# ATI Radeon HD 4890 1 GB GDDR5 in Pretty Pixels



## malware (Mar 17, 2009)

Here's something fresh from Asia, with love. Popular Chinese site Coolaler is once more first to show pics from an yet unreleased product - the next generation ATI Radeon HD 4890 video card. The card below is equipped with single RV790 GPU clocked at 850 MHz and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 3900 MHz. It has full DirectX 10.1 support and is CrossFireX ready. Apart from that, all other distinctive features can be seen from the pictures. The Radeon HD 4890 is set to be released after April 6th of this year. 



 

 

 



*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## Arrakis9 (Mar 17, 2009)

looks just like a 4870


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## alexp999 (Mar 17, 2009)

Thats cus it is effectively just an OC'd 4870.

Yay, even more heat/noise issues!


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## my_name_is_earl (Mar 17, 2009)

Arrakis+9 said:


> looks just like a 4870



If ya have one take it out and compare it. The board might change.


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## MilkyWay (Mar 17, 2009)

from all accounts its is just the same as a 4870 just tweaked to allow high clocks


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## erocker (Mar 17, 2009)

The backside of the PCB's look almost identical with the exception of the power connectors.


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## alexp999 (Mar 17, 2009)

From what I have read the only thing they had to change PCb wise was going to a 5 phase power setup to handle the increased demand of the higher clocks.

If people had issues with heat on the 4870's and heat, I hate to think what is going to happen with this one.

What can AMD do? Get RMA's on people thinking they bought hairdryers? Or overheating cards?


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## my_name_is_earl (Mar 17, 2009)

More performance might mean more power consumption with ATI. Please prove me wrong but we don't know until we have reviews.


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## alexp999 (Mar 17, 2009)

It will mean more power consumption, the RV790 is the same as the RV770 other than a few clock and possible voltage tweaks. So I can guarantee it will use more power, which is also why AMD had to up the power phases to 5.


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## TRIPTEX_CAN (Mar 17, 2009)

I hope AMD brought OCing prowess to these cards.. anything less than 1Ghz on the core does not warrant another release IMO.


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## kenkickr (Mar 17, 2009)

If these are going to suck the power I'd hate to see what a 4890x2 can do(You know it's coming).


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## MilkyWay (Mar 17, 2009)

increased heat means that amd will have either beefed up cooling or increased fan speeds, i go for the latter the increased speeds

means more noise and i know what it can be like unless you have a quiet case without to much holes in it (mines has those top fans so it gets noisy)


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## EastCoasthandle (Mar 17, 2009)

After reading some of the posts in this thread you would think that nvidia's video cards didn't get a bump up in GPU clocks, etc.


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## TRIPTEX_CAN (Mar 17, 2009)

EastCoasthandle said:


> After reading some of the posts in this thread you would think that nvidia's video cards didn't get a bump up in GPU clocks, etc.



It's just so common from them though. 

For ATI to OC and rename/re-release a GPU it had better be worth it (clock wise) or its just a lame marketing maneuver which (IMO) is best left for the green camp.


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## DaMulta (Mar 17, 2009)

EastCoasthandle said:


> After reading some of the posts in this thread you would think that nvidia's video cards didn't get a bump up in GPU clocks, etc.



They didn't?


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## Sasqui (Mar 17, 2009)

DaMulta said:


> They didn't?



Naahhh.  Just the model numbers got an overclock, LOL


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## Polarman (Mar 17, 2009)

Same cooler sigh!


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## DarkMatter (Mar 17, 2009)

EastCoasthandle said:


> After reading some of the posts in this thread you would think that nvidia's video cards didn't get a bump up in GPU clocks, etc.



Maybe because Nvidia clocks were lower in the first place, which meant cooler, quieter and less consuming cards.


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## EastCoasthandle (Mar 17, 2009)

TRIPTEX_MTL said:


> It's just so common from them though.
> 
> For ATI to OC and rename/re-release a GPU it had better be worth it (clock wise) or its just a lame marketing maneuver which (IMO) is best left for the green camp.



I think folk are a bit more open minded then that.  I read some of these posts to imply that the 4890 is a next gen card when in fact it's a simple refresh of the RV770.  Because it's a refresh another name is appropriate as long as it follows it's curent line of products IMO.  So, I really don't see the issue here.  Maybe it's because I don't consider this a next gen card offering next gen performance 




DarkMatter said:


> Maybe because Nvidia clocks were lower in the first place, which meant cooler, quieter and less consuming cards.


That makes no sense and is neither here or there to my post.   In all, we either have to wait for:
A. Some insider information
B. Actual review of the card


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## Assimilator (Mar 17, 2009)

It's hardly "next generation", but it should be able to reclaim the title of world's fastest single-GPU card - for now.


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## TRIPTEX_CAN (Mar 17, 2009)

Assimilator said:


> It's hardly "next generation", but it should be able to reclaim the title of world's fastest single-GPU card - for now.



The 4870 never had the title of fastest single GPU card. The GTX280 held that title until the GTX285 was released.


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## johnnyfiive (Mar 17, 2009)

Let me just say this, I was really glad to get a XFX GTX 260 216 Black Edition months ago and everytime I see a revised card come out from NVidia and now ATi (*shakes head*) it ensures me that I made the right choice at the time. All these revamped, renamed, re-released cards is getting crazy.


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## ShogoXT (Mar 17, 2009)

I myself was hoping for a few more shaders.


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## DarkMatter (Mar 17, 2009)

EastCoasthandle said:


> That makes no sense and is neither here or there to my post.   In all, we either have to wait for:
> A. Some insider information
> B. Actual review of the card



I meant that people may not be so concerned about Nvidia clocking their 55nm cards higher, because those ran cool and quiet and consume significantly less than the Ati counterparts for the same performance. But Ati HD4870's with reference cooling, the same cooling we see here, already run at high 80's - low 90's so it's a matter of concern. We should wait until reviews? Of course, but if we don't have to talk about the cards until reviews why post any news then??


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## niko084 (Mar 17, 2009)

alexp999 said:


> Yay, even more heat/noise issues!



I'm yet to have any issue with any 4850/4870..
I think people are trying to put them in their Dell's without any air movement in the case that's causing the issues.

Can't count the times I have seen 3850/3870, 8800 and 9800s in small cases with no air movement and wonder why after an hour of gaming they start artifacting.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 17, 2009)

Hopefully RV790 brings enough tweaks to an already great RV770 to warrant excitement.  The already impressive clock speeds are a nice start, but I want to see real pricing and overclocking performance.

If these are just binned RV770 cards, and I think they are, then I wouldn't think they would have much headroom left, which would be a real shame.

Hopefully this is a new revision of RV770, which even though they are the same on paper, is superior in practice.  Similar to the B3 to G0 move Intel made.



niko084 said:


> I'm yet to have any issue with any 4850/4870..
> I think people are trying to put them in their Dell's without any air movement in the case that's causing the issues.
> 
> Can't count the times I have seen 3850/3870, 8800 and 9800s in small cases with no air movement and wonder why after an hour of gaming they start artifacting.



It used to be that cards overheating in cramped cases wasn't acceptable.  Video cards were expected to work, even in the crappiest of airflow situations.  Which is why I sure people still expect to put the beefiest card possible in a case with no fan other than the PSU, and have it work without issue.


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## DarkMatter (Mar 17, 2009)

Assimilator said:


> It's hardly "next generation", but it should be able to reclaim the title of world's fastest single-GPU card - for now.



I doubt it very much. 3 different cards listed so far and all of them have 850Mhz on the core, or 13% higher clock than HD4870. Without a true redesign, the max improvement they will probably take from this card is 15%-20% over the HD4870, so that's still very far from the GTX285, like another 20%.



TRIPTEX_MTL said:


> The 4870 never had the title of fastest single GPU card. The GTX280 held that title until the GTX285 was released.



His statement doesn't specify any card. If this card was faster it would reclaim title of fastest single GPU card that Ati lost after X1900XTX.


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## EastCoasthandle (Mar 17, 2009)

DarkMatter said:


> I meant that people may not be so concerned about Nvidia clocking their 55nm cards higher, because those ran cool and quiet and consume significantly less than the Ati counterparts for the same performance. But Ati HD4870's with reference cooling, the one we see here, already run at high 80's - low 90's so it's a matter of concern. We should wait until reviews? Of course, but if we don't have to talk about the cards until reviews why post any news then??


Again, what you post makes no logical sense.  People understand the arch. differences between competing video cards.  And temp differences are dependent on other factors like  dust accumulation, ambient room temps, temps inside the case, proper air flow, thermal compound, proper HS contact, etc.  Furthermore, there are others who aren't experiencing this problem which makes that mute.  As we all should know by now high temps isn't just a problem with any particular make/model.

Now, here is my original post


> After reading some of the posts in this thread you would think that nvidia's video cards didn't get a bump up in GPU clocks, etc.


in which you replied


DarkMatter said:


> Maybe because Nvidia clocks were lower in the first place, which meant cooler, quieter and less consuming cards.



Having said all that you've said so far is not relevant to what I posted.  :shadedshu
Changes in clock rates are a common thing in this example. I see no relation that one should or should not do it based on arch and board design.  As I've said before we will know more about this when:
A. Insider information is provided
B. Official review


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## niko084 (Mar 17, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> It used to be that cards overheating in cramped cases wasn't acceptable.  Video cards were expected to work, even in the crappiest of airflow situations.



Well yes, but video card also used to not do everything they do today.

Simple point, you don't buy a Ferrari and put 87 octane in it, and you sure don't drive it in the snow, just because it used to be all cars were driven in places without roads doesn't mean all should be today.

You want the best, you need to know how to properly take care of it, if you don't it's your problem.

Now if they were overheating in decently ventilated cases, then I would be concerned. I put them in mid tower cases with a single 120mm rear fan and they never overheat.

Maybe if anything they should add a warning label next to the power label, *This card requires AIR flow*

And at that rate, I have seen 8800's and 8600's overheat in those small cases too.. There is just some things you don't do.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 17, 2009)

I know, I'm not saying it is a standard that should be expected today, I'm just giving reason as to why _some_ still expect it.


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## DarkMatter (Mar 17, 2009)

EastCoasthandle said:


> Again, what you post makes no logical sense.  People understand the arch. differences between competing video cards.  And temp differences are dependent on other factors like  dust accumulation, ambient room temps, temps inside the case, proper air flow, thermal compound, proper HS contact, etc.  Furthermore, there are others who aren't experiencing this problem which makes that mute.  As we all should know by now high temps isn't just a problem with any particular make/model.
> 
> Now, here is my original post
> 
> ...



Your post comes after like 10 posts stating their concerns about heat and noise issues. So I assumed you were responding to that. Like saying that people should be accostumed to those practices. I cleared why I think they have concers about this card and not the others, based in my own opinion. It makes sense, unless you were not talking about heat/noise and in that case your own post didn't make any sense. There's ONLY one post before yours not talking about heat/noise so the plural "some posts" makes no sense and was what confused me. I hope you understand my point...


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## DarkMatter (Mar 17, 2009)

niko084 said:


> Well yes, but video card also used to not do everything they do today.
> 
> Simple point, you don't buy a Ferrari and put 87 octane in it, and you sure don't drive it in the snow, just because it used to be all cars were driven in places without roads doesn't mean all should be today.
> 
> ...



HD4000 cards have issues in many PCs and not only those with zero airflow. There's problems in hot areas even with relatively good airflow too. Anyway, IMHO a company that is so proud of saying they develop cards for the mainstream, should make their cards work without issues in ANY PC and not only in those of semi-enthusiasts. Almost NONE of my gamer friends clean the inside of their PCs more than once in a year, nor they have uber efficient cases with many fans.


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## lemonadesoda (Mar 17, 2009)

This card reminds me of Pentium D.  Hot. Pushing the limit. Only a % gain, but at a power/heat cost that goes up FASTER than performance. Nothing special.

Come on AMD! Out with new architecture and 40nm!


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## Gzero (Mar 17, 2009)

lemonadesoda said:


> This card reminds me of Pentium D.  Hot. Nothing special.
> 
> Come on AMD! Out with new architecture and 40nm!



Tell that to them at the next meeting with Nintendo and the billions they must be making on that deal alone. 

Oh and DarkMatter stop hating on ATI. I can see your specs, I know your preference 

Nothing wrong with the hd4x series, nothing wrong with this bump. It's not like Nvidia ever did this (7800 - 7900, 8800gt -> 9600/9800) *cough*


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## TheMailMan78 (Mar 17, 2009)

Anyone know the shader count?


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## EastCoasthandle (Mar 17, 2009)

DarkMatter said:


> Your post comes after like 10 posts stating their concerns about heat and noise issues. So I assumed you were responding to that. Like saying that people should be accostumed to those practices. I cleared why I think they have concers about this card and not the others, based in my own opinion. It makes sense, unless you were not talking about heat/noise and in that case your own post didn't make any sense. There's ONLY one post before yours not talking about heat/noise so the plural "some posts" makes no sense and was what confused me. I hope you understand my point...


You have often made a decision to reply to my post having not properly understood what it is I am saying.  This is why it's apparent for me that there is a communication break down.  Which is why I ask that if you are not sure about the meaning of my post then you are more then welcomed to ask .  But as I've stated these bumps in GPU clocks rates have been seen before.  And is no cause for alarm as long as it's within proper context of the current gen model (again, IMO).


Having said that, we really don't know the heat and noise regarding this video card until:
A. Someone provides insider information
B. Official review

Regardless of what the outcome will be (and we will know soon enough) it will not stop others from buying the product if this card can produce frame rates that are close to the GTX 285 at a much lower price structure.


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## DarkMatter (Mar 17, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Anyone know the shader count?



160 x 5 = 800, just like RV770. It's just a slightly tweaked or binned RV770.


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## DarkMatter (Mar 17, 2009)

EastCoasthandle said:


> You have often made a decision to reply to my post having not properly understood what it is I am saying.  This is why it's apparent for me that there is a communication break down.  Which is why I ask that if you are not sure about the meaning of my post then you are more then welcomed to ask .  But as I've stated these bumps in GPU clocks rates have been seen before.  And is no cause for alarm as long as it's within proper context of the current gen model (again, IMO).
> 
> 
> Having said that, we really don't know the heat and noise regarding this video card until:
> ...



Look, we neither know anything about the performance of the card until reviews are posted, so I suggest you stop making assunmptions about how this card will perform until then?? 

Man we are posting in a news thread with very little info, we are ALL speculating. You base your performance numbers in RV770 and so are we doing for noise/heat. So if you have a problem with that, I could suggest we don't speak about anything in news like this or even better, TPU stop posting any news alltogether...

Nah, we want news and we want to speculate based on past knowledge.

PD: I suggest that if you are going to talk about a topic that is not mentioned in the last 5-10 posts, you quote the one you want to reply. Because threads have a flow and in this particular one that flow went like this before your post: looks like same card -> increased clocks -> hogher clocks, higher temps/noise.


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## Selene (Mar 17, 2009)

This card should beat the GTX260 55nm, but as normal NV has the GTX275 around the bend, to take it right back.
Its funny, how who ever has the lead sets back waits sees what the other has then bam out comes the new one thats better.


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## Paintface (Mar 17, 2009)

No one is forced to buy this card you know, so why all the hate?

It is not an OCed 4870 for starters, 750 to 850mhz is quite a big difference , now if it was 750 to 770 like most OCed 4870s have i would agree.

while it has the same specs as a 4870 it is a revised core specificly to handle those high clocks.

We dont know how it will handle the heat, i know from experience my 4870 stock OCed handle it perfectly.

Its a not a smaller diesize, so yes it will need more power at those speeds, and the exact problem with that is? if this was a new X2 card everyone would be like GO ATI WOOOO RAW POWER without anyone mentioning the power usage which would be double of this card.

IF you dont have a card in the 4xxx series and planned to upgrade, this looks like the perfect card , if you have a 4870 already, it wont be a viable upgrade.


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## TheMailMan78 (Mar 17, 2009)

DarkMatter said:


> 160 x 5 = 800, just like RV770. It's just a slightly tweaked or binned RV770.



So we are not looking at "massive" gains. Sounds like the HD2900 all over again.


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## phanbuey (Mar 17, 2009)

I wonder if it is just a BIOS tweak... maybe one can flash a 4870 to a 4890.


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## EastCoasthandle (Mar 17, 2009)

DarkMatter said:


> Look, we neither know anything about the performance of the card until reviews are posted, so I suggest you stop making assunmptions about how this card will perform until then??



Why so serious ?  Looks like I hit a sore spot or something.  I didn't make an assumptions on performance.  I said "...if this card can produce frame rates that are close to the GTX 285 at a much lower price structure..."





DarkMatter said:


> Man we are posting in a news thread with very little info, we are ALL speculating.


So, you can speculate and I can't say "...if this card can produce frame rates that are close to the GTX 285 at a much lower price structure..." and you want me to stop making what you believe to be assumptions ?  I think we can all post our opinions on the situation.  Which is why I said that further information will become available when:
A. Insider information is made public
B. Official Review





DarkMatter said:


> You base your performance numbers in RV770 and so are we doing for noise/heat.


Actually no, that is not true.  What I said is that we really don't know anything about heat and noise right now.  That also goes for performance.  However, it's assumed that there would be some sort of performance increase.





DarkMatter said:


> So if you have a problem with that, *I could suggest we don't speak about anything in news like this or even better, TPU stop posting any news alltogether...*


Huh , you are replying to my posts which attracts dialogue.  If you don't want to talk about this is fine by me.  However, perhaps in the future you shouldn't respond to my posts when I never ask for or made an attempt to dialogue with you .



DarkMatter said:


> Nah, we want news and we want to speculate based on past knowledge.


We really don't know what the 4890 will offer.  What we do know is that the card does exist.  The clock rates appear to be higher and performance is assumed better then the previous version.  As far as heat/noise is concerned we really don't know at this time.  However, IMO if they are using the same HSF combo I really don't see how fan noise will be any different then before.  As for heat, I really don't know.


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## DarkMatter (Mar 17, 2009)

Selene said:


> This card should beat the GTX260 55nm, but as normal NV has the GTX275 around the bend, to take it right back.
> Its funny, how who ever has the lead sets back waits sees what the other has then bam out comes the new one thats better.



Yeah and this time, it seems Nvidia doesn't want to play around. It seems that with GTX275, GT212 and GT300 Nvidia will wait until Ati releases their chips before commiting the same error they did with GT200 and to little extent G92, that is, releasing the new fastest card before Ati took the crown off from them. So Ati waited and released their cards accordingly. This time Nvidia is going to wait and probably come with a surprise. They might even have two different GT300, one with a massive performance increase and one headed to be cheap and take back the crown for a few %, and depending on what strategy Ati follows, they will release one or the other.


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## alexp999 (Mar 17, 2009)

From the information we know now, the RV790 is a briefly tweaked (nothing major) version of the RV770 to allow higher clocks, this could be a case of just adding another voltage option, to sit alongside the new 5 phase power circuit, we simply don't know. It is the same fab, same shader/transistor count etc.

What we can speculate from that, is that it will be a higher performing, but consequently more power consuming, and heat producing chip. Based on the fact that the cooler looks identical, you would also assume that the chip is going to run hotter.

Now we all now the problems the 4870 faced when it started, AMD even had to release a driver that stopped furmark overheating it, to the point it would artifact and crash.

I think what we as consumers are worried about, is that AMD dont make the same make twice, but this time with a potentially hotter chip, resulting in a worse situation than the launch of the 4870's.


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## TheMailMan78 (Mar 17, 2009)

Ill say it again. HD2900 part 2


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## WarEagleAU (Mar 17, 2009)

I dont think more shaders would help. They would be well served to go ahead and unlock shaders separately. I mean, imagine 800 shaders clocked at like 1.6ghz. Sweetness. This is a refresh with higher clocks. Not bad and I dont hate on them for that. Its a little different than what Nvidia does. Taking the 8800gt and naming it the 9800gt. then wanting to take that and name it the gts 250 or whatever ( I cant recall off the top of my head what they were gonna call it).


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## DarkMatter (Mar 17, 2009)

EastCoasthandle said:


> Why so serious ?  Looks like I hit a sore spot or something.  I didn't make an assumptions on performance.  I said "...if this card can produce frame rates that are close to the GTX 285 at a much lower price structure..."
> So, you can speculate and I can't say "...if this card can produce frame rates that are close to the GTX 285 at a much lower price structure..." and you want me to stop making what you believe to be assumptions ?  I think we can all post our opinions on the situation.  Which is why I said that further information will become available when:
> A. Insider information is made public
> B. Official Review



It was hypothetically speaking. You are asking me not to talk about heat/noise, because we have no info about that, so wouldn't I have the right to do the same regarding performance? 

EDIT: Oh and no I'm not serious there, nor didn't I take an offense.  I was just hypothetically speaking, as I stated above: if you censure me, why wouldn't I censure you? I know the card will probably be much faster, and I too know it will be hotter. I just want both posibilities to be mentioned. I always want truth, the whole truth, not skewed information, something that Ati and Nvidia fans do very well.




> Actually no, that is not true.  What I said is that we really don't know anything about heat and noise right now.  That also goes for performance.  However, it's assumed that there would be some sort of performance increase.



How is it legitimally assumed that the card will be almost as fast as 285 (you said so in the other post) when GTX285 is more than 30% faster than HD4870 and the new one has only 13% higher clocks?? 

And at the same time how is not legitimate to do an assumption about the heat/noise, based on OCed HD4870's? Higher noise comes from higher rpms in the fan FYI.



> Huh , you are replying to my posts which attracts dialogue.  If you don't want to talk about this is fine by me.  However, perhaps in the future you shouldn't respond to my posts when I never ask for or made an attempt to dialogue with you .
> 
> We really don't know what the 4890 will offer.  What we do know is that the card does exist.  The clock rates appear to be higher and performance is assumed better then the previous version.  As far as heat/noise is concerned we really don't know at this time.  However, IMO if they are using the same HSF combo I really don't see how fan noise will be any different then before.  As for heat, I really don't know.



Once again, I was speaking hypothetically. It's not me the one who said we shouldn't speak/speculate about one aspect of the cards. It was you who pretty much censured our opinions about heat/noise because we don't know anything yet. I just said we neither know anything about performance, so we shouldn't assume/speculate either. I vote for speculating, but uncensored.


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## alexp999 (Mar 17, 2009)

WarEagleAU said:


> Its a little different than what Nvidia does. Taking the 8800gt and naming it the 9800gt. then wanting to take that and name it the gts 250 or whatever ( I cant recall off the top of my head what they were gonna call it).



Thankfully, board partners have convinced NVIDIA not to follow that through.


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## tofu (Mar 17, 2009)

Phanbuey, I'm on the same boat heh. Flashing 4870 to 4890 sounds like the REAL DEAL.

*Stares down at my 512MB card*


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## alexp999 (Mar 17, 2009)

tofu said:


> Heh, do you guys think it would be possible to flash our 4870's to 4890?
> 
> *Stares down at my 512MB card*



I doubt it, it uses a "new" GPU, the RV790. That is probably the main reason for a GPU name change, so that people cannot flash 4870s to 4890s.


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## Baam (Mar 17, 2009)

Yay for Nvidia spokesmen telling us All ATI products suck and Nvidia is better in every single thread that even mentions ATI.


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## tofu (Mar 17, 2009)

alexp999 said:


> I doubt it, it uses a "new" GPU, the RV790. That is probably the main reason for a GPU name change, so that people cannot flash 4870s to 4890s.



alex you beat me to my already super-quick edit


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## my_name_is_earl (Mar 17, 2009)

Lol lets not compare who's better who. It haven't been release to public yet. Until then Nvidia is still the king of "rebranded"... I mean king of performance.


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## AsRock (Mar 17, 2009)

johnnyfiive said:


> Let me just say this, I was really glad to get a XFX GTX 260 216 Black Edition months ago and everytime I see a revised card come out from NVidia and now ATi (*shakes head*) it ensures me that I made the right choice at the time. All these revamped, renamed, re-released cards is getting crazy.



BS NV do it so often it feels like every week lol..  ATI done it what how many times lol ?



ShogoXT said:


> I myself was hoping for a few more shaders.



That be the 5xxx range witch is later this year hopefully.


Wish they used a different cooler on it as mines running nice and cool here.




niko084 said:


> I'm yet to have any issue with any 4850/4870..
> I think people are trying to put them in their Dell's without any air movement in the case that's causing the issues.
> 
> Can't count the times I have seen 3850/3870, 8800 and 9800s in small cases with no air movement and wonder why after an hour of gaming they start artifacting.



Yeah same here seems like a lot of people put these newer cards in bad air vented cases.


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## DrPepper (Mar 17, 2009)

johnnyfiive said:


> All these revamped, renamed, re-released cards is getting crazy.



This is nothing compared to the 7 Series and the x1xxx series they had thousands of suffixes gt gs gso gtx xtx etc


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## DarkMatter (Mar 17, 2009)

AsRock said:


> Yeah same here seems like a lot of people put these newer cards in bad air vented cases.



You have a Thermaltake Armor and the modded CHENMING and niko has the Antec300. Both are far from being typical mainstream cases and you probably keep them clean, etc. Almost no one here in TPU has a bad case, but there are plenty of cases with bad cooling and most people have those "bad" cases. Average Joe has not the required knowledge to know which case has a good airflow and which one doesn't, so they just buy whichever looks better for them. A case can have 5 fans and have a poor ventilation, there are many cases like that out there. And even good cases go to waste after some dust gets inside and in the filters and joe just doesn't clean them. Not to mention the dust in the cards cooler.


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## Mega-Japan (Mar 17, 2009)

What's this? So much discussion over the lil card, lol. My eyes started bleeding after the 15th post or so xD.
Whatever the case, since I don't have a HD4870 or GTX285, this will most likely be my next GPU upgrade, only because ATi is cool, ^_^.


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## alexp999 (Mar 17, 2009)

If I were looking to upgrade my graphics card soon, I would wait for the GT300 and 58xx series.


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## ZenZimZaliben (Mar 17, 2009)

I had read a preview on this card and I had thought the GDDR5 was supposed to be different from the chips on the 4870.  Tighter timings and faster clock...is that true?


----------



## EastCoasthandle (Mar 17, 2009)

DarkMatter said:


> It was hypothetically speaking. You are asking me not to talk about heat/noise, because we have no info about that, so wouldn't I have the right to do the same regarding performance?


(communication break down)
No, I never said this nor implied that you shouldn't.  What I did say is "..it will not stop others from buying the product if this card can produce frame rates that are close to the GTX 285 at a much lower price structure." 





DarkMatter said:


> EDIT: Oh and no I'm not serious there, nor didn't I take an offense.  I was just hypothetically speaking, as I stated above: if you censure me, why wouldn't I censure you? I know the card will probably be much faster, and I too know it will be hotter. I just want both posibilities to be mentioned. I always want truth, the whole truth, not skewed information, something that Ati and Nvidia fans do very well.


Again, we have another communication break down.  I never said or imply to censor you but state that if the performance justify what they've done to the card IMO not many will care.  




DarkMatter said:


> How is it legitimally assumed that the card will be almost as fast as 285 (you said so in the other post) when GTX285 is more than 30% faster than HD4870 and the new one has only 13% higher clocks??
> 
> And at the same time how is not legitimate to do an assumption about the heat/noise, based on OCed HD4870's? Higher noise comes from higher rpms in the fan FYI.


Again, you have a problem understanding my post.  I can say "..it will not stop others from buying the product if this card can produce frame rates that are *close* to the GTX 285 at a much lower price structure..." if I think that there are other factors involved beside heat and noise. 






DarkMatter said:


> Once again, I was speaking hypothetically. It's not me the one who said we shouldn't speak/speculate about one aspect of the cards. It was you who pretty much censured our opinions about heat/noise because we don't know anything yet. I just said we neither know anything about performance, so we shouldn't assume/speculate either. I vote for speculating, but uncensored.



Nah, I am not censoring anyone's opinion.  From my prospective the heat and noise are not the only things we should be concerned with.  We must also factor in performance, price and availability (among other things). 


Having posted this response to you I believe I have made myself as clear as possible.  In any case, the direction in which this has turned out has run it's course IMO.


----------



## Mega-Japan (Mar 17, 2009)

alexp999 said:


> If I were looking to upgrade my graphics card soon, I would wait for the GT300 and 58xx series.



Which won't happen until at least the 2nd half.
Sure I would too love to see what those DirectX11 cards have to offer, but we all know, waiting for technology = bad thing. By the time I want to upgrade again, we'll be seeing something like DirectX11.1 and the HD68xx / GT400, lol, or maybe even when DirectX12 is out in like 2013 xD.


----------



## niko084 (Mar 17, 2009)

DarkMatter said:


> HD4000 cards have issues in many PCs and not only those with zero airflow. There's problems in hot areas even with relatively good airflow too. Anyway, IMHO a company that is so proud of saying they develop cards for the mainstream, should make their cards work without issues in ANY PC and not only in those of semi-enthusiasts. Almost NONE of my gamer friends clean the inside of their PCs more than once in a year, nor they have uber efficient cases with many fans.



As I said I put them in cases that no side vents and a single very low cfm 120mm fan in the rear, granted its a standard ATX midtower, but it's far from anything special.

I can understand yes it would be great if they just worked in everything. So maybe they should cut their line at the 4550, I mean that "probably" wont overheat in anything. At the same rate, I guess people should put blankets over their TV's and motor manufacturers should make all your car engines air cooled.

There is a line between what is possible and what isn't, and in those lines you have to follow what the consumer demands. Let's be real, everyone out there wants a sub $200 card and most people want a sub $500 computer that will do everything they want it to do for the next 5+ years.

So we have 3 options, ATI and Nvidia stop making great high end graphics cards, they only sell them complete with systems sold directly by them with detailed instructions on how to clean them and take care of them, or a few people that don't have a clue have problems, I mean I guess we could start paying $750usd for a 4850 and a 9800GTX and they can put tons more money into R&D and create a more efficient card, obviously pricing can follow up the trail from there.

I wish they wouldn't have issues in anything myself, but the simple fact is, in the market, with the demand it simply cannot be done, and as a business man I understand that.


----------



## ShadowFold (Mar 17, 2009)

Baam said:


> Yay for Nvidia spokesmen telling us All ATI products suck and Nvidia is better in every single thread that even mentions ATI.



Just ignore them, never feed trolls!


----------



## OnBoard (Mar 17, 2009)

I know that GTX 280 will still 'win' in the heat/wattage  Will be interesting to see how close it gets though. 1GB seems to be the new 512MB now. 9800gtx+ 512MB went to 1GB in GTS 250 form and HD4870 512MB goes to 1GB in HD4890


----------



## 1Kurgan1 (Mar 17, 2009)

johnnyfiive said:


> Let me just say this, I was really glad to get a XFX GTX 260 216 Black Edition months ago and everytime I see a revised card come out from NVidia and now ATi (*shakes head*) it ensures me that I made the right choice at the time. All these revamped, renamed, re-released cards is getting crazy.



At least ATI isn't rebranding this as with completely different numbers and calling it something like the 5870, I don't know how you can shake your head?


----------



## niko084 (Mar 17, 2009)

alexp999 said:


> I doubt it, it uses a "new" GPU, the RV790. That is probably the main reason for a GPU name change, so that people cannot flash 4870s to 4890s.



Well that would be pretty dangerous considering they also changed some aspects of the board itself.

I don't know how well I agree with this rename... It's not as bold as others, but I would still like to see new tech


----------



## ShadowFold (Mar 17, 2009)

I think it's good the 5000's and what ever nvidia is coming up with isn't out yet. I think these cards create a good competition. I hate the "new series" every few months, I liked it when the 8800GTX reined supreme, and I liked it when the 4870X2 reined supreme. Nothing could beat them until the other brought something out that did.


----------



## OnBoard (Mar 17, 2009)

niko084 said:


> I don't know how well I agree with this rename... It's not as bold as others, but I would still like to see new tech



I don't see this as a rename at all.. More like GTX 280 to GTX 285. They just used different technic to get higher clocks out of product than nvidia (die shrink).

If there was no GTX 260 216 shaders, there would be no HD 4870 1GB and thus this would have more differences to HD 4870.

ATI & NVIDIA fighting leaves less room for future innovations, if they only went back to 1 year product cycle.


----------



## Valdez (Mar 17, 2009)

lemonadesoda said:


> Come on AMD! Out with new architecture and 40nm!



New arch? Not likely. I think r600 going to be the base for r800 series too. But i could be wrong


----------



## Valdez (Mar 17, 2009)

Gzero said:


> Oh and DarkMatter stop hating on ATI. I can see your specs, I know your preference
> 
> Nothing wrong with the hd4x series, nothing wrong with this bump. It's not like Nvidia ever did this (7800 - 7900, 8800gt -> 9600/9800) *cough*



He doesn't hate ati, just thinks nvidia is better in every aspect.

IMO 7800->7900 (g70->g71) was not a rename, there were minor architectural improvements too.


----------



## niko084 (Mar 17, 2009)

OnBoard said:


> I don't see this as a rename at all.. More like GTX 280 to GTX 285. They just used different technic to get higher clocks out of product than nvidia (die shrink).
> 
> If there was no GTX 260 216 shaders, there would be no HD 4870 1GB and thus this would have more differences to HD 4870.
> 
> ATI & NVIDIA fighting leaves less room for future innovations, if they only went back to 1 year product cycle.



That's what I mean, it's not as bad as 8800-9800..
It's just ugh, I want to see new cores and new development, not working with old stuff...

I would love it if they went back to 1yr cycles.


----------



## DarkMatter (Mar 17, 2009)

EastCoasthandle said:


> (communication break down)
> No, I never said this nor implied that you shouldn't.  What I did say is "..it will not stop others from buying the product if this card can produce frame rates that are close to the GTX 285 at a much lower price structure."
> 
> 
> ...



I'm not talking about that sentence at all, so I don't know why you have to filter and bound all my responses to that sentence. I (we) said this card could have heat issues, and is a legitimate guesstimation. You are disscussing that all the time. Me slightly mentioning your performance commentary and what I said afterwards is just to make a parallelism to what you are doing. And yes you are censoring me all the time, by saying that heat/noise issues shouldn't be commented (and I quote): 



> In all, we either have to wait for:
> A. Some insider information
> B. Actual review of the card





> Which is why I said that further information will become available when:
> A. Insider information is made public
> B. Official Review





> Having said that, we really don't know the heat and noise regarding this video card until:
> A. Someone provides insider information
> B. Official review





> I see no relation that one should or should not do it based on arch and board design. As I've said before we will know more about this when:
> A. Insider information is provided
> B. Official review



If only writen one time means nothing, but so many times it's a clear attempt to divert attention to another thing and indirectly censore our opinions regarding heat/noise, because you can't do it directly.

On the other hand I never said that the card wouldn't sell or will not be a good fast card, in fact I never said anything wrong about the card. HD4870 overheats in many situations, that doesn't make it a worse option for most of the people, but it does have to be taken into account. The first 8800 GT had severe overheating issues too and was something I took care off when I bought my card (and it was a fact widely and openly said in TPU, but you can't say anything about Ati  except  always or you are a Nvidia fanboy). I even recommended to stay away from the 8800GT to a pair of friends until they got a better ventilation on their cases (it endeed up being the new, much improved, cooler which made me "allow" them to buy it in the end). This card has all the tickets to be worse in that department and it's legitimate to be concerned about it, from the simple curiosity of a tech enthusiast, and in order to better help people.


----------



## erocker (Mar 17, 2009)

Lots of opinions considering there are no official specifications yet.  I'll hold judgement to see what the GPU is really all about.  Yes, it is "based" directly from the RV770, which means that physical changes could have indeed been made.  After that, it all cames down to performance and on the price side of things I don't think anyone is going to be really dissapointed with that.


----------



## DrPepper (Mar 17, 2009)

I wonder if we will see binned RV790's as 4870's.


----------



## niko084 (Mar 17, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> I wonder if we will see binned RV790's as 4870's.



Most likely.


----------



## DrPepper (Mar 17, 2009)

niko084 said:


> Most likely.



Wonder if they will show up under gpuz.


----------



## niko084 (Mar 17, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> Wonder if they will show up under gpuz.



Probably not, it's the bios that labels it if I'm correct.


----------



## alexp999 (Mar 17, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> Wonder if they will show up under gpuz.



GPU-Z report: "Once upon a time this little chip was headed for great things as an RV790, but one day AMD decided it just didn't have what it takes, and the poor little chip was thrown into a bin to be stripped of its fastest GPU status, to become nothing more than an RV770..."

 Couldnt resist, lol.

It will be interesting to see how these OC tho, cus that will truely show whether they have done some tweaks under the hood, or if they are just high binned RV770's.


----------



## niko084 (Mar 17, 2009)

alexp999 said:


> It will be interesting to see how these OC tho, cus that will truely show whether they have done some tweaks under the hood, or if they are just high binned RV770's.



Indeed, I sure hope they do a little more than binning. But we will have to see..

I hate this Nvidia/ATI thing.. I love my onboard audio on my ATI card, not to mention the fanatically great upscaling ability. But I want the physx of the Nvidia, and I'm not gonna bomb the cash on a crap physx card....


----------



## EastCoasthandle (Mar 17, 2009)

erocker said:


> Lots of opinions considering there are no official specifications yet.  I'll hold judgement to see what the GPU is really all about.  Yes, it is "based" directly from the RV770, which means that physical changes could have indeed been made.  After that, it all cames down to performance and on the price side of things I don't think anyone is going to be really dissapointed with that.



I couldn't agree more.  
In all honesty (because information is very limited) that's not much else we can say.


----------



## EastCoasthandle (Mar 17, 2009)

Ok, from what is being said (always taken with a pinch of salt) they (whoever "they" are) saying that the 4890 idles at 59C at 24% fan speed.  
source

I only hope this is accurate.  Time will tell...


----------



## niko084 (Mar 17, 2009)

EastCoasthandle said:


> Ok, from what is being said (always taken with a pinch of salt) they (whoever "they" are) saying that the 4890 idles at 59C at 24% fan speed.
> source
> 
> I only hope this is accurate.  Time will tell...



That doesn't look amazing... 59c @ 24% with a dual slot cooler...

My 4850 clocked to 705/1050 @ 40% idles at like 62c in a 72f room.


----------



## EastCoasthandle (Mar 17, 2009)

niko084 said:


> That doesn't look amazing... 59c @ 24% with a dual slot cooler...
> 
> My 4850 clocked to 705/1050 @ 40% idles at like 62c in a 72f room.



I am not sure why it should be amazing.  It tells me that they have power play working (or whatever they decide to call it). Besides, your fan usage is at 40%


----------



## niko084 (Mar 17, 2009)

EastCoasthandle said:


> I am not sure why it should be amazing.  It tells me that they have power play working (or whatever they decide to call it). Besides, your fan usage is at 40%



I thought you were saying you hoped that fan speed/temp information was correct... Like in the idea that that would be an amazing feat if it ran that temp at that fan speed, I was simply saying I would consider that to be pretty close to normal.


----------



## kid41212003 (Mar 17, 2009)

My card idle at 63C at 40% fan speed. 



The truth is, I didn't see any high-end cards idle lower than 50C with stock cooling before, it's unrealistic.


----------



## niko084 (Mar 17, 2009)

kid41212003 said:


> The truth is, I didn't see any high-end cards idle lower than 50C with stock cooling before, it's unrealistic.



My HD3870 sure did, idles at about 42-44c in a 72f room, with stock cooling and fan speed left alone, I don't know how fast it was, but you couldn't hear it over my AC Freezer alone.


----------



## EastCoasthandle (Mar 17, 2009)

niko084 said:


> I thought you were saying you hoped that fan speed/temp information was correct... Like in the idea that that would be an amazing feat if it ran that temp at that fan speed, I was simply saying I would consider that to be pretty close to normal.




Results are going to vary which I discussed earlier in this thread (IE: ambient temps, etc).  In all the idle temps are good (which I hope are actually true).  But we still need to see:
-load temps
-frame rates
-price when released 
etc.

And as kid41212003 stated his GTX 280 (unless he was making reference to another video card) idles at 63C with 40% fan usage.  So in all lets see what other leaked info (used with a pinch of salt) becomes available.


----------



## DrPepper (Mar 17, 2009)

kid41212003 said:


> My card idle at 63C at 40% fan speed.
> 
> 
> 
> The truth is, I didn't see any high-end cards idle lower than 50C with stock cooling before, it's unrealistic.



I think my GTX260 idles about 45 degrees at stock fan settings. Can't check because its dead.


----------



## niko084 (Mar 17, 2009)

EastCoasthandle said:


> Results are going to vary which I discussed earlier in this thread (IE: ambient temps, etc).  In all the idle temps are good (which I hope are actually true).  But we still need to see:
> -load temps
> -frame rates
> -price when released
> ...



Ya, I was just confused a little when reading your post that's all. 

It would be nice if powerplay worked right...
I LOVE the way my 2600 and 3870 worked, my bios worked great for them, I can't ever get one working the way I want with my 4850.


----------



## wolf (Mar 18, 2009)

Assimilator said:


> It's hardly "next generation", but it should be able to reclaim the title of world's fastest single-GPU card - for now.



no way this beats a GTX285 (on the whole) however it may force nvidias hand on an overclocked GTX260 design (ie GTX275) albiet i bet 99% of GTX260 cards ever made would easily support a bios update to 648/1404/1133 or so with a slightly more agressive fan profile, thats a winner.

as for the design and overclock and whole package of the 4890 .... *sigh*


----------



## Gzero (Mar 18, 2009)

LOL nooo I want my 4870 to stay at 80C at all times, then I can pretend its a thermal give off from a nuclear reactor...

Whats wrong with the stock ati cooler? If you leave it be and not OC the thing the fan is quiet underload. But yes I get a dose of the Full speed when I boot into any OS's  like a plane taking off.


----------



## ShadowFold (Mar 18, 2009)

I love loud fans, bring on the noise  My 4830's are too quiet.. I loved how my 4850 was so loud at 100%


----------



## OnBoard (Mar 18, 2009)

kid41212003 said:


> My card idle at 63C at 40% fan speed.
> 
> The truth is, I didn't see any high-end cards idle lower than 50C with stock cooling before, it's unrealistic.



A bit of topic, but your 2d clocks aren't working for some reason (for me it's 2 displays). I get 49-51c idle with 2d clocks and so should you as I'm with 64C idle on 3d clocks now


----------



## DarkMatter (Mar 18, 2009)

kid41212003 said:


> My card idle at 63C at 40% fan speed.
> 
> 
> 
> The truth is, I didn't see any high-end cards idle lower than 50C with stock cooling before, it's unrealistic.



My brother's card (9800GTX+) idles at a much lower temp than that, around 40-44 but I guess it's not high-end anymore. It was in a time, so I don't if it falls under your claim.

Anyway:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GTX_295/33.html

Just took the first reference cooling card review in the front page's "latest reviews" sliding bar. The fact that it is the GTX295 just makes this point stronger: there are many high-end cards that idle at 50ºC and below. The other cards before that one are not reference and idle lower than 50ºC.

It's good to see that powerplay works this time, it's certainly a good and very necessary improvement. It was also highly expected, though. But, and I know I'm going to be flamed again, IMHO ~60ºC at 240Mhz even if it's only 24% fan speed, just only suggests that the card will be very hot under load.


----------



## EastCoasthandle (Mar 18, 2009)

Here is were that earlier information came from (regarding temps and fan speed). As with any "early released info" take this with a grain of salt.







I would simply make a profile and bring the memory clocks back down to 490MHz and your done


----------



## ShadowFold (Mar 18, 2009)

Meh. My 4830 with the shitty 2pin fan runs at 64c under load at 720mhz. That 4890 shot looks pretty nice tho!


----------



## Scrizz (Mar 18, 2009)

my xfx 4850 idles at 44C at stock fan speed


----------



## SteelSix (Mar 18, 2009)

Regarding ATI *or* nV rebadging right now, one must consider the state of the economy and what it takes to churn out a new architecture. 

$199-$299 price point is the sweet spot at present. Polls prove it and the economy nearly dictates it. Regarding new gpu's, neither ATI nor nVidia can afford a sloppy mistake right now. Anyone read AT's article on how much was riding on 48xx's success? 

It is what it is until DX11 hits. 4870 1GB and 260 are amazing cards for the money. Bump some clocks with a rework, even better. Can't wait to see gpus temps and default fan speeds though..


----------



## perkam (Mar 18, 2009)

SteelSix said:


> Regarding ATI *or* nV rebadging right now, one must consider the state of the economy and what it takes to churn out a new architecture.
> 
> $199-$299 price point is the sweet spot at present. Polls prove it and the economy nearly dictates it. Regarding new gpu's, neither ATI nor nVidia can afford a sloppy mistake right now. Anyone read AT's article on how much was riding on 48xx's success?
> 
> It is what it is until DX11 hits. 4870 1GB and 260 are amazing cards for the money. Bump some clocks with a rework, even better. Can't wait to see gpus temps and default fan speeds though..


This isn't a renaming. Renaming occurs when a company literally just changes the box art, sticker and name in the bios.

This is a higher binned product similar to 7900 GTX -> 7900 Ultra or ATI's own 9800 Pro -> 9800 XT. 
*
REGARDING PRICE*

Do not be fooled by the European prices. The price is the one without taxes as the €250 price includes taxes that don't apply to those in the US, so the price is €220 which translates to $219-$229 USD for the 850 Core 4890 when you take into account average prices for the cards in Europe vs US, seeing as prices are always lower in the US. 

Therefore, I'm predicting we'll see a 950 Clocked 4890 at $279 to counter the old GTX 280 sometime soon as well, as the earliest rumors foretold.

Perkam


----------



## Frizz (Mar 18, 2009)

DarkMatter said:


> My brother's card (9800GTX+) idles at a much lower temp than that, around 40-44 but I guess it's not high-end anymore. It was in a time, so I don't if it falls under your claim.
> 
> Anyway:
> 
> ...




People, even enthusiasts will hardly ever consider heat output when it comes to buying a high end card. 

1. Because its more than likely they will change the stock cooler with water cooling or aftermarket GPU cooler..
2. Mainstream users just aren't on their computer as much, I doubt they would even bother checking what AMD overdrive is and just trust the fact that their bundled computer system is perfect.

So why do you always get into irrelevant debates when you post into an ATI related thread? And I don't see how you can be so sure with the references you hand out, do you own a gtx295/285/280/260? do you own an ati 4850/4870/4870x2?


----------



## Mussels (Mar 18, 2009)

tofu said:


> Phanbuey, I'm on the same boat heh. Flashing 4870 to 4890 sounds like the REAL DEAL.
> 
> *Stares down at my 512MB card*



if it works my 4870 1GB will follow.

However notice that they mention the core has changed from RV770 to RV790 - that to me implies differences on the inside (die shrink?)


----------



## PCpraiser100 (Mar 18, 2009)

I have high hopes that ATI will beat the GTX 280 with the 4890, and the GTX 295 with its upcoming X2 sibling.


----------



## nafets (Mar 18, 2009)

Mussels said:


> if it works my 4870 1GB will follow.
> 
> However notice that they mention the core has changed from RV770 to RV790 - that to me implies differences on the inside (die shrink?)



I don't see HD4870->HD4890 flashing will be possible.

While both cards _might_ use the same GPU core, the cards use totally different PCB power designs. Say you were lucky with a good OC'ing RV770 GPU core, if the additional power necessary isn't there (and delivered in a stable fashion) then your HD4870 isn't going to be running at 850MHz, no matter what you flash it's BIOS with.

The increase from 3 vGPU phases to 5 vGPU phases is a sure sign that ATI is (over)volting the hell out of their RV770 (now called RV790) chips to get them running at 850MHz.

While the HD4890 isn't going to touch the GTX 280/285, it should certainly have enough extra juice to beat the GTX 260 in most if not all current games and "important" benchmarks...


----------



## DarkMatter (Mar 18, 2009)

randomflip said:


> People, even enthusiasts will hardly ever consider heat output when it comes to buying a high end card.
> 
> 1. Because its more than likely they will change the stock cooler with water cooling or aftermarket GPU cooler..
> 2. Mainstream users just aren't on their computer as much, I doubt they would even bother checking what AMD overdrive is and just trust the fact that their bundled computer system is perfect.
> ...



Mainstream user will surely not care, until the cards start failing/artifacting on them. I'm not saying that it will happen, but it's a posibility. Here in Spain many HD48xx failed in the summer due to overheating and I suppose that the same can happen in any country between the same latitude and the equator. Is far from being irrelevant IMO.

And regarding if I have one of those cards, no I don't, but (maybe this sounds strange in a forum like this so be prepared) I have friends!  Actual friends, many friends, with their own life and everything, GPUs included. And because I am the "geek" in the group I have to choose and install their PCs. More than "have to" I just do it and I get many more valuable things in exchange. They think they get the best part on the deal, so couldn't be better. Did I say some of them are girls?  (wait no it's not what you are thinking, kinda)


----------



## Frizz (Mar 18, 2009)

DarkMatter said:


> Mainstream user will surely not care, until the cards start failing/artifacting on them. I'm not saying that it will happen, but it's a posibility. Here in Spain many HD48xx failed in the summer due to overheating and I suppose that the same can happen in any country between the same latitude and the equator. Is far from being irrelevant IMO.
> 
> And regarding if I have one of those cards, no I don't, but (maybe this sounds strange in a forum like this so be prepared) I have friends!  Actual friends, many friends, with their own life and everything, GPUs included. And because I am the "geek" in the group I have to choose and install their PCs. More than "have to" I just do it and I get many more valuable things in exchange. They think they get the best part on the deal, so couldn't be better. Did I say some of them are girls?  (wait no it's not what you are thinking, kinda)



So the fact you think something like that "maybe" sounds strange in a forum like "this", you implying no-one in this forum has friends? Whats up with that 

My friend has an 8800GT that I helped him install/troubleshoot and my gf which i might add lives in the same room as me has a 4650 that I installed and help her troubleshoot as well, still though I do not post comments about how those cards work from my perspective simply cause their not mine weather or not I've read information online me posting about possible heat issues etc. would be completely irrelevant, its just another small way of opposing. Yes yes the 4xxx series can get too hot and maybe die but IMO I think the user will notice if its in trouble then obviously either report back to the retailer or just look online for a solution, once again no biggie and again becomes too small of an issue to be considered when buying a card, my reference 4850 ran at 110 degrees at summer for a few weeks at load 69 idle nothing went wrong with it until I broke it by installing an aftermarket cooler LOL the irony :/.

EDIT: It might have been because the accelero screws were on too tight and that i didn't use the swashbucklers .. :/


----------



## Mussels (Mar 18, 2009)

all video cards can overheat. god we had 45C summer here, with a closed door a room could pass 50C.... no cards going to last long in 50C ambient, and even if it didnt die immediately it would surely bring it closer to its grave.


----------



## Hayder_Master (Mar 18, 2009)

Arrakis+9 said:


> looks just like a 4870





alexp999 said:


> Thats cus it is effectively just an OC'd 4870.
> 
> Yay, even more heat/noise issues!



agreed im say this too before , but sometimes i think if this one have good overclock , imagine this card can get 100 more GPU and 200 memory


----------



## my_name_is_earl (Mar 18, 2009)

Mussels said:


> all video cards can overheat. god we had 45C summer here, with a closed door a room could pass 50C.... no cards going to last long in 50C ambient, and even if it didnt die immediately it would surely bring it closer to its grave.



Good thing I had separate air conditioning in my room otherwise it will heat it up bad even though I turn on house AC. These company need to do something about the heating. Every new generation it consume more power and produces more heat. Not everyone willing to pay 200$+ extra for a VGA water cooling...  I buy an window air conditioner($150) instead and it's quite useful cooling all of my overclocked PC component and me. I can't say that when it come to summer though unless you had like a $400 AC. Electric bill can be hell if you game a lot in the summer.


----------



## eidairaman1 (Mar 18, 2009)

Well if this card comes out of the Gate Excellent, i May Pick it up, otherwise a 4870 will suit me.


----------



## alexp999 (Mar 18, 2009)

kid41212003 said:


> My card idle at 63C at 40% fan speed.
> 
> 
> 
> The truth is, I didn't see any high-end cards idle lower than 50C with stock cooling before, it's unrealistic.



My card idles at about 37*C (38*C while I type this), on the stock 40% fan speed.


----------



## SteelSix (Mar 18, 2009)

perkam said:


> This isn't a renaming. Renaming occurs when a company literally just changes the box art, sticker and name in the bios.
> 
> This is a higher binned product similar to 7900 GTX -> 7900 Ultra or ATI's own 9800 Pro -> 9800 XT...
> 
> Perkam



Same specs but higher clock speeds is rebadging in my books. The whole binning concept is half bullshit anyway. Power tweaks will be primarily responsible for the overhead gain.

It's okay ATI die hards.. call it a different gpu if it brings purpose to your life. 48xx was a great success; there's nothing wrong with squeezing it futher with a board rework..


----------



## kyle2020 (Mar 18, 2009)

I must say, when it comes to out of the factory looks, unless its XFX making an ATI card, nvidia always win hands down for me - I mean this just looks like a 4870, and they are ugly.


----------



## DarkMatter (Mar 18, 2009)

randomflip said:


> So the fact you think something like that "maybe" sounds strange in a forum like "this", you implying no-one in this forum has friends? Whats up with that
> 
> My friend has an 8800GT that I helped him install/troubleshoot and my gf which i might add lives in the same room as me has a 4650 that I installed and help her troubleshoot as well, still though I do not post comments about how those cards work from my perspective simply cause their not mine weather or not I've read information online me posting about possible heat issues etc. would be completely irrelevant, its just another small way of opposing. Yes yes the 4xxx series can get too hot and maybe die but IMO I think the user will notice if its in trouble then obviously either report back to the retailer or just look online for a solution, once again no biggie and again becomes too small of an issue to be considered when buying a card, my reference 4850 ran at 110 degrees at summer for a few weeks at load 69 idle nothing went wrong with it until I broke it by installing an aftermarket cooler LOL the irony :/.
> 
> EDIT: It might have been because the accelero screws were on too tight and that i didn't use the swashbucklers .. :/



I'm not implying that no one here has friends, I was just making a joke on the fact that so many people ask if you have this or that graphics card, as implying that if you don't own one you don't know anything about them. When that happens I always wonder, do these guys have friends? They never talk to anyone or what? As I said I have many friends and I have installed, OCed and mantained a lot of cards, from almost every manufacturer. I don't need to own a card to know how it works. I have spent almost as many hours with my friends' cards as I did with mine. Not playing, testing I mean, no benchmarking or heavy overcloking with my current PC, I've left that already until I need it for gaming. And every time there is a problem it's me who resolved it. And of my friends only 2 have an HD48x0, but both have had artifacting due to high temps. Yeah no need to return them in the end, but it was desperating for the user and for me that I had to spend a lot of time in the telephone until we managed to solve the problem. OH and from personal experience I can say that artifacting due to overheating is one of the most traumatic of the problems if it comes from factory, because the conditions in their RMA lab can be different than yours and they could simply not change your card.

Anyway, I usually stay away from my personal experience for such claims as the ones I have made and rely in the internet, because my experience is very limited compared to the big knowledge base in the internet, as in order to speak statistics are much more important, and statistics needs a big sample base. You see only 2 of my friends have HD48xx cards and only three have GTX2xx. Most of them have still 8800, HD38xx and X1900. The only 2 cards that have had problems lately were the HD48xx cards, both Saphire, so not a problem of cheap manufacturer. It's just that as Mussels said any card can overheat, but it's just easier for a card that starts at over 90ºC than one that starts at 70ºC under load.


----------



## Mussels (Mar 18, 2009)

people should ask "do you have first hand experience with these cards" not "do you own them"


----------



## DarkMatter (Mar 18, 2009)

Mussels said:


> people should ask "do you have first hand experience with these cards" not "do you own them"



Exactly. I worked in an store some years ago and mounted like thousands of PCs. It was one "a la carte" retailer so I had to mount PCs with almost every component in the market back then. Testing was part of the price, so I also performed a lot of tests on them. I only had one card in the time that I was working there, but surely had more experience with any of the cards than any of the people that bought them.

Anyway I still think that unless you work in something like that, the internet is a much better knowledge base than your personal experience, even if you have mounted more than 50 friend's PCs as is my case.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Mar 18, 2009)

One of my 4850s idle at 81c. Its a reference board. My asus idles at 55c which isnt reference. I sometimes wonder its 81c is to high.


----------



## DrPepper (Mar 18, 2009)

81 is quite high but I've seen my own cards at 98 - 100 and they worked fine because I never noticed.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Mar 18, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> 81 is quite high but I've seen my own cards at 98 - 100 and they worked fine because I never noticed.



At idle?


----------



## DrPepper (Mar 18, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> At idle?



yeah the fan was broke.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Mar 18, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> yeah the fan was broke.



My fan works fine. I guess the reference design just sucks on the 4850.


----------



## DrPepper (Mar 18, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> My fan works fine. I guess the reference design just sucks on the 4850.



I personally prefer two slot coolers because they come with a larger heatsink and cover most of the card. Would you consider aftermarket cooling ?


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Mar 18, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> I personally prefer two slot coolers because they come with a larger heatsink and cover most of the card. Would you consider aftermarket cooling ?


Not for this card. Its a visiontek. It has a "lifetime" warranty.


----------



## DrPepper (Mar 18, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Not for this card. Its a visiontek. It has a "lifetime" warranty.



Guess there wouldn't be a point anyway if it works fine eh


----------



## DarkMatter (Mar 18, 2009)

MailMan, if you have them in Crossfire, I'm just wondering if you have one just above the other and the Visiontek happens to be the one on top, because that could be the problem.


----------



## Scrizz (Mar 18, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> One of my 4850s idle at 81c. Its a reference board. My asus idles at 55c which isnt reference. I sometimes wonder its 81c is to high.



you should bump up the fan speed slightly


----------



## H82LUZ73 (Mar 18, 2009)

Now we all now the problems the 4870 faced when it started, AMD even had to release a driver that stopped furmark overheating it, to the point it would artifact and crash.

Bullshit.

If your a Nvidia fan go to a post to talk about them,I have a Palit 4870 that idles on 45 % fan at 35 c and never goes over 58 on load so I again say BULLSHIT with heat and noise issues on the 4870.


As for the 4890 it could be the handpick rv770xt chips that overclock well or even the shader clock increase ....Who knows until the benchmark an reviews chime in ......


Ps how come the 280 are the highest fail rate and look the 4870 is low uhmmmmmm More Bullshit i think ....http://www.techpowerup.com/img/09-03-18/16arxxx.png


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## TheMailMan78 (Mar 18, 2009)

DarkMatter said:


> MailMan, if you have them in Crossfire, I'm just wondering if you have one just above the other and the Visiontek happens to be the one on top, because that could be the problem.



No I put the Asus on top. It had a much larger fan on it and I was "hoping" it would cool the visiontek better. I might switch them and see what happens tonight. Anyway here are my two cards...


----------



## alexp999 (Mar 18, 2009)

H82LUZ73 said:


> Now we all now the problems the 4870 faced when it started, AMD even had to release a driver that stopped furmark overheating it, to the point it would artifact and crash.
> 
> Bullshit.
> 
> ...



Don't know if that was directed at me or not but:

ATI Deliberately Retards Catalyst for FurMark

Just cus I have an NVIDIA card doesnt mean I am an NVIDIA fan, my last three graphics cards before this were ATI.


----------



## ShadowFold (Mar 18, 2009)

I ran furmark(using etqw.exe) on my card for 27 hours at 700mhz and it didn't get any artifacts


----------



## Spunjji (Mar 18, 2009)

> Same specs but higher clock speeds is rebadging in my books. The whole binning concept is half bullshit anyway. Power tweaks will be primarily responsible for the overhead gain.
> 
> It's okay ATI die hards.. call it a different gpu if it brings purpose to your life. 48xx was a great success; there's nothing wrong with squeezing it futher with a board rework..



It's just as well these things aren't defined in your weird little books then, SteelSix.
Re-badging = giving a different name to the same GPU silicon, AKA 8800GTS - 9800GT.
4890 uses a *different* GPU.  Sure, there's no die shrink and apparently no changes to the quantity of shaders, but there are quite a lot of very important changes you can make to a silicon chip besides that.  Are you aware of the concept of a die re-spin?  And why is binning 'half bullshit'?  That doesn't make any sense.  In fact, apart from your closing comment, your whole post is meaningless.  It's just ignorant.

There's a lot of "it looks the same so it must be an overclocked part" crap in here too - speculation is fine, but do you seriously think ATi would be stupid enough to release a newer card that is hotter than their already-very-hot model without addressing some of those issues?  Step off your damn pedestals and have a little faith.

And what's this crap about people's card temperatures?  I don't care how hot your GTX260 is at '40% fan speed', it's a totally different architecture to the 4890, with a different cooler and an entirely different approach to thermal design.  ATi design their coolers to use the minimum fan speeds possible at idle whilst keeping the GPU below its rated maximum temperature (around 110 degrees C), in order to reduce idle noise levels.  nVidia tend to produce less noise-sensitive designs, that's just their strategy.  People keep shitting themselves over this because they think that a GPU that idles at 50-60 is somehow safer.  Get some actual GPU return rate figures before you accuse a company's designs of being flawed, I'm sick of all this 'loads of people's cards failed' hand-waving.  Do we even know why the cards that did fail failed?  Was it the GPU, the memory, or the PCB?  These are very, very important differences.

If you want to make efficiency comparisons, look at overall power draw; that's far more important because it tells you how much heat will have to be dissipated.  The original 4870 drew less power at maximum than both the GTX280 and the GTX260, but more at idle.  This is due to its use of GDDR5, as shown by the power draw difference between 4870 and 4850 (much more than the clock difference could account for).  In other words, there's no obvious reason why a re-spun RV770 GPU on an improved 55nm manufacturing node and with a redesigned PCB can't perform well with reasonable thermals.


It's a speed-bump, it won't set the world on fire, it will be competitive, end of.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Mar 18, 2009)

Spunjji said:


> It's just as well these things aren't defined in your weird little books then, SteelSix.
> Re-badging = giving a different name to the same GPU silicon, AKA 8800GTS - 9800GT.
> 4890 uses a *different* GPU.  Sure, there's no die shrink and apparently no changes to the quantity of shaders, but there are quite a lot of very important changes you can make to a silicon chip besides that.  Are you aware of the concept of a die re-spin?  And why is binning 'half bullshit'?  That doesn't make any sense.  In fact, apart from your closing comment, your whole post is meaningless.  It's just ignorant.
> 
> ...



Who left the door open?


----------



## Spunjji (Mar 18, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Who left the door open?



Welcome to the internet!  It's fun here.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Mar 18, 2009)

Spunjji said:


> Welcome to the internet!  It's fun here.



Welcome to the machine. I'm TheMailMan Ill be your guide.


----------



## alexp999 (Mar 18, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Who left the door open?





Spunjji said:


> Welcome to the internet!  It's fun here.





TheMailMan78 said:


> Welcome to the machine. I'm TheMailMan Ill be your guide.



Please stay on topic.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Mar 18, 2009)

alexp999 said:


> Please stay on topic.



First stop. Mod central. Listen to them. If not serious PWNAGE will ensue. 

Anyway I agree with Spunjji on this one. Lets see some reviews before we pass judgement. We don't even know the shader count yet.


----------



## Spunjji (Mar 18, 2009)

alexp999 said:


> Please stay on topic.



Sure, sorry for that.

Yes, I'm new here, but I'm not new to all this.  I don't usually bother posting, but I got rather irate at a lot of posts here.

So, does anybody have any more leaked info yet or are we still just looking at clock speeds?


----------



## eidairaman1 (Mar 18, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> No I put the Asus on top. It had a much larger fan on it and I was "hoping" it would cool the visiontek better. I might switch them and see what happens tonight. Anyway here are my two cards...
> 
> http://prohardver.hu/dl/new/2008-07/40035_asus_hd4850_glaciator.jpg
> 
> http://images.tigerdirect.com/itemDetails/V261-4850/V261-4850-call01-mm.jpg



there is a flaw with what you want to do, as that asus board doesnt have a heatsink for the Power Regs in the back. 

Anyways have some people check out the failure rates of boards at this link, it may prove shocking

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=88515

but i guess its understandable considering one companies Mobility parts were failing left and right and lead to some lawsuits by the stockholders.


----------



## Tatty_One (Mar 18, 2009)

Spunjji said:


> Sure, sorry for that.
> 
> Yes, I'm new here, but I'm not new to all this.  I don't usually bother posting, but I got rather irate at a lot of posts here.
> 
> So, does anybody have any more leaked info yet or are we still just looking at clock speeds?



Possibly a retail price of $360 US???  ALthough I think the EU shop in question has been told to remove the item from their "pre-order" list 


http://www.tweaktown.com/news/11713/radeon_hd_4890_pictures_price_specs/


----------



## alexp999 (Mar 18, 2009)

This is what we know so far.



btarunr said:


> The RV790 is essentially a reworked RV770 with higher clock-speeds. AMD seems to have reworked the design of the RV770, perhaps altered or removed rudimentary components that facilitate slightly higher clock speeds. While samples of the RV790 are spec'd to run at 850 MHz, one can expect a slightly increased overclocking headroom. The samples also carried Qimonda IDGV1G-05A1F1C-40X memory chips that are originally specified to run at 1 GHz, yet running at 975 MHz on the samples. The core continues to have 800 stream processors, 40 TMUs and 16 ROPs. It features a 256-bit wide memory interface to support GDDR5, GDDR4 and GDDR3 memory standards. It will be built on the existing 55 nm TSMC manufacturing node. Products based on the RV790 can be expected only by April.


----------



## Spunjji (Mar 18, 2009)

eidairaman1 said:


> there is a flaw with what you want to do, as that asus board doesnt have a heatsink for the Power Regs in the back.
> 
> Anyways have some people check out the failure rates of boards at this link, it may prove shocking
> 
> ...



Thanks for the link, those are some interesting figures.

I'm not sure that the Mobility parts would have affected those particular graphs, though?  I guess it depends whether or not they were using the same materials across all their GPUs at the time.

Regardless, that kinda proves my point about ATi failure rates hand-waving.  Which is relieving.


----------



## Tatty_One (Mar 18, 2009)

Ohhhh and it seems that NVidia might bring out another card to combat it, a GTX275, if that is anywhere near the truth (and IDK) then it would suggest the 4890 is perhaps aslightly faster than a GTX260 216 core but certainly not as fast as a GTX285

http://www.tech-forums.net/pc/f62/nvidia-plans-geforce-gtx-275-against-radeon-hd-4890-a-202497/


----------



## EastCoasthandle (Mar 18, 2009)

H82LUZ73 said:


> Now we all now the problems the 4870 faced when it started, AMD even had to release a driver that stopped furmark overheating it, to the point it would artifact and crash.
> 
> Bullshit.
> 
> ...



This is what happens when you begin to notice post(s) regarding FUD.  By definition it's only fear, uncertainty and doubt.  Those who actually own the video card are not having unusual heat and noise issues.  Heck, I don't hear the fan in my case until it reaches around 50%.  And even then it's not an issue for me because I can barely hear it over my other PC Case Fans.  And, I've rarely had a need to use the fan that high to begin with.  

Furthermore, it is a legitimate question to ask if you are the current operator of a particular video card that you are posting a lot of negative comments about it.  Sure, that means you are being called out on it.  But you better have more then "just a friend" when explaining yourself.  If you don't own it, your continued negative posts about it (in the fashion seen in this thread) without any solid evidence to back it up (someone called it hand-waving) becomes moot and debunked by default.  And, IMO is considered trolling.


----------



## Spunjji (Mar 18, 2009)

Tatty_One said:


> ... it would suggest the 4890 is perhaps aslightly faster than a GTX260 216 core but certainly not as fast as a GTX285



That sounds in the right ballpark to me.  I'm a bit sceptical about the claims that it would challenge a GTX285, it seems a bit of a reach for an architecture that wasn't supposed to compete at the top end of the market as a single chip.

Of course, I'd love it if we're wrong XD


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Mar 18, 2009)

eidairaman1 said:


> there is a flaw with what you want to do, as that asus board doesnt have a heatsink for the Power Regs in the back.
> 
> Anyways have some people check out the failure rates of boards at this link, it may prove shocking
> 
> ...



According to the stats the Asus is doing just fine without the heatsink for the Power Regs. It would hurt to TRY and flip the cards.


----------



## eidairaman1 (Mar 18, 2009)

the other problem is the Asus board maybe using different components altogether from the Visiontek unit, You may have to compare layouts and what Serial Numbers each have and determine if both are reference designs or if 1 isnt btw, i still would get some cooling for the VRMs.


----------



## DarkMatter (Mar 18, 2009)

EastCoasthandle said:


> Furthermore, it is a legitimate question to ask if you are the current operator of a particular video card that you are posting a lot of negative comments about it.  Sure, that means you are being called out on it.  But you better have more then "just a friend" when explaining yourself.  If you don't own it, your continued negative posts about it (in the fashion seen in this thread) without any solid evidence to back it up (someone called it hand-waving) becomes moot and debunked by default.  And, IMO is considered trolling.



What's all that crap? You can think whatever you want. Even that I'm making all this up. But what about TheMailMan, in this same thread?? He states that his card idles at 81ºC and he is making it up too? To support my point, that is, we are best friends after all...  Eh MailMan?? 

On the other hand he is not having artifacts. Well temperature here might be a little bit higher and we do like a little bit higher temperatures than what seems to be common in the US and other countries. When I went there in vacations I almost got freezed when I entered any public building and I was told it was the same temperature that people uses at home. I got countless headaches in CAL, becaue of the temperature difference between outdoors and indoors.

Also not all chips can handle the same temperatures before artifacting, so even if only 10% of the cards overheat and only half of those artifact when overheating, that's still a lot of cards having issues. If it was a competition of course you would find more evidence of working cards with no problems at all, because more than 90% of the cards runs well, but there's still a lot of problematic cards noentheless. As I said my friends had artifacting and in order to solve the problem we had to put the fan @80-100% load, which was quite noisy. No need to go through RMA (RMA wouldn't help anyway), so the link about failure rates means nothing. We are reluctant to RMA a card because of temperatures and artifacting (I already did it once with no luck). Even if it is a design problem, they will very likely demostrate that it runs well, under their lab conditions, of course, and will return you the same card. Result for you: 20 euros less in delivery expenses. Wohoooo!!


----------



## Spunjji (Mar 18, 2009)

DarkMatter said:


> What's all that crap? You can think whatever you want. Even that I'm making all this up. But what about TheMailMan, in this same thread?? He states that his card idles at 81ºC and he is making it up too? ...
> On the other hand he is not having artifacts.


You just proved our point there.  The 4850/70 cards are known to idle high, but their chip design can handle sustained temperatures much higher than that - almost 30 degrees centigrade higher, to be precise, which is a large difference.  I understand that might *seem* unsettling at first glance, but really it has no need to be.



DarkMatter said:


> Also not all chips can handle the same temperatures before artifacting


That is a very good point, and naturally some people will be unlucky and get cards that are less able to tolerate the heat - but that's an unfortunate fact of life, and is the same for all areas of the consumer electronics industry.  The RMA figures show that there's not an unreasonable number of problem cards.



DarkMatter said:


> We are reluctant to RMA a card because of temperatures and artifacting (I already did it once with no luck).


If the card tests as fine at their centre, then it might indicate a problem at your end causing artifacts - not necessarily one that's your fault, either, there are a lot of variables to deal with.  It could be a problem peculiar to your own configuration.  Temperature being high but still within specifications is not a good enough reason for an RMA, though - if you don't like the card idling high, then you can always change the cooler.  And any skew to the RMA figures resulting from consumer reluctance will apply to the competition, too, so it still proves nothing about the scale of this problem.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Mar 18, 2009)

Spunjji beware "The Dark Matter". He likes to type. A LOT!


----------



## Spunjji (Mar 18, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Spunjji beware "The Dark Matter". He likes to type. A LOT!



Haha, thanks for the heads-up 
I've said my piece now though, I think I can probably leave it at that.


----------



## DarkMatter (Mar 18, 2009)

Spunjji said:


> You just proved our point there.  The 4850/70 cards are known to idle high, but their chip design can handle sustained temperatures much higher than that - almost 30 degrees centigrade higher, to be precise, which is a large difference.  I understand that might *seem* unsettling at first glance, but really it has no need to be.
> 
> 
> That is a very good point, and naturally some people will be unlucky and get cards that are less able to tolerate the heat - but that's an unfortunate fact of life, and is the same for all areas of the consumer electronics industry.  The RMA figures show that there's not an unreasonable number of problem cards.



My friends cards started artifacting at over 110ºC, a temperature that was reached in an eye blink.

The RMA figures show nothing as they do not represent a big enough base.



> If the card tests as fine at their centre, then it might indicate a problem at your end causing artifacts - not necessarily one that's your fault, either, there are a lot of variables to deal with.  It could be a problem peculiar to your own configuration.  Temperature being high but still within specifications is not a good enough reason for an RMA, though - if you don't like the card idling high, then you can always change the cooler.  And any skew to the RMA figures resulting from consumer reluctance will apply to the competition, too, so it still proves nothing about the scale of this problem.



Of course the "problem" is in our end. Namely ambient temperature higher than 15-20ºC, and the fact that we don't have the closed antiseptic test environments as they have. Nor we use testbeds, but cases that will make airflow worse no matter how good it is. It's our fault? Of course NOT. They have to make cards to work everywhere and from what I've seen the REFERENCE HD48xx cards can't be used everywhere without problems. That's all that I'm saying all the time. Non-reference cards have no problems, but why should average joe buy an aftermarket cooler if he bought a reference card?



Spunjji said:


> Haha, thanks for the heads-up
> I've said my piece now though, I think I can probably leave it at that.



Never!!


----------



## Spunjji (Mar 18, 2009)

You're right, I couldn't resist replying just this once - but let's keep this short and not hijack the thread, eh? 



DarkMatter said:


> Non-reference cards have no problems, but why should average joe buy an aftermarket cooler if he bought a reference card?


As I understand it, the 'average joe' isn't really the target market of the 4850 and above cards   But you're right, nobody should *have* to change the cooling if they don't want to.

However, regarding your comment about lab testing, a well-designed case (nothing extravagant, just decent airflow design) will often keep a card cooler than it will be in free-air on a test bench.

It sounds like your card had a genuine problem if it was hitting 110 degrees, possibly shipping damage or a badly fitted cooler, but if they refused an RMA it sounds like you're the unlucky recipient of everyone's old friend - bad customer service.  In which case I'm sorry to hear that, it sucks to get shafted that way.

Back closer to topic, though, I honestly don't think it's indicative of a larger problem.  I can counter your friend with two of my own who have cards that haven't failed, it doesn't really *mean* anything though, which is why I didn't use it as the crux of my argument.


----------



## EastCoasthandle (Mar 18, 2009)

DarkMatter said:


> What's all that crap? You can think whatever you want. Even that I'm making all this up. But what about TheMailMan, in this same thread?? He states that his card idles at 81ºC and he is making it up too? To support my point, that is, we are best friends after all...  Eh MailMan??
> 
> On the other hand he is not having artifacts. *Well temperature here might be a little bit higherand we do like a little bit higher temperatures than what seems to be common in the US and other countries. When I went there in vacations I almost got freezed when I entered any public building and I was told it was the same temperature that people uses at home.*  I got countless headaches in CAL, becaue of the temperature difference between outdoors and indoors.
> 
> Also not all chips can handle the same temperatures before artifacting, so even if only 10% of the cards overheat and only half of those artifact when overheating, that's still a lot of cards having issues. If it was a competition of course you would find more evidence of working cards with no problems at all, because more than 90% of the cards runs well, but there's still a lot of problematic cards noentheless.* As I said my friends had artifacting and in order to solve the problem we had to put the fan @80-100% load*, which was quite noisy. No need to go through RMA (RMA wouldn't help anyway), so the link about failure rates means nothing. We are reluctant to RMA a card because of temperatures and artifacting (I already did it once with no luck). Even if it is a design problem, they will very likely demostrate that it runs well, under their lab conditions, of course, and will return you the same card. Result for you: 20 euros less in delivery expenses. Wohoooo!!



With this post you contradicted everything you tried to claim about heating and noise   
Edit:
Mailman posted his opinion(s) and left it at that.  He did not try to convince others of his personal opinion by repeated replies to others who posted differently.


----------



## DarkMatter (Mar 18, 2009)

Spunjji said:


> You're right, I couldn't resist replying just this once - but let's keep this short and not hijack the thread, eh?
> 
> 
> As I understand it, the 'average joe' isn't really the target market of the 4850 and above cards   But you're right, nobody should *have* to change the cooling if they don't want to.
> ...



First of all, they are 2 cards and are not my cards, but of 2 different friends and were not the one I RMA'd. From what I've been seing in the last months 100-110 under load seems to be the norm for reference cards in this latitudes in hot days. The cases and the cabling are perfect. And so is the airflow, but the ambient... We won't change our ambient temperature just to make some cards work. 

They use fans on testbeds.

And you would say that 150-200 euros/dollars is not what average joe gamer would spend? He can even spend $400. Average joe in the context we are speaking is that guy who buys a card for playing without wanting to deal with anything. In fact, he is pissed he has to install the drivers.

All in all I dont like where you are going in general. As in "good for most, bad for a few, who cares" attitude. That's a little bit Machiavellian. By making the cards run so hot they are just taking an unnecessary risk that will affect a lot of people. Does it matters if the group is statistically small, when the answer to the problem is so easy?? Aftermarket coolers and non-reference cards show that the cards can run cool, so is not just better to improve the reference coolers?? That was my original point about this anyway. Probably the new chips will run hotter, higher clocks, higher temepratures, is almost mathematical. Architecture improvements can help, but they will always find the same wall, which it is the original problem in RV770, the ratio between the power it consumes/dissipates and the area the chip occupies, which is the area through which the heat is going to be transferred. Unless they make a significant redesign, contrary to what rumors say, I don't see the temperature being any better, I see it higher if the same cooler is used.


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## DarkMatter (Mar 18, 2009)

EastCoasthandle said:


> With this post you contradicted everything you tried to claim about heating and noise   ;
> Edit:
> Mailman posted his opinion(s) and left it at that.  He did not try to convince others of his personal opinion by repeated replies to someone post.



How I am contradicting anything there?? Heat is going to be higher the higher the ambient temperature is, but Nvidia cards and non-reference Ati ones run cool here. The ambient adds to the cards temperature, but it's only a problem if the card runs so close to it's maximum temperature threshold.

We are not going to spend a grand per month to power our AC just to fix the screw up of a company.


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## EastCoasthandle (Mar 18, 2009)

DarkMatter said:


> How I am contradicting anything there?? Heat is going to be higher the higher the ambient temperature is, but Nvidia cards and non-reference Ati ones run cool here. The ambient adds to the cards temperature, but it's only a problem if the card runs so close to it's maximum temperature threshold.
> 
> We are not going to spend a grand per month to power our AC just to fix the screw up of a company.



I've already answered your repeated question back on page 2 or was it page 3 .  But in all what you posted has without a doubt in my mind completely debunked your heat/noise issues.  Thanks for all the dialogue.


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## DarkMatter (Mar 18, 2009)

EastCoasthandle said:


> I've already answered your repeated question back on page 2 or was it page 3 .  But in all what you posted is now without a doubt in my mind completely debunked.  Thanks all the dialogue.



That makes absolutely no sense. Explain.

Maybe is this? When I say WE won't change our ambient, I don't mean me and friends, I mean the whole country. 44 million people. I'm talking about Spain, but I could probably speak for Portugal, Italy, Greece and Mexico, between others. Because they are probably in the same situation.


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## Binge (Mar 18, 2009)

Sasqui said:


> Naahhh.  Just the model numbers got an overclock, LOL



That's totally incorrect.  Why not take a look at the GTX285 FTW that starts at 710core/1620shader/1300memory.  Nice joke but rebranding and overclocking is the name of the game with both companies.


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## TheMailMan78 (Mar 18, 2009)

DarkMatter said:


> What's all that crap? You can think whatever you want. Even that I'm making all this up. But what about TheMailMan, in this same thread?? He states that his card idles at 81ºC and he is making it up too? To support my point, that is, we are best friends after all...  Eh MailMan??


 Who are you?! Get out of my room!


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## Spunjji (Mar 18, 2009)

DarkMatter said:


> All in all I dont like where you are going in general. As in "good for most, bad for a few, who cares" attitude. That's a little bit Machiavellian.



Close, but not quite.  I'm trying to take a pragmatic approach.  I don't think nobody should care about the problems of a minority of users, but at the same time, companies cannot design for every eventuality.  I think the best approach you can take here is to let ATi know about your problem, and hopefully that way later products will take the problems on board and improve the design.

And as mentioned before, we don't know what differences have been made to the GPU / PCB / power delivery / cooler design that aren't obvious in the shots so far, so this model *may not* have the problems you anticipate.  It still might, it's just not as clean-cut as you're implying.

EDIT:
I forgot to mention that I agree with this point:


DarkMatter said:


> Aftermarket coolers and non-reference cards show that the cards can run cool, so is not just better to improve the reference coolers??


Sadly the cheap nastiness of most stock coolers is a direct result of market demand, particularly OEMs that have slim margins.  It sucks, and I hope it changes.


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## Spunjji (Mar 18, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Who are you?! Get out of my room!



LOL


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## TheMailMan78 (Mar 18, 2009)

Spunjji said:


> Close, but not quite.  I'm trying to take a pragmatic approach.  I don't think nobody should care about the problems of a minority of users, but at the same time, companies cannot design for every eventuality.  I think the best approach you can take here is to let ATi know about your problem, and hopefully that way later products will take the problems on board and improve the design.
> 
> And as mentioned before, we don't know what differences have been made to the GPU / PCB / power delivery / cooler design that aren't obvious in the shots so far, so this model *may not* have the problems you anticipate.  It still might, it's just not as clean-cut as you're implying.



Do you mean (gasp) not all PCs are the same?!?


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## Spunjji (Mar 18, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Do you mean (gasp) not all PCs are the same?!?



Terrifying idea, isn't it!  XD


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## DarkMatter (Mar 18, 2009)

Spunjji said:


> Close, but not quite.  I'm trying to take a pragmatic approach.  I don't think nobody should care about the problems of a minority of users, but at the same time, companies cannot design for every eventuality.  I think the best approach you can take here is to let ATi know about your problem, and hopefully that way later products will take the problems on board and improve the design.



I don't think that the gamer community of several countries with a population 40 million each is a minority. Sure not everyone will have the problem, but IMO it's something that should e fixed. Ati never played so lose with the risk factor before, and there's no need to IMO. what would matter a little bit improved cooling? Adding $1 to the price of the reference board?

But I guess that in the end, it's just that we disagree on the fundamental basics regarding globality/locality (don't know the actual word). I mean you think that it's better to make the card the best posible for the mayority of people, price included even if that supposes a problem for a few, and I think that they should make it better for all the people, even if that supposes a slightly less interesting product in general, like costing $1 more for all the people. I simply don't believe in the inconscious sacrifice of a few for the good of most.



> And as mentioned before, we don't know what differences have been made to the GPU / PCB / power delivery / cooler design that aren't obvious in the shots so far, so this model *may not* have the problems you anticipate.  It still might, it's just not as clean-cut as you're implying.



Well I am always basing everything in the info that has been said . Like that it will be a tweaked RV770 and that it will use the same board, just with extra phases. That has been said at least. I mean, you are suggesting another RV670, but Ati never marketed RV670 as a tweaked R600, but as a redesigned chip. In Ati's words "some tweaks" to the core, looks like some very small changes, considering that RV670 was a redesign.


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## Spunjji (Mar 18, 2009)

DarkMatter said:


> Adding $1 to the price of the reference board?...
> 
> ...you think that it's better to make the card the best posible for the mayority of people, price included even if that supposes a problem for a few...
> 
> ...



Right, let's clear this up.

Firstly, AMD/ATi are a company in serious financial trouble right now, so $1 a board is going to be a lot of money to them - they have to justify it all to the shareholders.  Personally, I think that it sucks and that is NOT how a technology company should do things, but it's the way capitalist societies work so we have to live with it until we figure out something better.

Secondly, and most importantly, you've misunderstood where I stand here - I think the best graphics cards are naturally those which would never encounter these problems.  I haven't bought a 4850 and never would, because I consider the power draw to be too high.  I'm waiting for a 40nm refresh of it (which sadly looks like it will be a disappointment regarding power efficiency).  A lot of people don't care though, and for the reasons mentioned in my first point, graphics companies are duty-bound to address that market first, because it's larger.  So while, I *personally* believe that engineering concerns should transcend financial ones - in other words, this problem should never have occurred - that's an unrealistic expectation in today's economy.  Make as big a noise as you can to the right people, and if we're lucky the problems will eventually be resolved.

And finally, I do know that this is no RV670, they don't seem to have made nearly enough changes and there's no die-shrink.  I just hope that what they *have* done will be more than pump their chip full of volts, ATi can be much more subtle than that.  If they have, it's the marketing people's fault, and sometimes we have to live with products made to their standards.  It sucks, but there you go.


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## DarkMatter (Mar 18, 2009)

Spunjji said:


> Right, let's clear this up.
> 
> Firstly, AMD/ATi are a company in serious financial trouble right now, so $1 a board is going to be a lot of money to them - they have to justify it all to the shareholders.  Personally, I think that it sucks and that is NOT how a technology company should do things, but it's the way capitalist societies work so we have to live with it until we figure out something better.
> 
> ...



We can agree to disagree. Just one thing, I was suggesting $1 more was passed to the customer, not paid by the company. In fact, even though I didn't stated so, I was thinking more about spending $1 more in the card and charging $2 more to the customer. Hell, I would happily pay $5 more for an error free (or safer) card. That's why I like Nvidia cards better lately, they are better built IMHO. Yes they may have a much higher failure rate, but the one that works, it works well everywhere, if you take one bad you can always change it. With HD48xx cards if it overheats in your region/house/case you are already screwed up, because it's a design flaw, RMAing won't work, you will get the same thing, but new.


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## Spunjji (Mar 18, 2009)

DarkMatter said:


> We can agree to disagree. Just one thing, I was suggesting $1 more was passed to the customer, not paid by the company. In fact, even though I didn't stated so, I was thinking more about spending $1 more in the card and charging $2 more to the customer. Hell, I would happily pay $5 more for an error free (or safer) card. That's why I like Nvidia cards better lately, they are better built IMHO. Yes they may have a much higher failure rate, but the one that works, it works well everywhere, if you take one bad you can always change it. With HD48xx cards if it overheats in your region/house/case you are already screwed up, because it's a design flaw, RMAing won't work, you will get the same thing, but new.



That's fair enough.  It still doesn't work for the OEM customers (numero uno to the graphics card company) as the dollars matter a lot to them too, but I fully understand your point.  I think we can leave it at that now, right?


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## Haytch (Mar 21, 2009)

Renaming, re-anything always generates sales from the less aware.  Perfect strategy, something not left only for the green camp.

Im a strong believer that many many shit products should exist, for the many many shit people that live in this world.

If by chance this card was ideal for an enduser, then so be it, but if someone ended up with this card via assumption, then, HAHA,  gawd im cold today!


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## Spunjji (Apr 2, 2009)

For anyone still having their head inserted firmly into their rectum over this card because it's a 'rename' that will have terrible thermal characteristics:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd4890_6.html


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## DarkMatter (Apr 2, 2009)

Spunjji said:


> For anyone still having their head inserted firmly into their rectum over this card because it's a 'rename' that will have terrible thermal characteristics:
> 
> http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd4890_6.html



I changed my mind when I learned that the card would have a different transistor count and specieally a greater die area. If any has readed my comments about RV770 in the past, I always said RV770 was hot because Ati had put all the units too close to each other in order to save space and make it cheap. It backfired and they have fixed it. But RV790 hardly is a tweaked or reworked RV770 IMO, nor it's based on it, except for the fact that it shares the number of untis. It's a completely different animal and all my previous comments were based on the reports that this was going to be a tweaked RV770. Reports made even by AMD reps BTW. Well it's not, end of story.

EDIT: Also the cooler is not the same. It looks the same, but according to one friend I have at Barcelona (400 km away from me) the 4890 weights a little bit more (suggests a little bit thicker block) and the heatpipe/fins layout is a bit different from what he could remember. The fan is a little bit higher rated too (and thus a tiny bit noisier at same %, comparing two saphires). I can't find it out myself as none of my close living friends will buy that card (if they buy any the GX275 is better and cheaper here so far), but I'm confident of his findings.


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