Overclocking the 4890 to 980MHz/4480MHz delivered a chunk of extra performance that is between 12 and 22 per cent higher than the 4870 so clearly anyone in the market for a high-end Radeon graphics card should be interested in an upgrade.
GPU Temperature Results
Temperature in °C
The problem is that AMD has positioned the HD 4890 as a new product at the top of its single-GPU tree and assigned it a UK selling price of £229. The Radeon HD 4870 gets a small price cut to £170 for the 1GB version, so you’ll be paying a premium of £60 for the new 4890. That’s some 35 per cent and we don’t feel it represents good value which is, unfortunately, usually the case with high-end graphics cards.
It does, however, allow AMD to push into the high end of the market, which is currently dominated by Nvidia's GeForce GTX 285. Unfortunately, we don’t have a GTX 285 to hand but we do have a GTX 280 and we know from previous testing that a GTX285 performs about nine per cent faster than he tGTX280. Running the GTX 280 on our test platform shows that Nvidia continues to hold the high ground which is what we'd expect from a family of graphics cards that cost between £310 and £370.
It also raises the intriguing question about the likely effect of the new GeForce GTX 275, which is priced above the HD 4890 at £240-280. This is a new model that has been coincidentally launched at the same time as the HD 4890 with hardware apparently available for review in a week’s time. Watch this space, as they say...
Verdict
AMD's Radeon HD 4890 is substantially faster than HD 4870 and it has massive headroom for overclocking. The only thing is, we’re not sure it offers good value for money. ®
AMD ATI Radeon HD 4890
COMMENTS
ATI card in my vista PC
Biggest hardware upgrade mistake I've ever made.
With catalyst installed, aero randomly crashes.
With catalyst uninstalled, I get other errors like black squares showing up occasionally around the cursor, video upscaling not rendering properly and my dual monitors not staying in place after a restart.
So, current solution is "Windows Classic" theme, which is kind of annoying, since I do actually like the look of aero, and the PC and card is fast enough to run it.
Vista and by extension, this driver problem, has been around for what, nearly 4 years now? And windows 7 also has aero, so the problem won't be going away anytime soon. The excuse of "it's Microsofts problem" is starting to wear a little thin.
@ Dave
Dell isn't in the business of selling PSU at retail, and tests true PSU capacity from it's suppliers. Therefore, what you're getting with a Dell PSU rated for 350W tends to be one that's actually capable of it, and the whole integrated system also tested to be lower consumption which makes sense as you wouldn't expect a quad core box with a 3650 in it to reach 275W peak, let alone 350W.
Typical power requirements cited by video card manufacturers are to shift the burden and expense of instable equipment to the owner, how easily they can tell someone to throw more money at a problem because there are so many PSU out there that don't live up to their ratings.
On the other hand, a modern system with a 4870 or 90 video card in it ought to have higher than 350W PSU powering it, but if/when the day comes that Dell integrated (term loosely used, not meaning soldered onto the mainboard) these 4890 into systems they will provide a beefy enough PSU to at least handle the one installed card even if it cannot support Crossfire.
@AC: Academic
I bought 2 Dell home machines with ATi 3650 cards (1 for dad, the other for a friend), BOTH had incorrectly installed ATI drivers that caused errors and crashes.
The problem is the piss-poor way that Dell install them, not necessarily the hardware. The thing to try is a complete un-install of the Dell supplied drivers. Then use DriverCleaner or similar to ensure that all the registry keys have been removed as well. Then restart, and then install a new fresh, Catalyst from ATI. Do NOT use Windows Update or a Dell driver. That should clear up the issues - well fingers crossed! It did for those two machines mentioned above.
If not, then Dell has this annoying tendency to use PSUs that are severely under-powered for the hardware (my Dell Studio not XPS is a quad core, 8GB ram with ATi 3650 and had a pathetic 350W PSU). Try changing the PSU to a 500W min, decent quality PSU. Should help no end or see here: http://ati.amd.com/products/radeonhd4800/requirements.html for power requirements for the HD4800 series.
4830 for todays budget concious
£300 on a gfx card is madness! I paid £70 for my 4830 (quidco for teh win) and it might not be the fastest kid on the block but will play happily in 1680x
I suppose I could Xfire it if I had a mobo but why bother - the mobo would cost just as much...
Telling them apart...
Apart from the obvious pictures on the heatsink/exhaust thing, the two silver things on the end of the cards(capacitors?) are different sizes on each card. Defy that!! :-)
