at least a 4870-X2 to get the minimums out of the teens and 20s, the domain of the single card.

CRYSIS

 

 

 

 

Next we move on to Crysis, a science fiction first person shooter by Crytek. It remains one of the most demanding games for any PC and it is also still one of the most beautiful games released to date. Crysis is based in a fictional near-future where an alien spacecraft is discovered buried on an island near the coast of Korea. The single-player campaign has you assume the role of USA Delta Force, ‘Nomad’ who is armed with various futuristic weapons and equipment. Crysis uses DirectX10 for graphics rendering.

A standalone but related game, Crysis Warhead was released last year. CryEngine2 is the game engine used to power Crysis and Warhead and it is an extended version of the CryEngine that powers FarCry. As well as supporting Shader Model 2.0, 3.0, and DirectX10’s 4.0, CryEngine2 is also multi-threaded to take advantage of SMP-aware systems and Crytek has developed their own proprietary physics system, called CryPhysics. However, it is noted that actually playing this game is a bit slower than the demo implies.

GPU Demo, Island

All of our settings are set to ‘maximum’ including 4xAA and we force 16AF in the control panel. Here is Crysis’ Island Demo benchmark, first at 1920×1200 resolution:

We could always use a single ‘extra’ frame rate in Crysis that overclocking HD4890 provides.  Now at 1680×1050:

 

We see the HD4890-XOC’s performance is quite a bit better than the HD4870 and our further overclock makes a little practical improvement. Crysis is quite playable with HD4870-X2, even with 4xAA/16xAF, if you are willing to tweak your settings a bit downward. Tri-Fire is faster overall in the averages and the maximums but still hangs in the mid 20s swapping performance with 4890 CrossFire. Perhaps most interesting is that the drivers allow the HD4890 CrossFire to be beaten by all flavors of the HD4890+HD4870 “Frankenfire”, with the overclock on the linked HD4870 making further improvement as the overclocked speeds go up. 

S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Clear Sky

Prologue: S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Clear Sky became a brand new DX10 benchmark for us when GSC Game World released a prequel story expansion to the original Shadows of Chernobyl, last year. Both games have non-linear storylines which feature role-playing game elements. In both games, the player assumes the identity of a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.; an illegal artifact scavenger in “The Zone” which encompasses about 30 square kilometers. It is the location of an alternate reality story surrounding the Chernobyl Power Plant after another (fictitious) explosion.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. & Clear Sky feature “a living breathing world” with highly developed NPC creature AI. S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Clear Sky uses the X-ray Engine – a DirectX8.1/9/DX10/10.1 Shader model 3.0 & 4.0 graphics engine featuring HDR, parallax and normal mapping, soft shadows, motion blur, weather effects and day-to-night cycles. As with other engines using deferred shading, the original DX9c X-ray Engine does not support anti-aliasing with dynamic lighting enabled, although the DX10 version does.

We are using the stand-alone “official” benchmark by Clear Sky’s creators. Clear Sky is top-notch and worthy to be S.T.A.L.K.E.R’s successor with even more awesome DX10 effects which help to create and enhance their game’s already incredible atmosphere. Unfortunately, DX10 comes with steep hardware requirements and this new game really needs multi-GPU to run at its maximum settings. We picked the most stressful test out of the four, “Sun shafts”. It brings the heaviest penalty due to its extreme use of shaders to create DX10/DX10.1 effects. We ran this benchmark fully maxed out in DX10.0 with “ultra” settings plus 4xAA, but did not apply edge-detect MSAA which chokes performance even further.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Clear Sky DX10 benchmark “Sun shafts” at 1920×1200:

And at 1680×1050:

Again we see the HD4890-XOC beating the HD4870 with the overclocked version scaling nicely. TriFire takes off on the maximums and averages but choke a bit on the minimums to lose overall to overclocked HD4890 CrossFire.  However, even the HD4870-X2 cannot climb out of the teens for the minimum frame rates and the single GPU video cards are held to single digits.  We also note that our HD4890 and HD 4870-X2 suffered a couple of noticeable minuses with Catalyst 9-5 compared to the earlier drivers while our HD4890 appeared to gain performance, but it was not as significant as in Far Cry 2.

 

PT Boats: Knights of the Sea DX10 benchmark

PT Boats: Knights of the Sea is a stand-alone DX10 benchmark utility released by Akella last year. It is actually a tech demo of their upcoming simulation-action game. This DX10 benchmark test runs reliably and apparently provides very accurate and repeatable results.

We set the only settings options available to us as follows:

DirectX Version: DirectX 10
Resolution: 1920×1600 and 1680×1050 at 60 Hz
Image Quality: High
Anti aliasing: 4x

PT Boats DX10 benchmark, first at 1920×1200:

Here is 1680×1050 resolution:

We see really tight grouping.  We see a repeat performance where the HD4890-XOC clearly beats the HD4870. All of these cards drop into the 20s at 1920×1200 resolution except for our CrossFire and TriFire with 4890.  TriFire stumbles a bit with the regular configuration but the one paired with the overclocked HD4890 recovers nicely.  We are really looking forward to this game’s release, later on this year.

FarCry 2

 

 

 

Far Cry 2 uses the name of the original Far Cry but it is not connected to the first game as it brings you a new setting and a new story. Ubisoft created it based on their Dunia Engine. The game setting takes place in an unnamed African country, during an uprising between two rival warring factions. Your mission is to kill “The Jackal”; the Nietzsche-quoting mercenary that arms both sides of the conflict that you are dropped into.

The Far Cry 2 game world is loaded in the background and on the fly to create a completely seamless open world. The Dunia game engine provides good visuals that scale well. The Far Cry 2 design team actually went to Africa to give added realism to this game. One thing to especially note is Far Cry 2’s very realistic fire propagation by their engine that is a far cry from the scripted fire and explosions that we are used to seeing.

Far Cry 2 benchmark at 1920×1200 with AI enabled:

Now at 1680×1050 with AI enabled.

All of our video cards can play Far Cry 2 very satisfactorily. Unfortunately, here we saw the biggest performance loss with Catalyst 9-5 from the earlier one with our HD4870 and HD4870-X2.  Conversely, HD4980-XOC had a nice performance gain from the new drivers.

The Diamond 4890-XOC leads the single-GPU card as our overclocked HD4890 clearly beats the HD4870 and stock HIS 4890. Our HD4870-X2 still puts in a good performance, and TriFire scales nicely with the 4890+4870-X2 beating the 4870+4870-X2 combination. 

World in Conflict

World In Conflict is set in an alternate history Earth where the Cold War did not end and Russia invaded the USA in 1989 and the remaining Americans decided to strike back. World in Conflict (WiC) is a real-time tactical/strategy video game developed by Massive Entertainment. Although it is generally considered a real-time strategy (RTS) game, World in Conflict includes gameplay typical of real-time tactical (RTT) games. WiC is filled with real vehicles from both the Russian and American military. There are also tactical aids, including calling in massive bombing raids, access to chemical warfare, nuclear weapons, and far more.

Here is yet another amazing and very customizable and detailed DX10 benchmark that is available in-game or as a stand-alone. The particle effects and explosions in World in Conflict are truly spectacular! Every setting is fully maxed out. First at 1920×1200 resolution:

World in Conflict at 1680×1050:

This is getting repetitious. Again the HD4890-XOC solidly beats the HD4870 and shows good scaling when overclocked; the minimums are all within a couple of frame rates.  It is very strange that the overclock on the HD4890 CrossFire makes almost too much improvement; we have to put this down to a driver issue perhaps with this configuration.  All of the multi-GPU configurations really have frame rates that are playable at the minimum without lowering many details or filtering options.

X3-Terran Conflict

X3:Terran Conflict (X3:TC) is another beautiful stand-alone benchmark that runs multiple tests and will really strain a lot of video cards. X3:TC is a space trading and combat simulator from Egosoft and is the most recent of their X-series of computer games. X3:TC is a standalone expansion of X3: Reunion, based in the same universe and on the same engine. It complements the story of previous games in the X-Universe and especially continues the events after the end of X3: Reunion.

Compared to Reunion, Terran Conflict features a larger universe, more ships, and of course, new missions. The X-Universe is huge. The Terran faction was added with their own set of technology including powerful ships and stations. Many new weapons systems were developed for the expansion and it has generally received good reviews. It has a rather steep learning curve.

First at 1920×1200:

X3:Terran Conflict at 1680×1050:

There is no reason to be dissatisfied with any configuration tested, except at the minimums which only vary between 19-21 for all of our tested configurations. TriFire leads, but not by much and in some cases the overclocked HD4890s in CrossFire are better performers.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is an objective-driven, class-based first person shooter set in the Quake universe. It was developed by id Software and Splash Damage for Windows and published by Activision. Quake Wars pits the combined human armies of the Global Defense Force against the technologically superior Strogg, an alien race who has come to earth to use humans for spare parts and food. It allows you to play a part, probably best as an online multi-player experience, in the battles waged around the world in mankind’s desperate war to survive.

Quake Wars is an OpenGL game based on id’s Doom3 game engine with the addition of their MegaTexture technology. It also supports some of the latest 3D effects seen in today’s games, including soft particles, although it is somewhat dated and less demanding on video cards than many DX10 games. id’s MegaTexture technology is designed to provide very large maps without having to reuse the same textures over and over again. For our benchmark we chose the flyby, Salvage Demo. It is one of the most graphically demanding of all the flybys and it is very repeatable and reliable in its results. It is fairly close to what you will experience in-game. All of our settings are set to ‘maximum’ and we also apply 4xAA/16xAF in game.

First we test at 1920×1200 resolution:

Salvage Demo fly-by at 1680×1050 resolution:

Here there are serious issues with artifacting in all of our multi-GPU configurations.  It must be a driver issue that was not present in earlier Catalyst drivers. Still, all of these video cards have no trouble handling this game fully maxed out and overclocked 4890 CrossFire rules in all but some of the maximums – except for the visual issues that make it largely unplayable.

F.E.A.R.

F.E.A.R. – First Encounter Armed Assault – is a DX9c game by Monolith Productions that was originally released in October 2005 by Vivendi Universal Production. Later, there were two expansions with the latest, Perseus Mandate, released in 2007. Although the game engine is aging a bit, it still has some of the most spectacular effects of any game. F.E.A.R. showcases a powerful particle system, complete with sparks and smoke for collisions as well as featuring bullet marks and other effects including “soft shadows”. This is highlighted by the built-in performance test, although it was never updated. This performance test will tell you how F.E.A.R. will run, but both of its expansions are progressively more demanding on your PC graphics and will run slower than the demo. We always run at least 2 sets of tests with all in-game features at ‘maximum’. F.E.A.R. uses the Jupiter Extended Technology engine from Touchdown Entertainment.

We test with the most demanding settings. Fully maxed details with 4xAA/16xAF; soft shadows ‘off’, as they do not play well with AA. Let’s start again first at 1920×1200:

We see a couple of driver stumbles and irregularities with CrossFire here, but it is a pretty similar picture to all of our previous testing.

Now at 1680×1050:

In this case, the HD4870-X2 appears to be having driver issues and some hiccups with its minimums as it did with Catalyst 9-4; even the single-GPU HD4870 and the HD4890 does better.  TriFire is also weak in the minimums as it is using the 4870-X2, but it also excels in the averages and maximums. Clearly, the HD4870-XOC scales nicely when it is overclocked and it is solidly faster than the HD4870. There is no practical difference playing with any of our video card configurations.

Lost Planet DX10 benchmark

 

 

 

 

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is a Capcom port of an Xbox 360 game. It takes place on the icy planet of E.D.N. III which is filled with monsters, pirates, big guns, and huge bosses. This frozen world highlights high dynamic range lighting (HDR) brilliantly as the snow-white environment reflects blinding sunlight as DX10 particle systems toss snow and ice all around. The game looks great in both DirectX 9 and 10 and there isn’t really much of a difference between the two versions except perhaps shadows. Unfortunately, the DX10 version doesn’t look that much better when you’re actually playing the game and it still runs slower than the DX9 version.

We use the in-game performance test from the retail copy of Lost Planet and updated through Steam to the latest version for our runs. This run isn’t completely scripted as the creatures act a little differently each time you run it, requiring multiple runs. Lost Planet’s Snow and Cave demos are run continuously by the performance test and blend into each other.

Here are our benchmark results with the more demanding, Snow. All settings are fully maxed out in-game including 4xAA/16xAF.

First at 1920×1200 resolution:

And now at 1680×1050:

TriFire rules the multi-GPU category paired with the overclocked HD4890; mostly beating out our HD4870-x2 plus HD4870 pairing.  However, all of our single-GPU video cards have troubles with the minimum frame rates and are unsatisfactory at even 1680×1050.  Again, the HD4890 makes a nice improvement over the HD4870 and our overclocked version scales also well here, but not enough to make much difference at the bottom, either alone or even paired in CrossFire.

 

Unreal Tournament 3

 

 

 

Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3) is the fourth game in the Unreal Tournament series. UT3 is a first-person shooter and online multiplayer video game by Epic Games. Unreal Tournament 3 provides a good balance between image quality and performance, rendering complex scenes well even on lower-end PCs. Of course, on high-end graphics cards you can really turn up the detail. UT3 is primarily an online multiplayer title offering several game modes and it also includes an offline single-player game with a campaign.

For our tests, we used the very latest game patch for Unreal Tournament 3, released after its ‘Titan’ pack. The game doesn’t have a built-in benchmarking tool so we used FRAPS and did a fly-by of a chosen level. Here we note that performance numbers reported are a bit higher than compared to in-game. The map we use is called “Containment” and it is one of the most demanding of the fly-bys. Our tests were run at resolutions of 1920 x 1200 and 1680 x 1050 with UT3’s in-game graphics options set to their maximum values.

One drawback of the way the UT3 engine is designed is that there is no support for anti-aliasing built in so we forced 4xAA in each vendor’s control panel. We record a demo in the game and a set number of frames are saved in a file for playback. When playing back the demo, the game engine then renders the frames as quickly as possible, which is why you will often see it playing it back more quickly than you would actually play the game.

Containment Demo at 1920×1200:

And now at 1680×1050:

There is absolutely no problem playing this game fully maxed out with any of our video cards. Again, the HD4870-XOC edges out the HD4870 configurations, where generally core/memory speed is king. We note that CrossFire doesn’t scale well except for the maximum frame rates.

Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (CoD4) is a first person shooter running on a custom engine. There are nice graphics but the engine is somewhat dated compared to others and it runs well on modern PCs. It is the first CoD installment to take place in a modern setting instead of in World War II. It differs from the previous Call of Duty games by having a more film-like plot that uses intermixed story lines from two perspectives; that of a USMC sergeant and a British SAS Sergeant. There is also a variety of short missions where players control other characters in flashback sequences to advance the story. Call of Duty 4’s move to modern warfare introduced a variety of modern conventional weapons and technologies including plastic explosives.

There are currently 20 multiplayer maps in CoD4. It is very popular and there is a new expansion for it. For multiplayer, it includes five preset classes and introduces the Perks system. Perks are special abilities which allow users to further customize their character to suit their personal style. Our timedemo benchmark was created by ABT’s own Senior Editor and lead reviewer, BFG10K. It is very accurate and totally repeatable.

And now at 1650×1080:

Here the further overclock on the HD4890-XOC does make a few frame rates difference, but not enough to improve it so anyone would notice except by looking at charts. The HD4870 is clearly beaten by its newest cousin and Tri-Fire is a rare failure here compared to HD4870-X2; it is no faster.

Half-Life 2: Lost Coast

 

 

 

Half-Life 2 is still a popular game and it is the oldest game we review for this series. Half-Life 2: Lost Coast is an additional level for this 2004 game. Lost Coast was released October, 2005 as a free download to all purchasers of Half-Life 2. Lost Coast was developed as a playable tech demo that was evidently intended to showcase the newly-added high definition range (HDR) lighting features of the Source Engine. A flyby of this level is played during the HL2 video stress test and it is very repeatable. All in-game settings are maxed out, including 4xAA/16xAF.

Now at 1650×1080 resolution:

Although all of our configurations breeze through this benchmark, the overclocked HD4890-XOC wins. They are all grouped tightly and we notice that the HD4870-X2 and CrossFire do not scale positively. It may well be that the game’s 300 FPS cap will also influence the average scores, as many setups are hitting that ceiling. But no matter how you look at it, our overclocked HD4890-XOC wins as best bang for buck here.

 

 

Conclusion

Here we finally see CrossFire-X scaling exposed.  Two “mismatched” cards in FrankenFire do not default to the slower card’s speeds but the slower one generally contributes to the overall performance as the load is balanced between them as well as the drivers are capable with that particular game.  We also saw some weirdness with the drivers in a couple of games where the results did not quite match up as in Crysis where HD4870-X2 gets unusually low frame rates in comparison to the other configurations.

Our Diamond HD4890-XOC has proved worthy of our “Editor’s Award” as it shows excellent scaling over the stock HIS HD4890.  Now there is one thing to note, our cheaper HIS 4890 did manage to match Diamond’s overclock but the VGA fan needed to be kept near 90% to maintain stability in an overclocked CrossFire situation; and even at stock, the thermals were a bit high compared to the Diamond’s.  Of course, your own overclocking results may vary radically from what we got and we did not volt mod nor use any other overclocking utilities other than Catalyst Control Center.

Our results are very consistent and we carried on where our Diamond HD 4890-xOC Preview, Part 1 and Part 2 left off. We saw Diamond’s overclocked HD4890-XOC coming on very strongly to replace the HD4870 as AMD’s top single-GPU. We also note excellent scaling over the HD4870 and even continued further good scaling with our very modest overclock. We saw the HD4890-XOC even trade blows with Nvidia’s now second-fastest single GPU, the GTX280. We are most impressed and highly recommend Diamond’s HD4890-XOC as offering great bang-for-buck!

As we move on to another review series – Big GPU Shootout – Revisited – we will continue to feature Diamond’s HD4890-XOC and also CrossFire and TriFire configurations, with many more video cards from each vendor. We will continue to bench with Catalyst 9-5, as that is the latest driver available to us.  However, we will use GeForce 185.85 – the newest GeForce driver released since our last article’s 182.08.  In this way, you can see the driver’s continued progress from each vendor and compare their performance directly from one driver set to the next.

We have noted some possible architectural differences between the HD4890 and the HD4870 beside core and memory speeds affecting performance in CrossFire-X.  When we underclocked 4890 to 4870 speeds and paired it with a stock 4870, it still was a bit faster than 4870-X2 in many cases.  And pairing “FrankenFire’s” HD4890 plus HD4870 in CrossFire-X against “true” HD4890 CrossFire showed much improvement when we were able to strongly overclock our older card.  We also showed you TriFire results; our HD4870-X2 paired with the HD4890 and also the HD4870-X2 paired with the HD4870, compared – with the 4870-X2 plus 4890 pairing almost always faster.

If you are going to pick the most bang for buck in a multi-GPU configuration, overclocked HD4890 CrossFire should be your first choice.  If you already have a HD4870 and especially if it is overclockable, you might consider pairing it with the fastest HD4890 you can find as this mismatched CrossFire-X pair comes reasonably close in a lot of the benches to “true” HD4890 CrossFire and is faster than HD4870-X2 or HD4870 CrossFire.

Our “Shoot-out Series” has been a steady progression examining Intel’s Penryn platform, and we have been upgrading it as necessary to maximize our PC’s gaming performance and to chart those improvements for you. Part IV, The Summary, showed this by comparing drivers all the way back to August 2008 when we first began benchmarking and focusing on the progress each vendors has made since then.

In our installment of Part III, Big GPU Shootout, PCIe 1.0 vs. PCIe 2.0, we especially focused on the motherboard’s effects on video card performance, using the extremes – P35 PCIe 1.0 vs. X48 PCIe 2.0. We saw how limiting the older motherboard’s PCIe bandwidth can be in certain situations and so we upgraded to X48.

Part II – The Big GPU Shoot-Out – Setting New Benches – demonstrated the need for overclocking our E8600 CPU from its stock 3.33 GHz to 4.0 GHz to take full advantage of our new video cards.

Part I, The Big GPU Shootout: Upgrade Now or Wait? we examined the performance of five video cards. We realized that the last generation’s video cards are not sufficient for today’s DX10 maxed-out gaming. Since our Q9550S review article, we now use Core 2 Quad Q9550S and recommend it highly! We also started to bench with CrossFireX-3 in Part I which ran on fairly immature Catalyst 8-8 drivers at the time and we have continued to chart its progress until now.

Stay tuned. We think we will have some very interesting articles for you to read as you plan your own coming upgrades. Well, we are done with our benches and this part of our series featuring Diamond’s HD4890-XOC in CrossFireX and we are already working on our next article. A new “Big GPU shootout – revisited” are in the works for you shortly – with many more video cards and game benchmarks than our original from last September. After that, we expect to build a new AMD PC and compare it with our current Intel Penryn platform featuring Q9550S at 4.0 GHz.

In the meantime, feel free to comment below, ask questions or have a detailed discussion in our ABT forum.  We want you to join us and Live in Our World. It is fast expanding and we think you will like what you progressively discover here.

Mark Poppin

ABT editor

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