I have two reference design Sapphire 4890 cards in my i7 rig, can't say I have ANY complaints as to the speed of these cards! 
In-game, just ONE 4890 at stock clocks are ~2x of my SLI'd 8800GTX cards. DAYUM, hehe.
The GTXes still beat the ATI cards at 1920 rez with heavy alpha blending and high AA levels going on though, the G80 is a bit of a fillrate monster it seems. Still, nothing to complain about as itonly happens when you look through dozens of layers of near/full-screen textures. The G80s almost never sag, but the 4890 framerate gets a bit jumpy. Still quite playable though.
I love the 4890s because they're SO damn cheap, and they run ANY game smoothly at 1920 and maxed settings (except Crysis... -_-), though the image quality could be better. I guess you gotta compromise somewhere... Oh, and yea, they draw tons of current too and belch enormous heat. That's quite a bummer too, but if you're a gaming enthusiast that's a price you likely are willing to pay.
In-game, just ONE 4890 at stock clocks are ~2x of my SLI'd 8800GTX cards. DAYUM, hehe.The GTXes still beat the ATI cards at 1920 rez with heavy alpha blending and high AA levels going on though, the G80 is a bit of a fillrate monster it seems. Still, nothing to complain about as itonly happens when you look through dozens of layers of near/full-screen textures. The G80s almost never sag, but the 4890 framerate gets a bit jumpy. Still quite playable though.
I love the 4890s because they're SO damn cheap, and they run ANY game smoothly at 1920 and maxed settings (except Crysis... -_-), though the image quality could be better. I guess you gotta compromise somewhere...
Oh, and yea, they draw tons of current too and belch enormous heat. That's quite a bummer too, but if you're a gaming enthusiast that's a price you likely are willing to pay.