Conclusion

Now let’s sum everything up. First off, the Radeon HD 4890 is far from dead yet. On the contrary, with the release of the new generation of Radeons, the prices of products based on previous-generation chips have begun to decline, making them more popular among gamers. The top-performance cards from the fourth Radeon generation are not going to be replaced with inexpensive fifth-generation products quickly. So, if your graphics subsystem calls for an upgrade, it is time to buy a Radeon HD 4890. Although without DirectX 11 support, this will allow you to play comfortably at resolutions up to 2560x1600. What model to choose then?

Each of the three versions is good in its own way. The choice depends on what your priority is: silence or maximum overclockability. The Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 2GB and MSI R4890 Cyclone OC are comfortable in terms of noise, and the Sapphire even comes with 2 gigabytes of memory although this has little effect on its performance in today’s games. The loudly touted Vapor-X technology is good but does not set any records. The less exotic cooler of the MSI R4890 Cyclone OC is effective, too.

The Gigabyte GV-R489OC-1GD is not that quiet but easily overclocks, reaching a GPU frequency of over 1 GHz, which ensures a 17% advantage over the reference ATI Radeon HD 4890.

Overclocking can provide a performance boost varying from a modest 2% to an impressive 33% depending on the specific game. This makes the cars overall faster than the GeForce GTX 285, but somewhat louder than the products from MSI and Sapphire.

So, the Gigabyte GV-R489OC-1GD is the best choice for computer enthusiasts. The card is made out of specially selected components and has a PCB with thicker metallization layers than usual. The cooler developed by Zalman is somewhat noisy but copes with its job and will satisfy most overclockers, except for the fastidious ones who prefer extreme cooling methods.

If silence is your priority, you may want to consider the MSI R4890 Cyclone OC. It is a silent card but its fan can be easily sped up in Catalyst Control Center. As for the Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 2GB, it is the most advanced version of Radeon HD 4890 as it uses a quiet cooler with a vapor chamber and is equipped with 2GB of onboard memory. Perhaps the latter factor may entice you into buying it.

Highs and Lows Summary

All three graphics accelerators discussed in our today’s article feature the same advantages, typical of any Radeon HD 4890 based solution:

• High performance in contemporary games;
• In some cases outperforms GeForce GTX 275/285;
• Wide range of supported FSAA modes;
• Best Edge-detect CFAA in the industry;
• DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1 support;
• Fully-fledged hardware HD video decoding;
• High-quality HD video post-processing with scalability;
• Integrated8-channel sound core with HD support;
• Sound over HDMI;
• Comparatively low power consumption.

But since Sapphire, MSI and Gigabyte graphics cards have a number of unique proprietary features, they also unique advantages and drawbacks that need to be pointed out.

Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 2GB boasts 2 GB of local video memory and very good accessories bundle, but demonstrates very modest overclocking potential.

MSI R4890 Cyclone OC will please you with almost noiseless cooling system, which may be made even more efficient if necessary at the expense of some acoustic comfort, but may upset you with very scanty accessories coming with the card, which do not even have an HDMI → DVI-D adapter among them.

Gigabyte GV-R489OC-1GD represents a true overclocker dream, but runs noisier than both of its competitors, which may turn into an issue for some.