by Alexey Stepin , Yaroslav Lyssenko
10/08/2009 | 11:04 AM
AMD has shaken the world of consumer 3D graphics hardware by introducing its ATI Radeon HD 5800 family. As you can learn from our tests, the flagship of the new Radeon HD generation is two times as fast the best single-processor solutions of the previous generation. The new product has only one and expected downside as it comes at a rather steep price. Not all gamers can afford paying $400 for a Radeon HD 5870.
Of course, the new generation is eventually going to replace the older one in every market sector. That’s the order of things in the graphics card world. However, the Radeon HD 5700 won’t replace the Radeon HD 4800 in a moment and the ex-flagship Radeon HD 4890 is going to be interesting to gamers during the transitional period as its retail price has already dropped below $200, which is a psychologically important mark for many buyers. Besides being more affordable, RV790-based solutions offer a number of other benefits. They are equipped with a 256-bit memory bus which, together with high GDDR5 frequencies, may give them an edge against Juniper-based products with 128-bit memory interface at high resolutions and in high-quality full-screen antialiasing modes.
So, if you want to upgrade your graphics subsystem with an AMD/ATI solution, but cannot afford a Radeon HD 5870 or 5870, you face the problem of choice. What Radeon HD 4890 model to choose? This highly successful graphics card is available in numerous variants some of which copy AMD’s reference design and only have brand-specific sticker, packaging and accessories. Others don’t have anything in common with AMD’s sample save for using an RV790 chip as the graphics processor. Today, we will discuss as many as three unique versions of Radeon HD 4890 released by Sapphire, MSI and Gigabyte. Each of them has a special feature that we will describe in the review. Perhaps one of these cards is just what you have been looking for?
Before we discuss the design features and specs of the three unique ATI Radeon HD 4890 cards, we will describe their retail packaging and accessories.
The box with the Vapor-X HD 4890 2GB is colored a cold mixture of silver and blue. It looks quite attractive.
There is not much of useful information on the box: the amount and type of graphics memory and the stickers telling that the box contains Futuremark 3DMark Vantage and CyberLink PowerDVD/DVD Suite. No mention of the GPU and memory frequencies. Inside the colorful wrapper there is a brown cardboard box. Inside it there is a plastic tray that contains the graphics card in an antistatic pack and additionally protected with pieces of foam rubber. Underneath it there is one more flat box with all the accessories to the card.
The accessories are all right. Perhaps a copy of a popular game would be appropriate, but even without one the box contains everything necessary to run the Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 2GB. The product is good from this aspect.
The packaging of the MSI R4890 Cyclone OC is devoid of any decorations and looks rather serious and demure.
There is as little information for the customer as on the Sapphire’s box: the type and amount of graphics memory and the remark that this model is pre-overclocked by the manufacturer. MSI, like Sapphire, does not spare marketing words, though. The manufacturer claims that the use of 8mm instead of traditional 6mm heat pipes is going to boost cooling efficiency nearly twofold. This can hardly be achieved in practice, though. The claim of using military grade components is dubious, too. High-quality capacitors and chokes do not make a graphics card a military grade device although does have a positive effect on its stability and service life.
Besides the graphics card, you can find the following accessories in the box:
Among the three versions of Radeon HD 4890 described in this review, MSI’s comes with the fewest accessories. They might have at least included an HDMI→DVI-D adapter in case the R4890 Cyclone OC will be connected to two monitors with digital inputs simultaneously.
GV-R489OC-1GD with a war robot, dragon or busty warrior girl, too. Instead, there is a list of features specific to the Ultra Durable VGA series. The dark-blue upright box looks pretty enough.
Besides some general information, the potential customer can read that the graphics core of the GV-R489OC-1GD is clocked at 900MHz. And there are again a few marketing myths like the myth about a favorable effect of gold plating on the operation of the HDMI connector. As a matter of fact, this plating has no effect other than aesthetical and an HDMI panel connected via an appropriate adapter to an ordinary DVI port is going to work just as well. Like MSI, Gigabyte mentions the use of high-quality components in its UVD series graphics cards, which is good.
Besides the graphics card, firmly fixed in a foam-rubber tray, the box contains the following accessories:
This kit is somewhere in between the kits from Sapphire and MSI: lacking any special bonuses, it does include all the adapters and connectors necessary to make full use of the card. The user manual should be noted individually as it is a detailed and well-written piece of information.
So, the Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 2GB has so far left the most positive impression on us, but pretty packaging and rich accessories are but secondary properties of a good graphics card. Therefore let’s proceed to what is really important.
Each of the three cards is unique in its own way but all of them have one thing in common. All of them use nonstandard PCBs and coolers. Let’s take a look at them now.
This model differs from AMD’s reference card in practically everything, from the color of the PCB to the amount of onboard memory and connectors, let alone the unique cooling system called Vapor-X.
The power circuit of the card seems to follow a 4+2 formula where the first and second number are the number of phases the GPU and memory voltage regulators have, respectively. The GPU regulator is based on a 4-phase uP6206 controller from uPI Semiconductor. The memory regulator is based on a uP6201 chip from the same maker.
The graphics card has one 6-pin and one 8-pin connector for power cables.
As opposed to many other versions of ATI Radeon HD 4890, the Sapphire card has 2 gigabytes of onboard memory and some of the GDDR5 chips are placed on the reverse side of the PCB. Thus, there are eight 1Gb chips on each side of the card. They are clocked at 1050 (4200) MHz which is considerably higher than the Radeon HD 4890’s standard 975 (3900) MHz. This factory overclocking ensures a growth of memory bandwidth from 124.8 to 134.4GBps.
The GPU frequency is pre-overclocked to 870MHz, too, but it does not reach the Radeon HD 4890 OC’s 900MHz. The ordinary Radeon HD 4890 has a GPU frequency of 850MHz. The core configuration is standard: 10 execution SIMD cores (160 superscalar processors with 5 ALUs in each), four texture processors (equivalent to 40 TMUs), and 16 raster back-ends.
The Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 2GB offers an original set of connectors including DVI-I, HDMI, D-Sub and DisplayPort. There are vent slits in the top of the card’s mounting bracket for the hot air to leave the system case. Besides, the card supports CrossFireX technology and has a couple of appropriate connectors.
The cooling system is the most original part of the Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 2GB. Unlike most coolers for top-end graphics cards, it has no heat pipes. This doesn’t mean that the card is cooled by a simple heatsink with split ribs that resembles Intel’s boxed coolers. Instead of heat pipes, this cooler makes use of a vapor chamber.
Although the vapor chamber does not resemble heat pipes, it works in much the same way: the coolant is evaporated in the hot part of the chamber to be condensed in the cold part. As a heat pipe, the vapor chamber is hermetic and has a vacuum inside. Its interior is filled with a porous material that facilitates the circulation of coolant by means of capillary action. The chamber is made from copper.
Sapphire is actively promoting Vapor-X technology, but we can’t name a definite advantage of it over conventional heat pipes other than the compactness of design. The chamber directs the heat flow to the round heatsink with split ribs which, in its turn, is cooled by an 80mm fan that has unusually shaped blades. Despite the cooler’s casing, some of the hot air remains within the system case.
The voltage regulator’s power transistors are cooled by a small heatsink with Sapphire logo. The memory chips on the reverse side of the PCB are equipped with a dedicated L-shaped heatsink and should not overheat. So, there is nothing extraordinary about this cooling system and we are not prone to blindly believe any marketing announcements. We will check out the efficiency of Vapor-X technology ourselves shortly.
The MSI R4890 Cyclone OC has an unusual appearance, too. Although colored the traditional red, this card is simpler and, obviously, cheaper than AMD’s reference sample.
Unlike with the Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 2GB, the MSI’s power circuit can be described as 3+2 but the GPU voltage regulator is based on the same uP6206 controller from uPI Semiconductor. The memory voltage regulator seems to be based on two uP6101 chips.
Power is provided to the card via two 6-pin PCIe 1.0 connectors. This should be more than enough considering the modest power draw of an RV790, even overclocked.
The MSI R4890 Cyclone OC comes with a standard 1 gigabyte of graphics memory. All the eight Qimonda IDGV1G-05A1F1C-40X chips (1Gb, 32Mb x 32) can be found on the front side of the PCB. The same chips are installed on the reference Radeon HD 4890. As opposed to Sapphire, the MSI card’s memory frequency is not pre-overclocked and equals a standard 975 (3900) MHz.
And like Sapphire, MSI did not lift the core frequency of its card to the Radeon HD 4890 OC specs. The R4890 Cyclone OC has a GPU frequency of 880MHz. This is somewhat higher than that of the Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 2GB, but the difference can hardly matter in practical applications. The core has the maximum configuration possible for the RV790 chip: 10 execution SIMD cores (160 superscalar processors with 5 ALUs in each for a total of 800 ALUs), four texture processors (equivalent to 40 TMUs), and 16 raster back-ends.
The selection of connectors is nonstandard like with the Sapphire card, but the infrequently used DisplayPort is missing here. There are vent slits in the top of the mounting bracket. The card supports CrossFireX.
Although not unique, the cooling system of the MSI R4890 Cyclone OC has nothing to do with AMD’s reference sample. The heat-exchanger directing contacting with the GPU die is connected with a round heatsink with split ribs similar to the one of the Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 2GB. There is an 80mm fan on the heatsink. To the left and right of the fan there are semicircular heatsinks each of which is connected to the heat-exchanger with two thick heat pipes. The frameless fan is blowing downwards and sideways, cooling all these heatsinks.
The other components that might get hot such as memory chips and power transistors are cooled by the air flow created by the fan. There are no additional heatsinks on them. This cooling system resembles Zalman’s VF900 series solutions but is superior to them in the heat dissipation area and the number of heat pipes. Moreover, the pipes have a larger diameter of 8 millimeters as opposed to the conventional diameter of 6 millimeters and this should deliver efficient cooling at low noise. We’ll check this out soon.
Unlike Sapphire and MSI’s engineers, Gigabyte’s developers took it easy and borrowed the PCB design of their GV-R489OC-1GD from AMD. The only external difference is the color of the solder mask and the configuration of interface connectors, but Gigabyte’s PCB has one important internal difference: its metallization layers are a double width. This technology is meant to improve the PCB’s ability to dissipate heat and is referred to as “2oz Copper PCB”.
The power circuit, borrowed from AMD’s reference sample is the most powerful among the versions of Radeon HD 4890 presented in this review. Following a 5+2 design, it consists of a 5-phase GPU voltage regulator and a 2-phase memory voltage regulator. The power circuit is controlled by two Volterra VT1165MF chips which support software-based adjustment of GPU and memory voltage.
Like in the original ATI Radeon HD 4890, a pair of 6-pin PCIe 1.0 connectors is used for power supply, but there is a seat for an 8-pin PCIe 2.0 connector with two additional pins.
Gigabyte uses the same GDDR5 memory chips as MSI: Qimonda IDGV1G-05A1F1C-40X. These 1Gb (32Mb x 32) chips are rated for a frequency of 1000 (4000) MHz. The manufacturer says that specially selected chips are installed on Ultra Durable VGA series products that guarantee high overclockability, but like MSI, Gigabyte does not pre-overclock the memory. Its frequency is the same as that of the reference card, i.e. 975 (3900) MHz.
The GPU frequency of 900MHz is the highest among the three cards and equals that of the Radeon HD 4890 OC. Like on the previous models, this card’s GPU works in its maximum configuration with 160 superscalar shader processors with five ALUs in each, four texture processors equivalent to 40 TMUs, and 16 raster back-ends.
The card has an original set of connectors that is different from the reference card’s as well as from the MSI and Sapphire models’. There is no dedicated D-Sub/VGA port on the Gigabyte card’s mounting bracket but there is one DVI-I, one HDMI and one DisplayPort. The HDMI connector is gold-plated but as we’ve noted above this has no effect on the quality of digital signal transferred through it regardless of the marketing claims of the manufacturers.
Gigabyte has equipped its GV-R489OC-1GD with a simplified version of Zalman’s VF1000 cooler called VF1050. We described it in an earlier review. The cooler is a large aluminum heatsink connected with four heat pipes to a heat-exchanger. It’s simple but effective thanks to the large heat dissipation area and should cope with the RV790. As opposed to the MSI R4890 Cyclone OC and Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 2GB, the fan has a 2-pin connection. It can be controlled neither automatically nor from Catalyst Control Center. The memory chips have no heatsinks and are cooled by the airflow from the fan. The power packs of the voltage regulators are equipped with a rather large heatsink. This cooling solution did well on the GeForce GTS 250. Now we will see how good it is with the Radeon HD 4890.
The three graphics cards all come with nonstandard cooling systems and we want to know how efficient and quiet these systems are. The temperature factor goes first.
Sapphire’s Vapor-X technology is far from setting any records in idle mode although it is better than ATI’s reference cooler. The Vapor-X cooler is not extraordinary under load, either. It is 2°C worse than the reference cooler and than the cooler installed on the MSI card. Gigabyte-Zalman’s design is inferior to its opponents under load but has a record-breaking result in 2D mode. This must be due to the combination of the cooler with the 2oz Copper PCB technology. The thicker metallization layers should improve the ability of the PCB to dissipate heat that is actively produced by such components as GPU, memory and power transistor chips.
The reference point for our noise measurement tests is 43dBA which is the level of ambient noise in our test lab as measured at a distance of 1 meter from the testbed with a passively cooled graphics card inside. When we installed the tested graphics cards, we got the following results:
The Sapphire is the only card of the three to be automatically adjusting the speed of the fan and was subjectively silent even in 3D mode despite the growth of the noise meter’s showing. The cards from MSI and Gigabyte behave similarly to each other and their noise did not depend on what mode the card was working in. The only difference is that the MSI card allows to adjust the fan speed manually in CCC whereas the Gigabyte does not permit this.
As for noise level proper, the MSI R4890 Cyclone OC proves to be almost as quiet as the Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 2GB whereas the Gigabyte GV-R489OC-1GD was distinctly audible amidst the other noises of the working testbed. The noise spectrum was not irritating, though. It must have been the hiss of the air passing through the heatsink ribs.
Judging by the measurement results, this round is won by the MSI R4890 Cyclone OC, but the Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 2GB is not much worse in practical terms. The Gigabyte GV-R489OC-1GD is inferior to its opponents in this respect even though its cooler is effective.
Next we tried to overclock the cards and the Gigabyte GV-R489OC-1GD showed its best then. We easily boosted its GPU frequency up to as high as 1015MHz! The graphics core of the MSI R4890 Cyclone OC overclocked to 970MHz and the Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 2GB sped up to 960MHz only. The cards’ memory frequencies could be all increased to the same level of 1200 (4800) MHz despite the rated frequency of 1000 (4000) MHz. Thus, the Gigabyte is good at overclocking even though inferior to its opponents in terms of noise and cooling efficiency. Overclockers don’t mind noise, so the GV-R489OC-1GD is the best option for overclocking. We’ll see in the next section how beneficial such overclocking can be.
We are going to investigate the performance of three Radeon HD 4890 models using our universal testbed with the following testbed:
The graphics card drivers were configured in the following way:
ATI Catalyst:
Nvidia GeForce:
The list of benchmarks includes the following gaming titles and synthetic tests:
First-person 3D shooters
Third-person 3D shooters
RPG
Simulators
Strategies
Semi-synthetic benchmarks
We selected the highest possible level of detail in each game using standard tools provided by the game itself from the gaming menu. The games configuration files weren’t modified in any way, because the ordinary user doesn’t have to know how to do it. We made a few exceptions for selected games if that was necessary. We are going to specifically dwell on each exception like that later on in our article.
Since everyone who is more or less interested in PC gaming are already very well familiar with the performance of Radeon HD 4890 solutions, we decided to test our today’s roundup participants in their maximum overclocked mode and compare against Nvidia GeForce GTX 275 and GeForce GTX 285. We are going to use the recently launched ATI Radeon HD 5870 as a performance reference point on our diagrams.
We ran our tests in the following resolutions: 1280x1024, 1680x1050, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600. Everywhere, where it was possible we added MSAA 4x antialiasing to the standard anisotropic filtering 16x. We enabled antialiasing from the game’s menu. If this was not possible, we forced them using the appropriate driver settings of ATI Catalyst and Nvidia GeForce drivers.
Performance was measured with the games’ own tools and the original demos were recorded if possible. We measured not only the average speed, but also the minimum speed of the cards where possible. Otherwise, the performance was measured manually with Fraps utility version 2.9.8. In the latter case we ran the test three times and took the average of the three for the performance charts.
Starting from version 1.3 the game allows to record and reproduce a demo. Unfortunately, this method does not report the bottom frame rate.
Of course, no overclocking can make the Radeon HD 4890 competitive to the Radeon HD 5870 which has two times the number of shader processors, but it does help to go ahead of the GeForce GTX 285 at 2560x1600. Having a GPU frequency of higher than 1GHz, the overclocked Gigabyte is not actually much faster than the Sapphire and MSI cards.
Like in the previous case, the Gigabyte enjoys a very small lead over its opponents. This has no effect on your playing comfort since the frame rates are all too low even at 1280x1024. The Radeon HD 5870 is the only card capable of delivering comfortable gameplay at the highest graphics quality settings.
We disabled the integrated frame rate limiter in the game console for the sake of comparing the cards. The game’s built-in benchmarking options do not provide information about the bottom speed, so there is no such info in the diagrams.
Overclocking a Radeon HD 4890 may be rewarding at 2560x1600 where this card can beat the GeForce GTX 285. Gigabyte’s cards with UDV and 2oz Copper PCB technologies are overclocking-friendly and you may want to consider them if you plan to speed up your graphics card.
Far Cry 2
The Radeon HD 5870 is unrivalled, of course. At 2560x1600 Nvidia’s solutions are better due to a higher bottom speed, but an overclocked Radeon HD 4890 can be as good at low resolutions as a GeForce GTX 275 or even GeForce GTX 285.
The game runs on the Source engine and has an integrated benchmark, but the latter does not report the bottom speed information.
The game is far from demanding and the extra dozen frames per second at 2560x1600 we got by overclocking the Gigabyte card do not matter much. We can only say that the Gigabyte card proved to have the highest overclocking potential among the three tested products.
To achieve a playable speed in this game we disabled FSAA and such resource-consuming options as Sun rays, Wet surfaces and Volumetric Smoke. We use the Enhanced full dynamic lighting (DX10) mode for our test and additionally enable the DirectX 10.1 mode for the ATI cards.
Overclocking does not help make the Radeon HD 4890 faster where it is necessary, i.e. at the resolutions of 1920x1200 and 2560x1600. The card gets faster than at the reference frequencies, but 19-22fps is not enough for the gamer to feel comfortable. If you’ve got a large monitor and want to play this game, you may want to consider the Radeon HD 5870 or, perhaps, the cheaper HD 5850.
Even with relatively modest overclocking the Radeon HD 4890 speeds up to the level of the GeForce GTX 285. When overclocked more, to about 1GHz of GPU frequency, the card becomes the best single-processor solution of the DirectX 10 generation. You can get higher performance either from dual-chip cards or from the new generation represented by the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series.
As we have repeatedly seen in our tests, ordinary overclocking rarely opens new horizons for gamers. The performance growth is often hard to see with a naked eye. That’s just what we have in Resident Evil 5: at a resolution of 2560x1600 the frame rate grows by about 10fps, so you can hardly feel any difference between an ordinary and an overclocked Radeon HD 4890.
It’s like in the previous test: the ordinary Radeon HD 4890 is more than enough to play the game comfortably at 2560x1600 with full-screen antialiasing. We don’t think that even switching to 8x FSAA would require a more advanced graphics card while the image quality won’t improve much. The main shipping criterion will be something else like price or noisiness.
Overclocking helps improve the bottom speed of the Radeon HD 4890 starting from 1920x1200, which may be useful in some situations. There is nothing to worry about at the lower resolutions, but Nvidia’s products are better then. They are as fast as the overclocked Radeon HD 4890.
We use the in-game benchmarking tools that do not allow to measure the bottom frame rate. We also enable DirectX 10.1 support for ATI’s solutions.
H.A.W.X. is incompatible with the Adaptive AA algorithms employed by AMD solutions and slows down as soon as you turn such antialiasing on. We can’t see the effect from overclocking the Radeon HD 4890 here but we don’t think it is going to be bigger than in the other games even if the adaptive antialiasing is turned off.
We enabled DirectX 11 support for the Radeon HD 5870.
Oddly enough, the overclocked Radeon HD 4890 is close behind the Radeon HD 5870 but both cards are awfully slow, making the game uncomfortable to play. Overclocking does not help improve that even though the average frame rate grows up quite a lot.
The Radeon HD 4890, even when overclocked, loses to Nvidia’s solutions in bottom speed at resolutions higher than 1280x1024 but its speed is quite high. The bottom speed can be increased considerably through overclocking. As for the resolution of 2560x1600, the new and old generations of single-processor graphics cards are both insufficiently fast to use it.
We minimize the CPU’s influence by using the Extreme profile (1920x1200, 4x FSAA and anisotropic filtering). We also publish the results of the individual tests across all display resolutions to provide a full picture.
The tested graphics cards are ranked up according to their overclocking potential, but even the Gigabyte version cannot notch 6,000 points. It outperforms the GeForce GTX 275 despite the lack of PhysX support, though.
The individual tests produce a predictable picture: overclocking makes the Radeon HD 4890 as fast as the GeForce GTX 275 and, at high resolutions, even as fast as the GeForce GTX 285. The Radeon HD 5870 is of course unrivalled. The single-chip solutions of the previous generation are no match to it.
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.
All three graphics accelerators discussed in our today’s article feature the same advantages, typical of any Radeon HD 4890 based solution:
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.