AMD Unveils ATI Radeon HD 4890, the Most Powerful Graphics Processor in the World

[alexp999]

AMD today introduced the ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card, driven by the world's most powerful graphics processor. The newest addition to the award-winning ATI Radeon HD 4000 series boasts a whopping 1.36 TeraFLOPs of compute power, superior GDDR5 memory, and super-high engine clock speeds capable of nearly 1GHz. The advanced design of the ATI Radeon HD 4890 delivers the best game experience in its class, including the latest ground-breaking DirectX 10.1 titles. In addition, with the introduction of the ATI Radeon HD 4890, AMD continues to enhance its "Dragon" desktop platform technology, designed to provide exceptional value to OEMs, channel partners, and do-it-yourself (DIY) consumers.




"The ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card represents the AMD sweet spot strategy reloaded," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Products Group, AMD. "With last year's launch of the ATI Radeon HD 4850 and ATI Radeon HD 4870 products, we gave gamers great performance and an incredible value proposition. Today, we're doing it again. ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics cards are incredible performers, priced to sell in all major markets worldwide."

The ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card continues AMD's proud tradition of technology leadership with support for the latest DirectX 10.1 games, including Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X., Electronic Art's BattleForge and SEGA's Stormrise released last month, as well as GSC Gameworld's S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky. When compared to DirectX 10 game play, DirectX 10.1 games have proven to deliver higher game performance and an improved visual experience.

"The new ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card could very well be the must-have gaming product of this spring," said Adrian Thomson, vice president, Marketing, Sapphire. "With breakthrough levels of game performance, cutting-edge feature support like DirectX 10.1, and high degree of performance tuning flexibility, the ATI Radeon HD 4890 is one of the best performers in its class."

Making the best even better

The ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card delivers exceptional value to gamers, handling even the most intense games at high resolutions and image quality settings. For overclocking enthusiasts, the ATI Radeon HD 4890 offers tremendous performance tuning potential. Those looking to get even more performance out of their gaming rigs can combine as many as four ATI Radeon HD 4890 cards in one PC utilizing ATI CrossFireX technology.

"Gamers that want The Ultimate Visual Experience demand the best performing card, and our new ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics cards will give them exactly that," said Eddie Memon, vice president, Marketing, XFX. "With the new ATI Radeon HD 4890 we're approaching the holy grail of clock speeds, targeting 1GHz, achievable through XFX's superior design and the quality of the new graphics processor from AMD."

ATI Stream technology

By harnessing ATI Stream technology in combination with a number of ATI Stream-enabled applications, the ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card can also help accelerate the conversion of standard and HD video into multiple formats for use on differing consumer electronics devices. CyberLink, an innovative software developer for digital media creation, playback, and sharing applications, has optimized its award-winning video editing software, PowerDirector 7 to make use of ATI Stream technology. The recently released update to PowerDirector 7 incorporates ATI

Stream technology to provide GPU accelerated video conversion, featuring higher levels of performance and functionality when compared to CPU-only acceleration.

"CyberLink is committed to helping consumers create digital content quickly and easily," said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink Corp. "PowerDirector 7, Cyberlink's award-winning video editing software, takes advantage of ATI Stream technology, making a great experience even better. With PowerDirector 7 and ATI Stream technology, anyone can edit high definition video, create an amazing movie, and encode it for playback on virtually any device faster than ever before."

A multimedia experience that's beyond HD

While the ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card was bred to be a gaming powerhouse, it also offers exceptional HD multimedia performance. All ATI Radeon HD 4800 series cards allow users to enjoy HD digital content with uncompromising visual fidelity while helping to enhance the definition and clarity of lower resolution media. Through AMD's second generation Unified Video Decoder (UVD 2.0) users can be assured of smooth HD video playback, sharp, crisp images and vibrant colors. With support for HDMI, picture-in-picture and the latest HD audio technologies like 7.1 surround sound, the ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card enables an impressive cinema-quality home entertainment experience.

Ecosystem support

The ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card is supported by a dozen add-in-board companies offering a variety of custom board and cooling solutions. Partners include ASUS, Club 3D, Diamond Multimedia, Force3D, GECUBE, GIGABYTE, HIS (Hightech Information Systems), Jetway, MSI, Palit Multimedia, PowerColor, SAPPHIRE Technology, VisionTek and XFX. It is available immediately for $249 MSRP (USD), and priced at select etailers as low as $229 (USD) after mail-in rebate.

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[Blacksniper87]

damn i recken this is just an overclocked 4870 right? same as the GTX 285 from nvidia

 

[alexp999]

This is a press release so flaming about "the Most Powerful Graphics Processor in the World" will not be tolerated.

(Not aimed at you Blacksniper87, you just posted before I had a chance to)

 

[Error 404]

So they don't tell us ROP or SPU count? No clock speeds? No RAM speeds? No bus width info?
This is just a hype-builder, not useful at all to the purchaser.
I want specs!

1 GHz does look nice though, I'm just worried about the heat produced by the core running up to that speed.

 

[GFC]

I've already seen benches, and let me tell you - it's not the fastest, man, those PR people just love titles like that, don't they?

 

[alexp999]

Specs are here:

http://ati.amd.com/products/radeonhd4800/specs-4890.html

 

[MRCL]

I'm seriously considering getting one. But not yet.

 

[alexp999]

As per the reviews W1zz has done, you can see that these are tweaked 4870's cus they seem to already be pretty much right on their OC limit.

Some nice performance though.

 

[rizla1]

This is a press release so flaming about "the Most Powerful Graphics Processor in the World" will not be tolerated.

(Not aimed at you Blacksniper87, you just posted before I had a chance to)

i think that most mean they uped the speed of the stream prossessors.

 

[deaffob]

As per the reviews W1zz has done, you can see that these are tweaked 4870's cus they seem to already be pretty much right on their OC limit.

Some nice performance though.

nah people reporting ocing upto 1000 so it's not 4870 that's for sure. In some games 4890 surpasses gtx285 so it's not completely false ad

 

[Tatty_Two]

HD4890 overclocked versus GTX275 stock review

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=17863&page=1

 

[Imsochobo]

hardocp managed to clock to 1000 mhz core clock, thats way higher than a 4870 could do with same voltage.


IT IS NOT A PURE OC VERSION OF 4870!.

it uses less power idle, and just 7 watts more load, this isnt a 4870, but a perfected 4870.

still, it isnt more than ~15% faster

But you can clock to 970 mhz easy!

 

[Tatty_Two]

hardocp managed to clock to 1000 mhz core clock, thats way higher than a 4870 could do with same voltage.


IT IS NOT A PURE OC VERSION OF 4870!.

it uses less power idle, and just 7 watts more load, this isnt a 4870, but a perfected 4870.

still, it isnt more than ~15% faster

But you can clock to 970 mhz easy!

Agreed and this card has faster shaders than the 4870 also, however, people shouldnt get too carried away by the overclock potential.....there is a review here that shows that a card overclocked to 1000mhz against the stock 850mhz only picks up a couple of FPS in many games. Across the board I read about a 5-7% improvement over the 4870 at stock speeds.

 

[deaffob]

yea i was just making a point that it's not 4870. someone said it has reached it's oc potentional already but it's not true

 

[alexp999]

All I was saying is that you can tell it is a tweaked 4870, becuase it doesnt OC as far (in terms of %), as the 4870 can.

 

[AltecV1]

now we need is some volt mods

 

[Imsochobo]

All I was saying is that you can tell it is a tweaked 4870, becuase it doesnt OC as far (in terms of %), as the 4870 can.

It clocks more % than 4870.

 

[oli_ramsay]

So are these more than overclocked 4870s? I think their die size is different and they've changed the way the shaders work.

 

[WarEagleAU]

Very nice addition to the line. That is until they move to 40nm. Come on AMD, get those shaders separated from the core.

 

[nafets]

So are these more than overclocked 4870s? I think their die size is different and they've changed the way the shaders work.

The Xbitlabs review of the HD4890 has some very detailed info on the increased die size and additional transistors of the RV790.

As far as I can tell, ATI didn't do anything to how the shaders work, but rather "revised the RV770 internal structure".

Tomshardware also has a good comparison of the HD4890 running at clocks of 750/900, in comparsion with an HD4870 at those clocks. Results were pretty much the same, indicating nothing significant performance-wise, that is improved over the RV770 core at a clock for clock basis.

The improvements in the RV790 core and the PCB it operates on mainly attribute to it's higher GPU clock and OC'ing abilities.

 

[mdm-adph]

All I was saying is that you can tell it is a tweaked 4870, becuase it doesnt OC as far (in terms of %), as the 4870 can.

...except that it overclocks farther in total than a 4870 ever could.

 

[Salsoolo]

this should go against gtx 285, 100$ cheaper, performace is close, even faster in some games.
but at 2560x1600 things get little ugly with that card.

 

[Tatty_Two]

this should go against gtx 285, 100$ cheaper, performace is close, even faster in some games.
but at 2560x1600 things get little ugly with that card.

To my old eyes, it isnt as quick as the new GTX275 and in the UK I have found the cheapest 275 to be cheaper than the cheapest 4890................

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GTX_275_Amp_Edition/29.html

 

[Urlyin]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_4890/


http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4890/

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_4890_CrossFire/

 

[Mega-Japan]

I will have a friend get one since he is upgrading his computer and I'll play with it then.

I will wait for the RV800 series instead, when it gets DX11 support and ATi finally gets a 512-bit bus :O