HD 4890 cards from XFX and ASUS
For our HD 4890 testing we received both an XFX and ASUS card. The XFX model was considered an “overclock” card as it ran at 900 MHz core clock while the ASUS card ran at the default speed of 850 MHz.
You can see from this image that the HD 4890 is a dual-slot design very similar to that of the HD 4870 series of cards.
The Radeon HD 4890 also includes two dual-link DVI outputs and an HD TV output as well. Of course support for the DVI-to-HDMI adapters and the integrated audio codec are included.
As you would expect with a higher total board power, the HD 4890 still requires a pair of the 6-pin PCIe power connectors to run.
CrossFire X is still going to work great on this card as well – we did some early CrossFire testing later in the article. Interesting, AMD is saying that the Radeon HD 4890 will work in CrossFire mode with the Radeon HD 4800-series of graphics cards though you will be “slowing down” your HD 4890 some as you might expect.
The ASUS Radeon HD 4890 comes with all the accessories you see above including output adapters and a small leather mouse pad.
The XFX card looks very similar as you might imagine…
Removing the heatsink from the card reveals the new RV790 GPU that looks QUITE a bit like the RRRV770.
Die space has increased ever so slightly thanks to those extra 3 million transistors and the decap layer that AMD added for increased frequency.
The heatsink design on the HD 4890 is improved over the previous generation as well and includes a better quality heatpipe system that AMD claims will lower the temperature on the card by about 10-15 degrees C so that when you reach for it in your systems after some gaming, you don’t have the ATI logo burned into your skin.
What will all of this cost you? AMD is giving the Radeon HD 4890 1GB cards a price range of “under $260” which essentially means a target of $259. It is likely that you will see the overclocked models like XFX’s seen above going for slightly more than $260 initially.
