Overclocking the ATI Radeon HD 4890
Video Cards & GPUs
AMD Radeon GPU
We take the time to find out how well the new HD 4890 from ATI overclocks. Can it give us a worthy amount of extra FPS?
Published Apr 2, 2009 11:35 PM CDT | Updated Tue, Nov 3 2020 7:03 PM CST
Manufacturer: none
8 minute read time
Introduction
When speaking to a few ATI partners, the word was that ATI had been quite lenient with the clock speeds on the new HD 4890. Since ATI ultimately needed this card to be as fast as possible, it seemed weird that they would hold back slightly on clock rates.
With this in mind, we thought we would take the time to overclock the card. At first we tried Rivatuner but that didn’t want to play along with the new card and ATITool had the same issue.
In a last minute attempt, we decided on trying the ATI Overdrive utility built into the Catalyst driver suite. Fortunately, this was perfect for us and away we went on our overclocking venture. Increase, benchmark; increase, benchmark; increase, crash; decrease, benchmark.
What did we eventually end up with? — Well, you’re going to have to jump forward to the next page to find out.
Test System Setup and 3DMark Vantage
Test System Setup
Processor(s): Intel i7 920 @ 3.8GHz (190MHz x 20)
Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P (Supplied by Noctua)
Motherboard(s): GIGABYTE EX58-UD5 (Supplied by GIGABYTE)
Memory: 3 X 2GB OCZ Technology PC-12800 DDR-3 8-8-8-24 (OCZ3G1600LV6GK)
Hard Disk(s): Western Digital 300GB Velicorapter (Supplied by Western Digital)
Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2, Windows Vista SP1 64-Bit
Drivers: ForceWare 182.06, Catalyst 9.2, Catalyst 8.14.10.0647 (HD 4890)
With a bit of time taken to find the highest stable ceiling, we ended up with the clock rates that you can see below in the GPU-Z screen shot.
We were able to move the default core clock from 850MHz to 950MHz, and we moved the default memory from 975MHz or 3800MHz QDR to 1100MHz or 4400MHz QDR. This is a pretty impressive overclock on both the core and memory; hopefully it will translate to a nice little performance increase in our benchmarks here today.
3DMark Vantage
Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.1
Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com
Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmarkvantage/
Buy It Here
3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware.
3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.
In our first test we can see straight away that the overclock gives us a nice healthy increase in both the Extreme and Performance setup.
Benchmarks — PT Boats: Knights of the Sea
PT Boats: Knights of the Sea
Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo
Developer Homepage: http://en.akella.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.pt-boats.net/
PT Boats: Knights of the Sea is a naval action simulator that places gamers in charge of a mosquito fleet of the Allied Forces, Russia or Germany during the height of World War II.
Using the latest Direct X 10 technology PT Boards — Knights of the Sea manages to apply a lot of stress to the components of today which in turn gives us quite an intensive benchmark.
PT Boats sees some good gains at the higher resolution; the difference with the overclock is the game being playable and not playable at 2560 x 1600.
Benchmarks — CINEBENCH R10
CINEBENCH R10
Version and / or Patch Used: Release 10
Developer Homepage: http://www.maxon.net/
Product Homepage: http://www.maxon.net
CINEBENCH is a real-world test suite that assesses your computer’s performace capabilities. MAXON CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software, CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.
MAXON CINEBENCH runs several tests on your computer to measure the performance of the main processor and the graphics card under real world circumstances. The benchmark application makes use of up to 16 CPUs or CPU cores and is available for Windows (32-bit and 64-Bit) and Macintosh (PPC and Intel-based).
CINEBENCH, like our other tests, so far manages to see a nice little performance increase with the card overclocked.
Benchmarks — World in Conflict
World in Conflict
Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.0.5
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.massive.se
Product Homepage: http://www.worldinconflict.com
World in Conflict is a real-time strategy video game by Massive Entertainment and to be published by Sierra Entertainment for Windows (DX9 and DX10) and the Xbox 360.
The game is set in 1989 where economic troubles cripple the Soviet Union and threaten to dissolve it. However, the title pursues a «what if» scenario where, in this case, the Soviet Union does not collapse and instead pursues a course of war to remain in power. It is an intensive new game is sure to put plenty of stress on even the latest graphics cards and we use the built-in benchmarking for our testing.
Under WIC we can see gains of up to 20% with the new clock speeds.
Optimum Setup- Unfortunately the overclock doesn’t increase 2560 x 1600 enough to make it playable, so we would be sticking to 1920 x 1200 here.
Benchmarks — Crysis Warhead
Crysis Warhead
Version and / or Patch Used: unpatched
Timedemo or Level Used: Airfield
Developer Homepage: http://www.crytek.com
Product Homepage: http://crysiswarhead.ea.com/
Buy It Here
Crysis Warhead updates and refines the gameplay of the original game through a sidestory plot involving Psycho, one of previous protagonist Nomad’s allies. The game is a parallel story that follows Sergeant Michael «Psycho» Sykes, a character from the original Crysis, as he faces his own trials and challenges on the other side of the island during the time period of the first game.
It also showcases a new, enhanced and optimized version of CryEngine 2 using full DX10 extensions and is the first game developed by Crytek’s Budapest studio.
Warhead sees a bit of movement in the minimum department, but the best gains are seen in the average.
Optimum Setup- The game ultimately does very little for ATI cards; dropping the setting at 1680 x 1050, though, will give you a playable setup.
Benchmarks — Far Cry 2
Far Cry 2
Version and / or Patch Used: 1.01
Timedemo or Level Used: Ranch Long
Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.farcry2.com/
Buy It Here
The Dunia Engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2 by the award-winning Ubisoft Montreal development team. It delivers the most realistic destructible environments, amazing special effects such as dynamic fire propagation and storm effects, real-time night-and-day cycle, dynamic music system, non-scripted enemy A.
I. and so much more.
Across the board we see very good gains from the overclocked card with the results equating to more than 15% at times.
Optimum Setup- While we do see good gains, the extra FPS at 2560 x 1600 is unfortunately not enough for us to move to that resolution. We could drop the detail to high or medium, but if you want to play at Very High 1920 x 1200 is the sweet spot.
Benchmarks — S.T.A.L.K.E.R. — Clear Sky
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. — Clear Sky
Version and / or Patch Used: 1.5.07
Timedemo or Level Used: Custom Timedemo
Developer Homepage: http://www.gsc-game.com/
Product Homepage: http://cs.stalker-game.com/en/
Buy It Here
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, is the stand-alone prequel for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, a first-person shooter computer game by Ukrainian developer GSC Game World.
[3] The game consists of a roughly 50/50 mix of new areas and old, remodeled areas from the previous game. The X-ray graphics engine has been updated to version 1.5 and includes DirectX 10 support (later patch 1.5.06 included DirectX 10.1). Additionally, the AI received an overhaul to accommodate the new faction wars feature.
Like our other games, performance is also up in Clear Sky with gains exceeding 15% at times.
Optimum Setup- The boost in FPS makes 1680 x 1050 playable at high settings.
Benchmarks — Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead
Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update
Timedemo or Level Used: Custom Timedemo
Developer Homepage: http://www.valvesoftware.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.l4d.com/
Buy It Here
Left 4 Dead uses the latest version of Valve’s Source engine, with improvements such as multi-core processor support and physics-based animation to more realistically portray hair and clothing, and to improve physics interaction with enemies when shot or shoved in different body parts.
Animation was also improved to allow characters to lean realistically when moving in curved paths.
Rendering and artificial intelligence were scaled up to allow for greater number of enemies who can navigate the world in better ways, such as climbing, jumping or breaking obstacles. Lighting has been enhanced with new self-shadowing normal mapping and advanced shadow rendering that is important to convey information about the environment and player actions.
Across the board we see good gains here, but the increase don’t really effect performance with the HD 4890 already pulling out big numbers under Left 4 Dead.
Optimum Setup- Like our non-overclocked setup, 2560 x 1600 isn’t going to be a problem.
Benchmarks — High Quality AA and AF
High Quality AA and AF
Our high quality tests let us separate the men from the boys and the ladies from the girls. If the cards weren’t struggling before they will start to now.
Far Cry 2
While we see a good gain that equates to 30%, the performance numbers we’re seeing aren’t enough to let us play the game at these settings.
World In Conflict
We see a slight bump in the minimum department, but the average has shot up 10%. Like Far Cry 2, we can’t play with these settings, but we’re pretty close. Ease off slightly on the AA and drop the AF and you’re still going to have a great looking game that will run smoothly.
Left 4 Dead
Finally we leave with L4D that sees another good 10%+ increase; there’s a fair bit of power there with the HD 4890 when we start increasing the clock rates.
Final Thoughts
You can see today that there is clearly more power behind the HD 4890. So, should ATI have increased the core clocks and memory clock on the cards further? — Yes and no really. For starters, we don’t know what the yield rate on a 950MHz core would be; it could significantly drop the rate and increase the price of the card.
Secondly, by moving to these clocks there would be no room for OC models and we know how much companies love to do them. We have already seen GIGABYTE increase the core and memory clock; albeit, not this high.
Where ATI could have probably increased the clock, though, was with the memory. The 975MHz is very weird; they should have just gone for the straight 1000MHz clock. The other thing about having the card clocked higher would have been the difference between the card beating the GTX 260 more often and at a higher rate than its current scores against it.
With everything said and done, though, there seems to be some serious room for overclocking and once we see companies move to aftermarket cooling, there should be even more room again.
It will be exciting to see what companies like Sapphire do with TOXIC and ATOMIC models, while ASUS mix it up with the TOP series and HIS bring out an IceQ4 version with some new clocks.
What’s going to be even more interesting is when we slap two of the overclocked cards together.
Performance should be extremely strong and the setup should become quite attractive to a lot of people.
ATI ultimately have a really good product here and like I’ve said before, while it’s not next generation, the name doesn’t suggest it ever was going to be. It really is a HD 4870 on steroids and while we would have loved more, the price point of the card and the performance it can offer makes it a great card for people.
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Shawn Baker
Shawn takes care of all of our video card reviews. From 2009, Shawn is also taking care of our memory reviews, and from May 2011, Shawn also takes care of our CPU, chipset and motherboard reviews. As of December 2011, Shawn is based out of Taipei, Taiwan.
Overclocking A Radeon HD4890(RV790) | Overclock.net
Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any choices you make to do any of this stated below, you overclock at your own risk, please remember that…
Understanding The Card
AMD’s ATI Radeon 4890 is an interesting product to both gamers and modders alike, It’s both a relatively good preformer, considering its pric, and it’s based on the most powerfull single-gpu card from AMD to date, the RV790. But what makes the RV790 so interesting is that the chip was designed from the ground up to operate at very high clock speeds.
Fundamentally, th RV790 GPU uses on the Radeon HD 4890 is very similar to the RV770 used on the older Radeon HD 4870. The two GPUs share many of th esame features, including the number of shader processors (800), an equal amount of texture units (40), and similar ROP confiqurations.Although their features are technically very similar, the RV790 does differ from the RV770 in a number of key ways. Some may be tempted to say the RV790 is simply an overclocked RV770, but that isn’t correct. The RV790 at the heart of the Radeon HD 4890 is composed of more transistors than the RV770 (959 Million Vs. 956 Million). It also [/COLOR]has a few inheren tfeatures that are conductive to higher frequency operation. The additional transistors are actually dedicated to the updates made to the core in an effert to achieve higher clock speeds. According to AMD, it re-timed the entire chip and altered the power distrubutation on the RV790. In addition, a decap ring, or ring of decoupling capacitors, was implemented around the chip to reduce signal noise.
The change to the core and the addition of the decap ring results in an increase in die and packaging size, but the end result is a GPU that can run much higher clock speeds than the RV770.
Physical Mod
The First thing that needs to be to the done EAh5890 TOP is to mod the stock cooling assembly to ensure it was operating at peak performance. The collers installed on most GPUs at the Factory are usaualy treated to sub par applications of TIM(thermal interface Material), and the bases of their heatsink aren’t always perfectly smooth. Remedying these two issues will decrease you operation temps, some good compound and, a little polish, or lapping if you prefer. Removing the coller from the EAh5890 TOP requires noless than 14 screws to be removed. There are 10 holding the bulk of the HS and coller assembly in place, and the 4 are for the copper GPU heatsink (the copper heatsink screws are held on by springs in the back be very careful). With all the screws out all that is needed is some rocking back and forth, that shall free the GPU and RAM (Take caution as to not damage the board using this method)**Even if you dont plan to mod you cooler, take a small phillips screw driver and make sure all of you screws are tight** Clean the stock TIM of the card(cotton swabs/ lint free cloth), Make sure all the surfaces are as clean as can be.
With all the cleaning out the way apply your choice of TIM and reinstall the cooler assembly. when tightening the screws usa a rotational pattern and dont overtighten too early. install one screw on the left till it is barely tight then one side on the right, one along the top edge and so on, this ensure the HS lays flat and contacted as much as possible.
The Soft Mod
After installing the card into the rig, you can now move to the secound part of the process, the GPU volt mod. Some Radeon HD 4890, such as the ASUS EAh5890 TOP, can have their voltage modded using simple software utilities, the asus smart docter utility for example, gives the user the ability to alter GPU volts, fan speed, and frequency of the memory and GPU core. After trying the overclock to see what the stock max was, then you can go fourth and raise other setting to OC(at 1.312v the asus card peaked at 965Mhz/1055Mhz. Next, Try Raising the GPU volts to 1.45V- The max for the ASUS, and you should be able to reach a max of 1000MHz/1100MHz increase of 11. 1%/10% of Stock.
Worth The Effort
A few months after the original Radeon HD 4890 cards hit the scene, AMD and its partners released factory overclocked versions with 1GHz GPU clock speeds. These cards, of course, commanded a price premium, but other their frequencies, they werent any diffrent from their originals. By taking the time to mod and overclock a standard Radeon HD 4890, you should be able to hit the same kind of frequencies offered by the newer models without having to spend the additional money. As is always the case when overclocking, your mileage may vary, but the RV790 GPU is definitely a modder- and overclocker friendly product. The features AMD incoperate into their GPU’s desing make it well-suited to high-frequency operation, and it seems to be comfertable running with higher volts as well. With only some relativly minor mods, you are able to increase the performance of your card. If some of you more exotic modders take extreme mesures you can make even higher performace advancements
Thank’s To CPU Mag
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XFX Radeon HD 4890 — the first test of the new AMD RV790 GPU / Graphics cards
The confrontation between ATI and NVIDIA has probably been going on since the release of the first 3D accelerators. And if at first the market was full of other equally aggressive and strong players, now that only they are left on the market — the sweet couple ATI (AMD) and NVIDIA, all the strength and power of both companies is aimed at fighting each other. Whenever someone takes a significant step forward, the other tries to go even further, and there is no end in sight to this process.
Well, if so, we can only observe the process of evolution and evaluate the offspring of both companies. Today, AMD has officially taken another such step by launching an evolutionary solution on the market, the name of which is the AMD Radeon HD 4890. First, let’s take a closer look at the new product.
First of all, we note that the Radeon HD 4890 video card is not a fundamentally new solution, this is obvious even from the name. AMD did not significantly increase the numerical designation of the model, so as not to mislead the user (unlike NVIDIA with their GeForce GTS 250). First of all, the graphics core has undergone modernization.
All changes in the GPU were aimed at improving the frequency potential of the chip, without a significant increase in its area. As a result, the core frequency of the reference video cards Radeon HD 4890 is 850 MHz versus 750 MHz for the Radeon HD 4870. As the frequency of the chip increases, so does its need for timely data from the video memory.
AMD engineers took this fact into account, so the video memory frequency of the Radeon HD 4890 is 975 MHz (3900 MHz DDR) versus the previous 900 MHz (3600 MHz DDR). In addition, the amount of memory installed by the manufacturer on the reference cards has also been increased and will be equal to 1 GB.
Of course, the technical features of the novelty are very important, but it is interesting to know how much all this splendor will cost, and against whom, according to AMD, the novelty will fight. So, immediately after the announcement, the recommended retail price of the Radeon HD 4890 will be $239, while the HD 4870 will be priced at $199 with 1GB of memory. If we talk about the position on the graphics Olympus, then the performance of the Radeon HD 4890 should be between the GTX 260 and GTX 285, at least according to AMD.
In order to present all the information received more clearly, we have compiled a summary table of the characteristics of the Radeon HD 4890, 4870, and also, for comparison, have given the technical characteristics of the main opponent of the novelty in the face of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 (216 cores)
|
Radeon HD4890
|
Radeon HD4870
|
GeForce GTX 260
|
|
| Process technology, nm |
55 |
55 |
55 |
Number of transistors, mln. |
959 |
956 |
??? |
| GPU core/shader frequency, MHz |
850 |
750 |
576/1242 |
| No. of universal processors |
800 |
800 |
216 |
| Number of TMUs |
40 |
40 |
72 |
| Number of ROPs |
16 |
16 |
24 |
| Memory frequency, MHz |
975 |
900 |
1000 |
| Video memory type |
GDDR-5 |
GDDR-5 |
GDDR-3 |
| Memory capacity, bit |
256 |
256 |
448 |
| Memory size |
1 GB |
512 MB/1 GB |
896 MB |
So, the main hero of today’s review is the XFX Radeon HD 4890 video card, which is especially interesting, since XFX until recently specialized exclusively in NVIDIA solutions.
The reference video card Radeon HD 4870 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 (216 cores) also take part in testing.
Appearance, equipment
The XFX designers can’t be blamed for their lack of taste. In truth, this is one of the most unusual graphics card packaging we’ve ever seen.
The box is made in the shape of the letter X, on the front of which contains information about the key features of the video card, as well as information about the packaging and a label indicating 5-year product support from XFX
The reverse side of the box informs us in more detail about the capabilities of the video card, in addition, here you can also find the conditions for obtaining technical support from the manufacturer.
On the sides of the graphics card packaging is information about the various capabilities of the Radeon series video cards, which are common to all video adapters of the HD48xx family.
Of course, there are also data on the delivery set, which we will definitely look at, but first we will try to get to it. The thing is, opening this work of art is much more difficult than ordinary boxes, you need to be very careful not to damage the packaging. Having removed the colorful cardboard «casing», we find a black «X-box» (just some kind of X-Box …), which is divided into two components, one of which contains the package, and the second — the Radeon HD 489 video card itself0.
Inside we find the following:
- DVI to VGA adapter
- DVI to HDMI adapter
- power adapters from 6-pin to regular Molex
- video cables
- game disc HAWX
- driver disk
- CrossFire bridge
- instructions (short and complete)
- sign on the door with the inscription «Do not disturb, I’m playing.»
A very worthy set, the abundance of adapters and cables has never harmed anyone.
Now let’s finally look at the video card itself:
The video card is based on the AMD reference design and differs from the others only by a sticker on the cooling system. Its length is 24.2 cm.
Let’s see what is hidden under the casing of the cooling system:
As with all cards in the HD 48xx series, the GPU die is not covered by a metal cover, but is only surrounded by a protective frame. This provides better heat dissipation from the GPU, however, if the CO is installed inaccurately, the crystal can be damaged. By the way, if we compare the PCB design of the HD4890 with that of the HD4870, we can see that the changes have affected mainly the power subsystem of the video card.
The video card is equipped with GDDR5 standard video memory manufactured by Quimonda, with an access time of 1 ns, which corresponds to a nominal frequency of 1000 MHz (or 4000 MHz DDR).
The cooling system of the HD4890 is a turbine, inside which there is a system of copper, polished to a shine heat sink, from which heat is transferred to the aluminum fins of the radiator using heat pipes, and the turbine itself removes heat outside the case.
On this, with a visual inspection of the map, we, perhaps, will finish. It’s time to announce the list of test packages and familiarize yourself with the stand configuration.
Bench configuration, test results
| CPU | Intel Core i7 920 @ 4.0GHz (200×20, HT — on) |
| Motherboard | GIGABYTE EX58-UD4 |
| RAM | OCZ Platinum Triple Channel kit 3x2GB @ 1600MHz 7-7-7-24 |
| Cooling system | ProModz Extreme Watercooling kit |
| HDD | Western Digital Rapror 36GB |
| PSU | Enermax Revolution 85+ 1050W |
| Case | IKONIK RA-10X SIM |
| OS | Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 x86 |
This time the list of test packages has slightly changed and, in addition to the usual 3DMark Vantage or Call of Juaerz, we decided to use a completely new synthetic benchmark — Unique Tropics 1.
1. The fact is that this test supports all modern APIs — DirectX9, 10 and even DirectX 10.1 as well as OpenGL. And since tests with OpenGL support appear infrequently, for a change, we measured the speed of video cards in this mode. As for the detail settings, for all resolutions used (1280×1024, 1600×1200, 1920×1200) it was maximum, in addition, full-screen anti-aliasing (4xAA mode) and anisotropic filtering (16xAF mode) were enabled.
The Radeon HD 4890 was tested in three GPU/VRAM clocks:
- 850/975 — nominal frequencies of the AMD
- 900/975 — stock overclocking set by XFX
- 1000/1200 — the result of overclocking the card in our laboratory (during overclocking, a standard CO and high-quality additional airflow were used).
reference video card
Before testing, we took temperature measurements and subjectively assessed the level of noise emitted by the HD 4890 card. The received data is displayed in the table:
| HD4890 | test mode | temperature | fan speed | note |
| 850/975 | desktop mode | 56 | 23% | Does not stand out from the overall noise of case cooling |
| Call of Juarez 1600×1200/4xAA/16xAF | 70 | 33% | Does not stand out from the overall noise of case cooling | |
| FurMark, GPU stability test | 82 | 41% | Noise is noticeable against the background of case cooling | |
| 900/975 | desktop mode | 56 | 23% | Does not stand out from the overall noise of case cooling |
| Call of Juarez 1600×1200/4xAA/16xAF | 72 | 34% | Does not stand out from the overall noise of case cooling | |
| FurMark, GPU stability test | 85 | 44% | Noise is noticeable against the background of case cooling |
Testing
Immediately, from the start, the HD4890 shows «who’s the boss», even at nominal frequencies outperforming not only its predecessor (which is not at all surprising), but also its direct competitor in the face of the GTX 260.
With the transition to a more difficult regime, the situation has not changed. The HD4870 is in the tail, followed by the GTX 260, and the parade is led by the HD4890.
Everything is the same again, HD4890 is in the lead.
A difficult test, unbearable for many cards. The alignment of forces, in comparison with 3DMark Vantage, has changed slightly — the Radeon HD 4870 is ahead of the GTX 260 and, of course, lost to the favorite in the face of the HD4890. We can talk about the minimum comfortable level of the game only in the case of the XFX Radeon HD4890, the higher core frequency played a role.
In terms of minimum fps, the GTX 260 and HD 4870 are almost equal, but in general, the AMD video card looks more confident. In turn, the HD 4890 outperformed its NVIDIA competitor both with and without overclocking.
As the resolution increased, the alignment of forces did not change, and the Radeon HD4890 is predictably in the lead.
Judging by the results, the love of this test for NVIDIA chips is very great. GTX 260 outperforms not only HD 4870, but also Radeon HD4890 both at the recommended frequencies and during overclocking. And only serious overclocking allowed the Radeon HD4890 to gain the upper hand.
As resolution increases, the situation changes. The HD4870 lags behind the GTX260 quite a bit, while the Radeon HD 4890 is on equal footing with the green camp. In turn, the XFX Radeon HD 4890 turned out to be the fastest of all and the palm remains with it.
GeForce GTX 260 slightly outperforms Radeon HD 4870 and can no longer oppose Radeon HD 4890.
FarCry2 turned out to be easy prey for all our participants, a comfortable game is achieved on all test video cards.
The leaders are HD4890, the outsider is HD4870.
With the increase in resolution, the picture of the distribution of the results of video cards has not changed. However, the HD4870 no longer allows you to play comfortably.
The Radeon HD 4890 in the nominal mode is slightly inferior to the GeForce GTX 260, but the lag is not fatal. The most interesting thing is that with increasing frequency, the results do not grow much, in fact, there is an approximate parity. The only thing that upsets is that the HD4870 lags far behind all other participants, most likely, the amount of local memory of 512 MB is not enough to ensure a comfortable game in this mode.
And now let’s pay attention to our newbie test — Unique Tropics Demo 1.1. This is an incredibly beautiful test that uses all the latest advances in 3D graphics. You can download the demo video or the benchmark itself here.
In OpenGL, the GeForce GTX 260 outperformed the HD 4870 by a significant margin, but fell slightly short of the results of the Radeon HD 4890.
The results of the XFX video card are ahead of everyone, which is not surprising, because its core frequency is 50 MHz higher.
With the increase in resolution, the absolute results of our test participants decreased somewhat, but the HD4890 is still in the lead.
Further increase in resolution did not bring any surprises, except that the Radeon HD4870 slightly outperformed the GTX 260.
Terminals
From our point of view, AMD Radeon HD 4890 was a success! Moderate heating, an acceptable noise level of a standard cooling system, an impressive core frequency potential — all this makes it possible to speak of the HD4890 as a confident step forward. In turn, the XFX company tried to make this product even better — the original packaging, a good delivery set and factory overclocking allowed the XFX Radeon HD 4890 to remain invincible in almost all modes.
All in all, the Radeon HD 4890 is faster than the GeForce GTX 260 (216 cores). But it’s too early to relax, NVIDIA is ready to strike back, in the face of the GeForce GTX 275. In which direction the «balance of power» will swing, we will soon find out. Stay with us.
By the way, according to AMD representatives, Radeon HD 4890 video cards have already arrived in retail stores.
— Discuss the material in the conference
Full review of the ASUS Radeon HD 4890 video card
As a rule, partner video cards can boast something noticeably different from the standard, which helps them stand out from the background of other modifications. It could be a custom cooler, a redesigned PCB, more memory, factory overclocking, or any combination of the improvements above.
The ASUS Radeon HD 4890 seems a little out of place in this regard, as it is, at least physically, exactly the same as the standard model.
Specifications
Equipped with the same 850 MHz RV790 GPU with the same 1 GB of GDDR5 memory running at 975 MHz, which equates to an effective frequency of 3.
9 GHz, and a standard HD 4890 reference cooler.
Original Radeon HD graphics card 4890 was great, but not perfect. Its base clock speed indicated a rather conservative overclocking potential. It largely remained in the shadow of the rival GeForce GTX 275, and its cooler was very loud under load. While both of these problems could be corrected with a massive factory overclock and cooling system replacement (as was the case with the excellent Sapphire HD 4890 Atomic), the reference design still left something to be desired.
Overclocking options
Although the Asus video card was a copy of the reference ATI Radeon HD 4890, it had a powerful argument that greatly distinguished it from its competitors — the ability to change the main voltage using the Smart Doctor application.
Overclocking is typically limited not by heat, but by increased power requirements at higher clock speeds. Therefore, experienced users have long been engaged in «volt-modding» of their graphics accelerators, which allows you to increase the core voltage and, consequently, the speed of the processor.
When the Radeon HD 4890 1GB first came out, there were rumors that it could accelerate to 1 GHz, but this could not be confirmed due to the fact that the reference card did not allow voltage changes. By adding this functionality to their software, Asus has unlocked the HD 4890’s impressive potential. 45V, as well as boosting the CPU clock to 1GHz and RAM to a somewhat ambitious 5GHz, with overclock settings that can be applied at startup.
The app also serves as a GPU temperature monitor and can even be paired with Asus’ GamerOSD software for dynamic gaming acceleration. Although experts do not recommend doing this, having this option is a great addition. Unfortunately for those who hope to use Smart Doctor to overclock and change the voltage of other cards, the program checks the BIOS for compatibility with the Asus video card. Therefore, without flashing it, you will not be able to take advantage of this useful utility.
Package Contents
In addition to exclusive overclocking applications, the card boasts a pretty decent and very nicely presented set of accessories.
In addition to the Radeon HD 4890 software and driver discs, DVI/VGA and DVI/HDMI adapters are available, as well as a dual 6-pin PCI-E cable, component RGB, S-Video to composite adapter, and a CrossFire bridge—just about everything necessary to satisfy any user’s needs.
Owners have tested the performance of the card in games that require high processing power. The results are shown below.
Crysis
This game is seen by many as an advertisement for DirectX 10 because it will make any system cry. Unsurprisingly, the graphics in it are something special — they are far superior to anything that has been seen in PC games before.
According to user feedback, a frame rate of 27-33 fps is enough to be able to play at an acceptable level. Crysis is a bit different from other games in that its low framerate looks pretty smooth.
With detail set to fine and 8x anisotropic filtering at 1280 x 1024 with 4x anti-aliasing, the average frame rate was 38.1 fps.
The frame rate at 1680 x 1050 is 31 fps.
Since the Asus Radeon HD 4890 is a base clock card, its benchmark results are the same as any other HD 4890 reference card. In Crysis, the much faster GTX 275 leads.
Fallout 3
Despite using the now obsolete Oblivion engine, the game looked absolutely amazing — big explosions, soft shadows and smoke effects were especially noteworthy.
At the highest levels of detail, anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, along with HDR and special effects, a frame rate of 79.2 fps at 1680 x 1050, 74.9 fps at 1920 x 1200 and 58.5 fps is achieved for 2560 x 1600.
Thus, in Fallout 3, the HD 4890 outperforms the competing GeForce GTX 275 at all settings by a convincing margin.
Far Cry 2
Ubisoft’s shooter uses DirectX 10.1 to improve performance and anti-aliasing. Improvements are made by reading a multisampled depth buffer in a single pass.
Users used the built-in performance test tool to evaluate the graphics card.
At ultra-high quality at 1680 x 105 resolution and 4x anti-aliasing, the frame rate is 45.2 fps, 1920 x 1200 — 42.8 fps, 2560 x 1600 — 29 fps.
Far Cry 2 HD 4890 is slightly faster than the GTX 275 with FSAA disabled, but slower with FSAA enabled.
Call of Duty: World at War
This World War II themed shooter uses DX 9.0 rendering and features dynamic lighting and HDR among other things. At maximum gaming settings, including texture detail, full-screen anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, the frame rate was 65.8 fps at 1680 x 1050, 57.7 fps at 1920 x 1200, 38.7 fps at 2560 x 1600 With.
Nvidia has always been in the lead in this game, and that hasn’t changed. The GTX 275 is 10% faster than the HD 4890 regardless of resolution or anti-aliasing level.
Compute Benchmarking
At the time of the map’s release, the most successful general purpose GPU application was folding@home. It was used for distributed computing of the protein folding process.
The performance of ATI video cards in this test has always been unsatisfactory, and this has been confirmed once again. HD 4890 consumes significantly more power than competitors, while lagging behind them by 50%.
Overclocking
While the model’s performance is on par with any other reference HD 4890, the advantage of the Asus graphics accelerator is its overclocking capability thanks to the inclusion of a voltage adjustment option in the Smart Doctor software. This is where the card’s potential is shown to its full potential, and the owners were extremely impressed with what they were able to get.
The use of Asus software, which is covered by the warranty, makes it possible to increase performance without the threat of blowing the GPU. In this case, the card reaches a processor clock speed of 1 GHz with a slight increase in voltage to 1.4 V.
Further increase to 1.437 V allows you to reach 1 GHz and a memory speed of 1111 MHz (corresponding to an effective frequency of 4.
444 GHz), which is 175 MHz (17 %) and 136 MHz (544 MHz) exceeds the base values. However, experience with the Sapphire HD 4890 suggests that the core is capable of more. This was achieved using the RivaTuner application, which can work together with Smart Doctor. Thus, the maximum overclocking of the core was 1025 MHz and the memory — 4444 MHz.
This, for example, made it possible to achieve an 8% performance increase in Fallout 3, which is demanding on memory bandwidth (79 fps at maximum settings and a resolution of 1920 x 1200). And one of the most «heavy» games — Crysis — shows the maximum improvements. The minimum frame rate increased by 18%, and the average by 10%, amounting to 20 and 34.8 fps, respectively, at high quality settings at a resolution of 1920 x 1200, 2x anisotropic anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering.
Power Consumption
Users have tested the card’s power consumption in Crysis by making sure the latest ATI Radeon HD 4890 drivers are loaded.
It was 222W idle at stock clock and 233W overclocked.
The ATI HD 4890 was an extremely power-hungry graphics card, and this hasn’t changed in the Asus mod. The peak in power consumption after overclocking is very noticeable when loading. The card draws an impressive 363W, about the same as a GTX 275 and an overclocked Sapphire Radeon HD 489.0 Atomic.
Temperature
When testing heat, owners used the FurMark 1.6.0 test to ensure that the graphics card could reach its absolute thermal maximum. Since the Radeon HD 4890 1024 MB also gets hot in idle mode, its aggressive overclocking results in a temperature increase of only 5 degrees. In idle mode, the card heats up to 56°C. Since the HD 4890 is the base model, this increase is not too surprising.
At the base clock frequency, the video card works in the same way as any other reference one, heating up to 82 ° C under load (this temperature is set in the BIOS, after which the fan speed starts to increase). And after overclocking, even such increased cooling is not enough to keep it at the same level.
The result is a noisier cooler, and the CPU runs 4°C hotter, up to 86°C.
In conclusion
While the HD 4890’s base clock performance is inferior to the competing GeForce GTX 275, the card’s performance boost potential is so exciting that it stands out from the plethora of AMD partner products even without factory overclocking.
Although the performance of the Radeon HD 4890 is quite high at base frequencies, the Smart Doctor application (with the ability to change the core voltage) made it possible to significantly speed up the card and outshine even the Sapphire HD 4890.
Users have had no trouble speeding up the GPU to 1GHz and RAM to 4.2GHz, and even more performance at the maximum frequency of 1.025GHz CPU and 4.444GHz Memory. This made the Asus card the fastest modification of the HD 4890.
But despite the fact that the software unlocks previously unavailable potential, it is still a basic model, so it has noticeable flaws. The processing power of the card is significantly inferior to the GeForce GTX 275, and its very noisy dual-slot fan becomes simply unbearable when overclocked.