Earlier this April, TechPowerUp and HIS announced the "Design Your HD 4890 Contest", to celebrate the launch of AMD's flagship Radeon HD 4890 graphics accelerator. The contest involved designing the accelerator's body graphics, an important ingredient in making the product. The winner receives a free Radeon HD 4890 accelerator with the winning design printed on the accelerator. The first and second runners up receive HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ4 512 MB, and HIS Radeon HD 4650 iSilence 512 MB respectively.

Nearly 60 days of contest time, and an overwhelming response of 314 entries later, a panel of 11 judges from HIS, AMD, and TechPowerUp selected the top three entries, along with a short list of noteworthy designs. Here are the winners:

Earlier this month, amongst extensive news and reviews coverage of the ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics accelerator, TechPowerUp in partnership with Hightech Information Systems (HIS) announced the "Design Your Own HD 4890 Contest", where we will be giving away a special HIS Radeon HD 4890 graphics accelerator with body graphics designed by you. Your winning design makes it to the first prize itself, while first and second runners up receive other great prizes by HIS.

Thanks to the great response from our readers, we have decided to extend the contest up to May 31st 2009. We are overwhelmed by the creativity many of our contestants have exhibited, some even thinking they could come up with more than three design candidates. We have therefore decided to up the limit to five, just to let you step up your chances by a good margin. For participation, contest rules, or simply to browse through the entries so far, please visit this page.

AMD's newest line of desktop graphics cards in the making, Radeon HD 4700, will be launched in weeks to come. The Radeon HD 4770 model in particular, is the company's move to compete with NVIDIA's GeForce 9800 GT, while at some highly competitive price-points. Earlier in February, a sample made its way to Guru3D, which revealed quite a bit about the SKU. It looks like AMD's partners, at least HIS, is ready with its HD 4770 card, according to a press-shot leaked by Chinese website ITOCP.

The pictures show the card to feature a PCB visibly identical to the reference PCB candidate spotted on the Guru3D sample, while featuring a company-designed cooler. The cooler consists of a GPU block from which metal fins project radially, on which a fan is present, decked with a fancy shroud. Also pictured are the box design, and package contents. The common features of the Radeon HD 4770 are known to be: 40 nm RV740 GPU, 640 stream processors, 128-bit GDDR5 memory interface, and CrossFireX support. This card features 512 MB of memory. The price of this card is not known, though AMD reportedly set a US $99 target SEP price for the Radeon HD 4770.

TechPowerUp and Hightech Information Systems (HIS) present you a great opportunity to bag a Radeon HD 4890 1 GB graphics accelerator with body-graphics designed by you! The contest is pretty simple if you have the creativity and competitive spirit. We will provide you with a template and some image resources (company logos). You put your skills to work, and come up with a body-graphics design in one month's time. You get to submit as many as three candidates of your own. At the end of the contest, a panel of judges from AMD, HIS and TechPowerUp will select three of the best entries.

The winner gets his/her design printed on a special Radeon HD 4890 graphics accelerator made by HIS, and of course, the accelerator itself! The first and second runners up receive HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ4 512 MB, and HIS Radeon HD 4650 iSilence 512 MB respectively. For more information, contest rules, and to participate, visit this page. Good Luck!

XFX is starting its Radeon HD 4890 lineup with three models graded by the core clock-speed they come with. The base-model will carry reference clock speeds of 850/975 MHz (core/memory), the XFX HD 4890 XT, with clock speeds of 875/975 MHz, and the XFX HD 4890 XXX, with clock speeds of 900/975 MHz.

Something about the XXX model is interesting: almost every other AMD partner has a Radeon HD 4890 variant with the same core clock-speed: A certain ASUS Radeon HD 4890, Sapphire HD 4890 Toxic, HIS HD 4890 Turbo, and MSI HD 4890 OC, and a recent AMD slide exposé showing two distinct grades of Radeon HD 4890, with the second one being a "Radeon HD 4890 OC". This grade, according to Expreview, is believed to have high clock speeds, to increase competitiveness against the upcoming NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 accelerator.

Coming back to the XFX HD 4890 XXX, the card (not pictured yet) comes in a peculiar "X"-shaped box. It comes with a free copy of Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X., and is backed by the company's "5-star support". It is expected to be priced above US $250, which is supposed to be the base-price for Radeon HD 4890.

Almost a month into the launch of the ATI Radeon HD 4830, HIS is ready with its IceQ-4 model. The graphics card uses the Radeon HD 4830 at reference speeds of 575 MHz, and features 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 1800 MHz. The card uses the same exact PCB and cooler design, as that of the Radeon HD 4850 IceQ-4, since the GPU is pin-compatible, but the heatsink over the VRM area is lacking.

As with other ATI graphics cards in its cadre, it provides audio-routed HDMI via a dongle, ATI CrossfireX multi-GPU technology, and DirectX 10.1 support. The card is expected to hit stores soon, carrying a price-tag of €140 in Europe.

AMD today introduced the ATI Radeon HD 4830 graphics card, raising the performance bar for graphics cards priced at less than $150 (USD) and presenting gamers with even more affordable access to award-winning ATI Radeon HD 4800 series performance. Like all ATI Radeon HD 4800 series products, the new offering delivers class-leading game performance1 and superior HD multimedia capabilities, as well support for the latest DirectX 10.1 games soon to be released for the holiday season.

"The ATI Radeon HD 4830 graphics card is another example of how AMD's scalable design strategy is paying off," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Products Group, AMD. "With a single chip we have been able to quickly and efficiently bring to market graphics card designs ranging from below $150 through $549 SEP, with leading performance in every segment. The ATI Radeon HD 4830 continues that great trend, providing tremendous value to gamers for less than $150."

HIS is ready with its newest graphics card, based on the upcoming Radeon HD 4830 graphics processor, and what do you know? It looks identical to the HD 4850 Fan the company released earlier. This can be attributed to the fact that the RV770 LE GPU uses the same pin-layout as the HD 4850, and uses the same memory sub-system (256-bit GDDR3). The only difference comes with the newer GPU featuring 640 stream processors, and slightly lower clock-speeds of 575 MHz (core) and 1800 MHz (memory).

The card features a blue PCB with a 2 phase power circuit, it features 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It uses a simplistic GPU cooler, with a blue LED-illuminated fan. The card supports 4-way CrossfireX. It is expected that the card sells for a price between US $140 and $150.

HIS made an addition to its lineup, with a silent Radeon HD 4650 graphics card. The card is passively cooled by a passive cooler by Zalman, the VNF100. The PCB is sandwiched between parts of the cooler. On the top side of the PCB, is the GPU contact block which has some aluminum fins, while three heatpipes arise from it. The heatpipes convey heat to a large and dense array of alumium fins behind the PCB. With the location of these fins being above the PCB in most installations, better cooling is achieved with air heated by the card moving upwards.

The GPU is clocked at 600 MHz. The card uses 512 MB of DDR2 memory clocked at 1000 MHz. The card has started selling in Europe for 77€.

HIS is counted amongst the leading ATI add in board partners. They already have a vast lineup of products based on the Radeon HD 4800. Like every other board partner, HIS sells reference design design cards, as well as, its own IceQ4 series Radeon HD 4850 cards. HIS decided to make a simplistic design, this time around, with the Radeon HD 4850 "Fan", that's what it's called.

The card uses a blue PCB which looks similar to the reference PCB. The card has a circular GPU cooler with aluminum fins projecting radially. The fan at its center lights up blue, during operation. Memory chips can be seen to be cooled passively. Memory amounts to 512 MB. The VRM area gets some cooling however. The card ships with reference ATI speeds of 625/1998 MHz (core/memory). The Radeon HD 4850 Fan should reach stores soon.

After a successful high and enthusiast segment conquest, ATI seems to be going for the kill. Pre-release evaluations show the RV730 graphics processor to be a potent piece of silicon. When it's made to stretch in its Radeon HD 4670 512M variant, it certainly ousted competitor's offerings but owing to the price-band it belongs to, in the process of beating the GeForce 9500 GT, it seems to have created a vacuum. The HD 4670 could be faster than the 9500 GT, but at a price that takes it away from the band 9500 GT sits on. Certain European online stores have started listing RV730 based products. Their prices in terms of US Dollars seem high, but the product itself is awaited in the North American markets. PCHC.ch listed products that seem like custom designed. They haven't released pictures but as their specifications and product names tell, they do have an interesting mix in store.

HIS is already out with IceQ variants of the HD 4670, with a 1 GB GDDR3 variant priced as high as $141 (in terms of EUR to USD conversions). Also in store is a 512MB variant of the same card at $115. There are two variants of HD 4650, a base model and another advertised as silent. The RV730 graphics processor features 320 stream processors and a 128 bit wide GDDR3 / DDR2 memory bus. It features one of the smallest dies in relation to its performance, at 145 sq mm. Tests show the RV730 to deliver a performance level up to what a Radeon HD 3850 can deliver.

HIS has finally brought out its IceQ 4 series HD 4800 series graphics accelerator, this one uses the ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics processor and uses the fourth generation IceQ 4 dual-chamber cooling technology and continues to maintain a premium look and feel while offering higher levels of cooling performance and the usual UV-sensitive cooler. The card uses reference ATI GPU and memory clock speeds. Expreview reports that this card is already listed by Japanese sales partner Akihabara and priced at US $ 210 there.

Update:
HIS has two more models added to the IceQ 4 series: Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 Turbo (H485QT512P) comes with the core clocked at 650 MHz with 2.00 GHz and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. Also on offer is a 1 GB variant (H485QS1GP). It uses reference ATI clock speeds. For more details, please visit the HIS IceQ series micro-site here.

Admittedly HIS isn't the first company to launch an AGP HD 3850 (SAPPHIRE, PowerColor and GECUBE already have, possibly others), but it is refreshing for any users still running an AGP platform to see new cards being released. HIS has introduced two versions of its AGP HD 3850 - a standard version running at reference speeds and an IceQ 3 Turbo version overclocked from 668MHz to 720MHz core frequency and 1656MHz to 1820MHz memory. Both feature 512MB GDDR3 memory and use the AGP 8X interface. The cards come equipped with all the standard HD 3850 features that you would expect, such as DirectX 10.1 support and AVIVO, although pricing is not listed on HIS' website. It's slightly surprising to see AGP models still being released, as you would have thought most people that are likely to upgrade to a card like this would already have a PCI-Express motherboard, but HIS obviously thinks there is still a market for these cards.

HIS today unveils the HIS Radeon HD 3850 IceQ 3 TurboX (Full HD 1080p) 512MB GDDR3 (Limited Edition) card, features extra turbo speed and equipped with the latest IceQ 3 cooling solution. It delivers the next generation of HD graphics with strikingly fast gaming performance, and support for the latest Microsoft DirectX 10.1 gaming environment.

HIS Radeon HD 3850 IceQ 3 TurboX (Full HD 1080p) 512MB GDDR3 (Limited Edition) card featured with 666 million transistors on 55nm fabrication process! Its powered by a chipset with core speed up to 735MHz and memory speed up to 1960MHz, which make it the fastest 3850 model in the World!

HIS unleashed today the HD 2600XT 256MB/512MB GDDR3 AGP card, the world's first and only HDMI AGP card based on the ATI Radeon HD 2600XT GPU. HIS Radeon HD 2600XT GDDR3 features special cooling with single-slot-design cooling fan (generate noise less than 20dB), core speed of 800MHz, and 256 or 512MB GDDR3 memory clocked at 1,400MHz. The full product specs can be seen here.

Rumors of Radeon HD 2900 Pro have been going around for a while. Beta drivers also revealed the existence of the card. Now Hightech Information System (HIS) surprisingly started offering ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro based video card. The HIS HD 2900 Pro 512MB GDDR3 VIVO PCIe (PN: H290PR512DVN-R) unveils that HD 2900 Pro will feature the same 320 stream processing R600 GPU and 512-bit memory interface used in all ATI HD 2900 XT graphics cards. The only difference between the two cards will be the clock speeds, 600MHz/1600MHz core/memory for HD 2900 Pro (reference HD 2900 XT clocks: 740MHz/825MHz core/memory). HIS also recommends a price of $249 for the 512MB GDDR3 version of HIS HD 2900 Pro. Link to HIS HD 2900 Pro product page.

HIS today launches the ATI Radeon HD 2600XT iSilenceIII (Zalman heatpipe) DDR3 Series, featuring the full HD 1080P high definition video support, completely new "HD" design concept and noiseless cooling solutions.

HIS is trying to set itself apart from the competition by offering a very unique and surely well performing HD 2600 Pro with DDR3 memory. The card comes with a blue PCB, black and golden DVI connectors, a black and blue heatsinkg & fan combination. The 256MB 128-bit DDR3 memory runs at a whooping 1400 MHz while the core is set at 600 MHz.

HIS - Hightech Information System Limited jumped the gun when preparing their website for the upcoming AMD R600 graphics cards. The following link leads to their online product presentation website for the HIS Radeon HD 2900XT 512MB GDDR3 VIVO PCIe and pretty much confirms nearly all the rumors we heard about this particular chip during the last few weeks and months.

IMAGES AND INFORMATION REMOVED AT REQUEST OF HIS

HIS introduced today the X1050 and X1550 series, which integrate with Windows Vista to create a premium visual experience and allow value users to get more enjoyment out of movies, games and digital applications. Powered by ATI Radeon X1050 GPU, HIS X1050 series is Vista Premium Certified and fully support Microsoft's new 3D based operating system. The HIS X1050 series is available in PCI-e version only with up to 400/500 MHz core/memory clock and up to 256MB/128Bit GDDR2, completely silent (0dB) by means of heatsink cooling. With the HyperMemory 2 technology, it can share system memory to provide up to 512MB graphics memory. The latest HIS X1550 series includes the PCI-Express x16 version, AGP 8X version, PCI-Express x1 version and PCI version, running at 550/800MHz core/memory clock and up to 256MB/128Bit GDDR2. The PCI-Express x16 versions are all CrossFire ready for improving performance if necessary. HIS X1050 & X1550 will be available on 26th Jan 2007.

HIS has taken the 80nm core in the X1650XT, placed an IceQ Turbo cooler on top, and factory overclocked it to 630MHz core and 1.46GHz memory. It comes with up to 512MB of 128 bit GDDR3, 24 pixel pipelines. It also supports AVIVO, simultaneous AntiAliasing and HDR lighting, and Shader Model 3, all very nice features for anyone looking to upgrade an old AGP based computer.