Regarding our HD 4890/GTX 275 article...

Rob Williams · 04-02-2009, 01:16 AM

As you sit there, sipping your morning coffee and browsing the web, you may notice an overwhelming amount of content surrounding ATI's new Radeon HD 4890 and also NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 275. Naturally, you're going to be wondering where our content is, but don't fret... it's on the way. Due to the fact that we received one of the cards exceptionally late, (no names, but it wasn't ATI), I felt like I had no choice but to push back the article until later today, so that's what I'm doing.

Because both cards are going to (supposedly) retail for $249, a review of one without the other makes absolutely no sense, and since I received the second card just yesterday (no joke), I haven't had the time up to this point to put it to a proper test. You can expect the article to be published before the day's through though, and I promise it will be worth the wait.

As it stands right now, I can honestly say that both cards are quite exciting. They're both excellent performers and happen to be quite a bit of fun to overclock (to say I was pleased would be an understatement). I'll be tackling that a lot more in the article though, so I won't spoil anything now. So... stay tuned. I'm working on getting this article up as fast as humanly possible.

Ben · 04-02-2009, 08:46 AM

Ouch! Well, work hard on that and I'll enjoy my gourmet coffee.

b1lk1 · 04-02-2009, 09:50 AM

Canadians are getting the shaft as usual, it (HD4890) is in stores right now for $349 CAD.

Greg King · 04-02-2009, 11:05 AM

Looking forward to this one. My main selfish hope is that it pushed the 260 216 cores down even further in price. If I can grab another XFX 260 Black for around $160ish, that might sway my desire to build an SLI machine.

Doomsday · 04-02-2009, 04:10 PM

pls pls pls highlight the cards in the bar charts pls! pretty pls!

Rob Williams · 04-02-2009, 05:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doomsday

pls pls pls highlight the cards in the bar charts pls! pretty pls!

How does this work? I know it's kind of cluttered, but whatever.

http://techgage.com/reviews/ati/hd_4890_gtx_275/24.png

Kougar · 04-03-2009, 06:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob Williams

How does this work? I know it's kind of cluttered, but whatever.

http://techgage.com/reviews/ati/hd_4890_gtx_275/24.png

I say keep it. Definitely helps focus the eyes and looks even better.

Rob Williams · 04-03-2009, 04:18 PM

Well for this particular article, since we were taking a look at both an ATI and NVIDIA card, I decided to use a green/red theme for those, and leave the typical Techgage colors for the other results. For most articles where we take a look at just one card, I tend to use green, simply because that's the combination Excel allows me to use quite easily.

I do wish Excel made things a lot easier though... for such a robust application, it can be stupid sometimes. Unless I'm clueless, you cannot save color profiles, and it's for this reason that I stick to just the TG colors and then use whatever else is has queued up for next (normally green and purple). It also doesn't make it easy to choose color combinations I've used before either, which makes things even worse. Then we have graphs like this...

http://techgage.com/reviews/ati/hd_4890_gtx_275/25.png

If you are wondering why there is no special coloring there, it's because as soon as I try to change the color of one of the results, the entire graph format changes, and it's impossible to get it back to match the rest of them.

Yes, I admit. Making graphs is the least-fun part of any article ;-)

Doomsday · 04-03-2009, 05:01 PM

loved the green/red colors! helps alot.

Kougar · 04-03-2009, 08:25 PM

Yeah, even Excell 2007 sucks with color profiles. Simply changing the order of the data entry screws it all up. I haven't found a way to save bar colors when making chart profiles, it just randomly assigns its own each time. I guess that is why so many sites love Swiff Charts, it doesn't suffer from this nearly as much but still works like Excel with data inputs.

Merlin · 04-04-2009, 05:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob Williams

How does this work? I know it's kind of cluttered, but whatever.

http://techgage.com/reviews/ati/hd_4890_gtx_275/24.png

Looks clean and consise to me, good job

Rob Williams · 04-05-2009, 01:26 PM

Thanks for the comments guys. Kougar, that Swiff Charts looks quite good, I'm going to have to look into it. I am not sure if all it does is Flash or not, but we most certainly wouldn't be using them like that on our site. Flash charts are just frustrating, especially when you have to wait for the data to load because of some stupid and unimportant animation process to finish.

Still, if it made it easy for not just me to create graphs, it'd be worth the purchase price, that's for sure. I like Excel quite a bit, and I like the graphs we can create with it, but it's the stupid small issues that remain that kill the fun for me. It took me almost 2 hours to do the graphs for this article, and that's WAY too long as far as I'm concerned.

Merlin · 04-05-2009, 06:45 PM

Oh Yeah, I checked out the Swiff Charts, pretty kewl charts in Flash

Kougar · 04-06-2009, 01:51 AM

Quite a few sites use Swiff Charts... the only problem is it isn't cheap! Damn overpriced for what it is... but its not like there is much competition for it and they at least do make chart creation and flash charts easy to do.

SwiffCharts will make still JPGs and regular charts, not just flash. Believe it or not that is what many sites use it for. Nothing I dislike more than waiting for charts to reload because the flash is set to run in a loop!

Quote:

It took me almost 2 hours to do the graphs for this article, and that's WAY too long as far as I'm concerned.

Exactly. Even with templates Excell 2007 is a very time consuming process when you must make professional grade charts. The charts are probably the most looked at part of a review, so it is only natural the readers are going to notice the colors changed or other inconsistencies that creep into Excel charts.

Rob Williams · 04-07-2009, 02:26 PM

For robust software that makes lives easier, $300 isn't too high of a price to ask, but I have to agree. You put in data and it comes out with charts... seems like such a simple thing for $300. But oh well, lack of competition will do that. I still plan to take a look, so we'll see. Problem is, I still like our graphs... it's just the chore of making them with Excel that I hate... not to mention the fact that only I know how to make them since it's kind of specific.

It bugs me because Excel is a commercial product, and it's not that cheap, so to lack certain features (like color profiles)... it doesn't make sense. Of course, I am not positive that there ISN'T a color profile section somewhere, but I haven't found it.

04-02-2009, 01:16 AM	#1
Rob Williams Editor-in-Chief Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Atlantic Canada Posts: 13,246	Regarding our HD 4890/GTX 275 article... As you sit there, sipping your morning coffee and browsing the web, you may notice an overwhelming amount of content surrounding ATI's new Radeon HD 4890 and also NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 275. Naturally, you're going to be wondering where our content is, but don't fret... it's on the way. Due to the fact that we received one of the cards exceptionally late, (no names, but it wasn't ATI), I felt like I had no choice but to push back the article until later today, so that's what I'm doing. Because both cards are going to (supposedly) retail for $249, a review of one without the other makes absolutely no sense, and since I received the second card just yesterday (no joke), I haven't had the time up to this point to put it to a proper test. You can expect the article to be published before the day's through though, and I promise it will be worth the wait. As it stands right now, I can honestly say that both cards are quite exciting. They're both excellent performers and happen to be quite a bit of fun to overclock (to say I was pleased would be an understatement). I'll be tackling that a lot more in the article though, so I won't spoil anything now. So... stay tuned. I'm working on getting this article up as fast as humanly possible. __________________ Intel Core i7-990X EE @ 3.43GHz, GIGABYTE X58A-UD5, Kingston 12GB DDR3-1333, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD, WD VR 1TB, WD 2TB, Seagate 2TB, LG BD-ROM, ASUS DVD-RW, Corsair 1000HX, Corsair H60 Cooler Corsair 800D, Dell 2408WFP 24", ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Gentoo (KDE 4.10, 3.7 Kernel) "Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get!" - H.P. Baxxter <Toad772> I don't always drink alcohol, but when I do, I take it too far.

04-02-2009, 09:50 AM	#3
b1lk1 Tech Monkey Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Ontario Posts: 821	Canadians are getting the shaft as usual, it (HD4890) is in stores right now for $349 CAD. __________________ Oldschool PC: Intel E6300/Nouctua NH-9U w/dual 92mm Panaflos XFX 680i LT Patriot PC2-6400 2X2GB LL 2 X BFG 8800GTX in SLI Enermax Revolution 620W PSU ASUS 24X DVD/Seagate 250GB SATA 2/THermaltake A90/Windows 7 Ultimate 64

04-02-2009, 11:05 AM	#4
Greg King I just kinda show up... Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Indiana Posts: 2,081	Looking forward to this one. My main selfish hope is that it pushed the 260 216 cores down even further in price. If I can grab another XFX 260 Black for around $160ish, that might sway my desire to build an SLI machine. __________________ "It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan System: Intel i5 2500K \| Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4 \| 16GB G.Skill DDR3 \| Crucial M4 128GB SSD WD 1TB Black x1 \| WD 2TB Green x 1 \| XFX Radeonn HD 6850 \| Corsair H80 Water Cooler Fractal Design R3 \| Windows 7 Ultimate x64 \| Dell 2410 x 3 @ 1920x1200 ESXi Host: Intel i7 920 @ 3.0 GHz \| Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P \| 24GB Patriot DDR3 \| WD 1TB Black x 2

04-02-2009, 04:10 PM	#5
Doomsday Tech Junkie Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: KHI, PAK Posts: 1,539	pls pls pls highlight the cards in the bar charts pls! pretty pls! __________________ PSU: Corsair AX850 - Case: Cooler Master HAF X - CPU:Core i7-2600k - Cooler: Cooler Master V6 GT - Motherboard: Asus Z68 Maximus IV Extreme Z - Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8 GB-1600Mhz - GPU: AMD MSI R6970 Lightning - HDD: WD Caviar Black 1TB, Seagate 2TB Barracuda Green - SSD: Intel 520 Series 120GB - K/B: Razer Lycosa Mirror - Mouse: Logitech G700 - MouseMat: Steel Series 4HD - LCD: Samsung 2333SW 23" - Speakers: Creative Inspire M4500 4.1 - Headset: Logitech G35 7.1 "Do not look at a man's prayers nor his fasts, rather, measure him by how well he deals with others, the compassion he shows his fellow man, his wisdom and his integrity" - Umar Ibn Al-Khattab

04-03-2009, 04:18 PM	#8
Rob Williams Editor-in-Chief Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Atlantic Canada Posts: 13,246	Well for this particular article, since we were taking a look at both an ATI and NVIDIA card, I decided to use a green/red theme for those, and leave the typical Techgage colors for the other results. For most articles where we take a look at just one card, I tend to use green, simply because that's the combination Excel allows me to use quite easily. I do wish Excel made things a lot easier though... for such a robust application, it can be stupid sometimes. Unless I'm clueless, you cannot save color profiles, and it's for this reason that I stick to just the TG colors and then use whatever else is has queued up for next (normally green and purple). It also doesn't make it easy to choose color combinations I've used before either, which makes things even worse. Then we have graphs like this... http://techgage.com/reviews/ati/hd_4890_gtx_275/25.png If you are wondering why there is no special coloring there, it's because as soon as I try to change the color of one of the results, the entire graph format changes, and it's impossible to get it back to match the rest of them. Yes, I admit. Making graphs is the least-fun part of any article ;-) __________________ Intel Core i7-990X EE @ 3.43GHz, GIGABYTE X58A-UD5, Kingston 12GB DDR3-1333, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD, WD VR 1TB, WD 2TB, Seagate 2TB, LG BD-ROM, ASUS DVD-RW, Corsair 1000HX, Corsair H60 Cooler Corsair 800D, Dell 2408WFP 24", ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Gentoo (KDE 4.10, 3.7 Kernel) "Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get!" - H.P. Baxxter <Toad772> I don't always drink alcohol, but when I do, I take it too far.

04-02-2009, 08:46 AM	#2
Ben Site Developer Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Grand Rapids, MI Posts: 119	Ouch! Well, work hard on that and I'll enjoy my gourmet coffee.

04-03-2009, 05:01 PM	#9
Doomsday Tech Junkie Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: KHI, PAK Posts: 1,539	loved the green/red colors! helps alot. __________________ PSU: Corsair AX850 - Case: Cooler Master HAF X - CPU:Core i7-2600k - Cooler: Cooler Master V6 GT - Motherboard: Asus Z68 Maximus IV Extreme Z - Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8 GB-1600Mhz - GPU: AMD MSI R6970 Lightning - HDD: WD Caviar Black 1TB, Seagate 2TB Barracuda Green - SSD: Intel 520 Series 120GB - K/B: Razer Lycosa Mirror - Mouse: Logitech G700 - MouseMat: Steel Series 4HD - LCD: Samsung 2333SW 23" - Speakers: Creative Inspire M4500 4.1 - Headset: Logitech G35 7.1 "Do not look at a man's prayers nor his fasts, rather, measure him by how well he deals with others, the compassion he shows his fellow man, his wisdom and his integrity" - Umar Ibn Al-Khattab

04-03-2009, 08:25 PM	#10
Kougar Techgage Staff Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Texas Posts: 2,643	Yeah, even Excell 2007 sucks with color profiles. Simply changing the order of the data entry screws it all up. I haven't found a way to save bar colors when making chart profiles, it just randomly assigns its own each time. I guess that is why so many sites love Swiff Charts, it doesn't suffer from this nearly as much but still works like Excel with data inputs. __________________ Core i7 4770k Gigabyte Z87X-UD5H Crucial Ballistix Sport LP 1600MHz 32GB EVGA GTX 480 HydroCopper FTW ASUS Xonar DX Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB \| Windows 7 64-bit Apogee XT + MCP655 & Thermochill Triple 140mm Radiator Corsair AX1200 PSU \| Cooler Master HAF-X

04-05-2009, 01:26 PM	#12
Rob Williams Editor-in-Chief Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Atlantic Canada Posts: 13,246	Thanks for the comments guys. Kougar, that Swiff Charts looks quite good, I'm going to have to look into it. I am not sure if all it does is Flash or not, but we most certainly wouldn't be using them like that on our site. Flash charts are just frustrating, especially when you have to wait for the data to load because of some stupid and unimportant animation process to finish. Still, if it made it easy for not just me to create graphs, it'd be worth the purchase price, that's for sure. I like Excel quite a bit, and I like the graphs we can create with it, but it's the stupid small issues that remain that kill the fun for me. It took me almost 2 hours to do the graphs for this article, and that's WAY too long as far as I'm concerned. __________________ Intel Core i7-990X EE @ 3.43GHz, GIGABYTE X58A-UD5, Kingston 12GB DDR3-1333, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD, WD VR 1TB, WD 2TB, Seagate 2TB, LG BD-ROM, ASUS DVD-RW, Corsair 1000HX, Corsair H60 Cooler Corsair 800D, Dell 2408WFP 24", ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Gentoo (KDE 4.10, 3.7 Kernel) "Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get!" - H.P. Baxxter <Toad772> I don't always drink alcohol, but when I do, I take it too far.

04-05-2009, 06:45 PM	#13
Merlin The Tech Wizard Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Lakeland, Fl Posts: 1,855	Oh Yeah, I checked out the Swiff Charts, pretty kewl charts in Flash __________________ Win7 64 bit Intel i7 920 watercooled Asus P6X580 Premium mobo, GTX280 GPU watercooled Synology NAS 207 Network Server with 2 Hitachi Terabite drives LG NAS N2R1 with 2 ea 2 tb drives LINKSYS PLK300 Powerline Network Kit

04-07-2009, 02:26 PM	#15
Rob Williams Editor-in-Chief Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Atlantic Canada Posts: 13,246	For robust software that makes lives easier, $300 isn't too high of a price to ask, but I have to agree. You put in data and it comes out with charts... seems like such a simple thing for $300. But oh well, lack of competition will do that. I still plan to take a look, so we'll see. Problem is, I still like our graphs... it's just the chore of making them with Excel that I hate... not to mention the fact that only I know how to make them since it's kind of specific. It bugs me because Excel is a commercial product, and it's not that cheap, so to lack certain features (like color profiles)... it doesn't make sense. Of course, I am not positive that there ISN'T a color profile section somewhere, but I haven't found it. __________________ Intel Core i7-990X EE @ 3.43GHz, GIGABYTE X58A-UD5, Kingston 12GB DDR3-1333, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD, WD VR 1TB, WD 2TB, Seagate 2TB, LG BD-ROM, ASUS DVD-RW, Corsair 1000HX, Corsair H60 Cooler Corsair 800D, Dell 2408WFP 24", ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Gentoo (KDE 4.10, 3.7 Kernel) "Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get!" - H.P. Baxxter <Toad772> I don't always drink alcohol, but when I do, I take it too far.

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