PowerColor Radeon HD 4890 Pictured

[btarunr]

The first press-shot of PowerColor's upcoming Radeon HD 4890 accelerator has surfaced on its early listing by German retailer Schottenland.de, from which one can draw several inferences, we will tell you some of the most relevant ones:

• The Radeon HD 4890 is based on the RV790 GPU, its ASIC and board design is very similar (if not identical) to its predecessor, the HD 4870 / RV770
• It comes with near-identical specifications, so far its clock speeds seem to be the only specification that sets it apart
• It comes with a core clock speed of 850 MHz, with a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, with memory clocked at 975 MHz (effective 3900 MHz, 1950 MHz DDR)
• It features 800 stream processors, and supports DirectX 10.1, SM4.1

AMD will make this SKU official on April 8. Listings from Europe, and one from New Zealand, seems to suggest its pricing to be more around the €250 price-point, with its US price positioned at a $249 point.



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[ghost101]

850mhz is a 13% improvement. So performance improvements of around 10-13% I'd guess.

 

[ktr]

OMFG, IT LOOKS EPIC... It looks just like the 4870, which looks like the 3870, which looks just like 2900, which looks just like 1950...

 

[my_name_is_earl]

850mhz is a 13% improvement. So performance improvements of around 10-13% I'd guess.

Hot super clocked card. It should be extremely close to or beat GTX295 when crossfire but it will cost more for 2. Wish there was an X2 version which haven't been officially announced yet

 

[Darknova]

So it's nothing more than an overclocked 4870 1GB?

 

[aj28]

OMFG, IT LOOKS EPIC... It looks just like the 4870, which looks like the 3870, which looks just like 2900, which looks just like 1950...

I think you're confusing AMD with nVidia... Also, if, as you say, the same board design that sustained the X1950 could continue to sustain a product with several times the X1950's performance, that ought to say something for advancing efficiency on the part of GPU designers and manufacturers.

I'll agree though, it's a little underwhelming. The margin on this product will be significantly higher than what they're making on the 4870 though, and more than most others in this market, that's where AMD needs to improve their products. As it stands, the increasing success of ATi has had little affect on their financial situation, which I believe to be largely the result of the slim profit they must turn on a lot of their product lineup...

 

[toyo]

meh. I can't believe AMD put a new name (RV790) for an OC RV770. So, HD4850 and HD4870 and HD4890 have 800 shaders, different clocks, different types of ddr. RV770 is shared by the first two, what is that is so much more on the HD4890 that it is worth a new "RV"??? It's like AMD liked the Nvidia rebranding that much that they had to come with their own stupidity...
It seems that for actual games, both Nvidia and AMD are not considering launching new hardware, only adding cores and MHz. we gotta wait for DX11 to see a completly new card, getting a video card upgrade just feels completely unadvised to me by now.
I really hope I'm being totally mislead, I definatelly don't want AMD to suffer on the market so we reach again Nvidia monopoly... so, here I am, hoping for (many) hidden&untold features of the brand-new RV790...

 

[my_name_is_earl]

OMFG, IT LOOKS EPIC... It looks just like the 4870, which looks like the 3870, which looks just like 2900, which looks just like 1950...

1950 look nothing like these new card. When you say they look "alike" I'm assuming form factor and not specs. If the had a uber card that powered by hamster wheel then I'm not impressed.

__________________________________________
"The following card required a power plant to run"

 

[lemonadesoda]

More prices here http://geizhals.at/deutschland/?cat=gra16_512&asuch=4890 (check back on friday... lots of prices then).

RV790
Remember that RV790 IS A NEW DESIGN. It isnt "just" an OC RV770. What they have done is modified the design slightly to manage hotspots and crosstalk and GDDR5. It's a bit like taking software code and rearranging the order of routines and data within the program... albeit the program has identical functionality. They do this in the CAD software for designing the chips. They have "slightly moved" where the various "processor/shader blocks" and "interconnects" are in the layout. A picture of an RV770 and an RV790 will look similar, but not identical. They may have even increased the size (or changed density) of shader blocks to manage heat, and may have also debugged some microcode... just like the Radeon 9800 over the Radeon 9700. Marginal differences.

Otherwise, yes, it is the same architecture. But the layout of the die is "slightly" different, so warrants a new code. A bit like a new stepping on a CPU.

 

[toyo]

indeed "a bit" like the new stepping an "M0" hidden somewhere in cpu-z is nothing like this boasted RV790-omg-the-new-GPU. but, if it'll get to 1 ghz... who knows, i am really expecting to read the review... sooner then soon

 

[btarunr]

It is very difficult to get a HD 4870 to run at 850/975 MHz on air-cooling. This indeed isn't just an overclocked RV770, since an RV770 can't run stable at those speeds in its existing form.

 

[mdm-adph]

It is very difficult to get a HD 4870 to run at 850/975 MHz on air-cooling. This indeed isn't just an overclocked RV770, since an RV770 can't run stable at those speeds in its existing form.

Perhaps it's a 40nm version of the same chip with higher clocks?

If Nvidia can do it, I guess ATI can too. I'm just glad they didn't go ahead and change the number to 5000.

 

[Disparia]

Pretty.

I was wondering, has anyone done a 4870/4890 with the power connectors on the side, and not on the end?

If not, Sapphire/PowerColor/etc could you make me one? kthxbye.

 

[WarEagleAU]

The probably made subtle changes to the RV 770 line to get RV 790. Lets not lump them in with nvidia. At least they are refreshing or improving on the one name change they did. I dont see what the deal is with this anyways.

 

[ktr]

1950 look nothing like these new card. When you say they look "alike" I'm assuming form factor and not specs. If the had a uber card that powered by hamster wheel then I'm not impressed.

So they look 95% alike...

ATI 1950XTX

ATI 2900XT

ATI 3870

ATI 4870

ATI 4890

 

[my_name_is_earl]

So they look 95% alike...

ATI 1950XTX
http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/14-195-024-03.jpg
ATI 2900XT
http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/14-102-095-03.jpg
ATI 3870
http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/14-102-713-01.jpg
ATI 4870
http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/14-102-748-12.jpg
ATI 4890
http://www.techpowerup.com/img/09-03-17/48901.jpg

Form factor could mean many things. Like: you can kill someone if you threw the graphic card at them and they are equally hurt as well

 

[MadClown]

So they look 95% alike...

ATI 1950XTX
http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/14-195-024-03.jpg
ATI 2900XT
http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/14-102-095-03.jpg
ATI 3870
http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/14-102-713-01.jpg
ATI 4870
http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/14-102-748-12.jpg
ATI 4890
http://www.techpowerup.com/img/09-03-17/48901.jpg

Do you want cards shaped like hearts?

 

[ktr]

Do you want cards shaped like hearts?

more like this:

 

[Hayder_Master]

OMFG, IT LOOKS EPIC... It looks just like the 4870, which looks like the 3870, which looks just like 2900, which looks just like 1950...

and it is just like 5870

 

[mdm-adph]

So they look 95% alike...
]

Well, at least they're all different cores, unlike the 8800GT/9800GT/GTS240 fiasco.