AMD released the industry's first 40 nm desktop GPU. The RV740 went on to make only one SKU, the Radeon HD 4770. The company filled its Radeon HD 4700 series almost overnight with two more SKUs positioned on either sides of the HD 4770, based on the 55 nm RV770/RV790 GPUs instead, due to stock shortages. These also impacted on the inventories of the HD 4770, which forced AMD to reposition the Radeon HD 4850 in the sub-$110 segment, creating a bit of a void between it and the roughly $150 HD 4870. If anyone of you is up for yet another ATI Radeon SKU, here's one coming your way: Radeon HD 4860.

The Radeon HD 4860 seems to have been already taped out, sampled, and pictured by sections of the Chinese media. At the heart of it is the RV790 GPU in a different configuration codenamed RV790GT. It has 640 stream processors instead of 800 on the HD 4850, except that it uses a 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface, and effectively higher clock speeds. The core is clocked at 700 MHz, and the memory at 750 MHz (3000 MHz effective). The PCB pictured shows the card to powered by a single 6-pin power connector. It is expected to be positioned in at the $130 price point, and in theory, competitive with NVIDIA's GeForce GTS 250.

AMD is preparing yet another performance-mainstream Radeon HD 4000 series SKU. The Radeon HD 4790 finds lineage from the Radeon HD 4890, currently AMD's fastest GPU. The RV790 GPU will be given a new set of specifications and memory configuration, to yield an SKU that performs better than the Radeon HD 4770, and slightly better than HD 4850. It beats us as to why it is positioned in the HD 4700 series, and not say "Radeon HD 4860", but we are too late to comment on that.

Specifications-wise, the RV790 core runs at 600 MHz, slightly lower than the RV770 in Radeon HD 4850 (625 MHz), but its performance increment over it comes from the use of GDDR5 memory. The GPU makes use of a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. It handles 512 MB of memory clocked at 800 MHz (3200 MHz effective). Being based on the RV790, it is pin-compatible with any existing HD 4890 PCB. Price-wise, it is expected to sit between the HD 4850 and HD 4870.

There are overclocked Radeon HD 4890 cards, and then there are overclocked Radeon HD 4890 cards. The difference between the two seems to be that the latter comprises of the "real" RV790OC-class SKU that runs at speeds in excess of 900 MHz, and offers a considerable overclocking headroom. The former, is mainly partners utilizing whatever headroom standard batches of RV790 offer, to come up with factory-overclocked settings that spice up specs-sheets. MSI joined the league of AIBs making a high-end Radeon HD 4890 accelerator, keeping the 1.00 GHz core frequency as a milestone.

Following Sapphire with its Atomic HD 4890 Vapor-X, MSI seems to be readying the R4890 Cyclone. This card uses a cooler similar to what some of its Radeon HD 4870 cousins sport, while using an elaborate, yet standard power circuitry. The cooler consists of a radial heatsink from which 2~4 8 mm heatpipes convey heat to two aluminum fin blocks that are arranged on either sides of the heatsink. A fan nucleates the heatsink, although it didn't make it to the picture. Over to the PCB, MSI does away with the lavish digital PWM circuitry on the reference PCB, and in its place, put a 5+2 phase standard DPAK power circuitry. What's fascinating about this PCB is that it carries the AMD brandmark, leading us to believe that AMD may have come up with a cost-saving PCB design that is available to its AIBs. The R4890 Cyclone is set for launch in the upcoming Computex 2009 event.

AMD clinched the performance crown from NVIDIA, and retained for a significantly long amount of time with the dual-RV770 based Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics accelerator. The company recently introduced the RV790 GPU, which went into making the Radeon HD 4890 graphics accelerator. Our reviews of this card, especially the AMD Radeon HD 4890 CrossFire review, brought forth some interesting findings with regards to how the accelerator works in tandem with another of its kind.

Holding significantly higher clock-speeds than the Radeon HD 4870, the accelerator managed to consume lesser amount of power in a pair than a single Radeon HD 4870 X2 accelerator. As a solution, it emerged faster than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295. The findings of several such reviews sparked of fresh speculations surrounding AMD planning a dual-RV790 accelerator with which it could potentially regain the performance crown. All such speculations were laid to rest by David Cummings, AMD's director of product marketing of discrete desktop graphics, under the graphics product group, in a recent interview with X-bit Labs (read here). Cummings claims that the company has no plans to create a "Radeon HD 4890 X2", at least not yet. The Radeon HD 4890 fills the gap between the HD 4870 and HD 4850 X2, while the HD 4870 X2 holds post at $399. A dual-RV790 card would not be feasible keeping the global economic climate in mind. The HD 4890 accelerators though, are capable of running in tandem with up to four cards of its kind, provided the system supports such a configuration.

PowerColor will launch the world's first water cooled Radeon HD 4890 next week, less than one week after the RV790 card was officially launched.

Part of PowerColor's LCS series, the upcoming Radeon card comes with a single-slot EK-made waterblock that has a copper base and high-flow 3/8" or 1/2" fittings. The waterblock should lower the GPU temperature by up to 20°C compared to the reference air heatsink. PowerColor will ship the Radeon HD 4890 LCS with GPU and memory clocks of 900 and 4000 MHz respectively.

The MSRP of the card will be $339.

Following our report of ASUS preparing an overclocked Radeon HD 4890 accelerator with clock speeds well above 900 MHz (core) and 1000 MHz (memory), the possibility has come to surface that AMD has carved out a new range of Radeon HD 4890 accelerators from the unusually high overclocking headroom the RV790 GPU has. The credit also goes to the reference-design PCB, which is known to possess some of the highest quality digital PWM components to handle power, and 4 GT/s GDDR5 memory, which is now known to have a good overclocking headroom.

It has surfaced on the forums of Chinese tech community PCInLife, that the RV790 rather effortlessly reached the 1 GHz mark, the slider-limit of Catalyst Control Center, sparking off fresh rumors that AMD partners may be creating a fresh niche of highly-overclocked cards shortly after Radeon HD 4890 comes to be. The overclocker reached speeds of 1 GHz (core) and 1125 MHz (4.50 GHz effective, memory). At the said speeds, the card was put through 3DMark Vantage with its eXtreme settings. It churned-out a score of X5480, which puts its performance somewhere between those of the GeForce GTX 280 and GeForce GTX 285. It should also be taken into account that the drivers RV790 users the world over have been using, are preliminary beta drivers. AMD plans to release Catalyst 9.4 with the release of Radeon HD 4890, which just may impact positively on the performance of the product.

AMD has yet again stepped up excitement and anticipation surrounding a product-launch. This time, it's the company's fastest GPU: the RV790, whose single-GPU product, the Radeon HD 4890, is dressing up to go to office between April 6~8 worldwide. Taiwanese tech community website XFastest went found that volumes of the card by AMD partner Gigabyte have already reached a certain store.

The Gigabyte Radeon HD 4890 1 GB (model: GV-R489-1GH-B) is based on AMD's reference design, which has been pictured earlier, and whose early 3DMark performance figures have began surfacing. The card, features 1 GB of GDDR5 memory, which now seems to be the standard amount of memory on the reference design card. The unboxed card has been pictured from a good angle, which gives us a better indication of its length. It is longer than the HD 4870. Another scoop we can bring to you, is that from the first picture of the RV790 GPU that was published by DailyTech, it has been observed that the die is slightly larger than that of the RV770. What makes it larger is not known at this point in time.

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.

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.

Weeks ahead of launch, Sapphire's Radeon HD 4890 graphics accelerator has already started to to get listed on online stores, not concentrated in a particular region. The HD 4890 is characterized by the upcoming RV790 graphics processor, it is a current-generation successor to the HD 4870 accelerator. Its specifications are unclear, though most sources in the industry and press have so far revealed it not to be much of a featureset expansion over the RV770.

Dutch retailer Salland Automatisering BV has listed the Sapphire-made accelerator for € 253.95 inclusive of VAT (€ 218.95 excluding it). Another retailer, PB Technologies Auckland (New Zealand), has listed it for NZ $613.97 (325 USD), including applicable taxes. The Dutch retailer went on to list some of the card's specifications. It features 1 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 3.90 GHz (975 MHz actual). Its core is clocked at 850 MHz. No pictures, or information about the GPU's internals (such as stream processor count, TMU/ROP counts) were provided. Both retailers have put the product on pre-order. AMD is expected to release the card on April 8, 2009.

AMD is on the course of releasing a new line of high performance products based on its upcoming RV790 graphics processor. The high-end single GPU SKU, Radeon HD 4890 is expected to be competitive with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 260 (216 SP). NVIDIA on the other end of the field, is planning a retaliation to the RV790. The GPU giant is carving out a new SKU based on the 55 nm G200b: GeForce GTX 275.

The new SKU will be placed in the US $225~275 range. While the specifications are not known at this point in time, there are two theories: G200b with 216 stream processors and a 512-bit memory interface, and the other theory suggesting 240 stream processors with the existing 448-bit memory interface on GTX 260. The latter looks inexpensive as the former would step up manufacturing costs due to the addition of two memory chips.

AMD is attempting to revive its competitiveness that took a beating with NVIDIA's introduction of 55 nm G200b-based graphics accelerators. The method AMD seems to be adopting is by giving its existing flagship GPU, the RV770, a series of design improvements that facilitate higher clock-speeds, in turn, better performance on offer.

A lot has been said about RV790 till date, with each commentator coming up with a new version of the story. It has been more or less established that the RV790 will be a improvement over the RV770, though not a revolutionary one. Fresh information gathered by PC Games Hardware places a realistic estimate on up to where RV790 is going to push the performance envelope for AMD.

It is clear now, that AMD's next performance GPU, the RV790 will be built on the 55 nm manufacturing process. To build on this information, sources tell German website Hardware-Infos that one of the factors that will help the new GPU perform better and run at higher clock-speeds than its predecessor, the RV770 does, is the newer improved 55 nm manufacturing process it will be built on. Going by the foundry-partner codename "55GT", the RV790 may get a little help from its superior silicon fabrication, which invariably makes it more expensive to manufacture.

One of the reasons behind why AMD is starting its 40 nm GPU lineup with a mainstream GPU such as RV740, is that the 40 nm process needs further development by foundry companies. It hasn't developed to the level that safely permits manufacturing high-end GPUs with stellar transistor-counts. For the same reason, NVIDIA's 40 nm conquest will be flagged off by the entry-level GT218 GPU. High-density circuits built on the current 40 nm process are known to be very prone to electrical leakage.

A lot has been said about AMD's rather mysterious new performance GPU, the RV790. Clues about the new GPU surfaced as early as in November last year, when we first reported about AMD working on a successor to the RV770 before the RV870 comes to be. During the course of time, we were given several scoops about its specifications, with some reports hinting at increased stream processor and TMU counts alongside increased clock-speeds to give out early projections of as much as 20% performance increments, taking its single-GPU flagship product to the domain of the GeForce GTX 285, but as multiple sources confirm now, none of that looks plausible.

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.

ATI, as part of its initial plans with the 40 nm manufacturing technology is preparing the RV740 graphics processor, the company's next mid-range workhorse graphics processor. The new manufacturing process lets AMD respect the price-constraints of that market segment, and accordingly price its SKUs. VR-Zone sourced a few more details about the GPU.

While it is already known that the RV740 goes into making the Radeon HD 4700 series, it is now rumored that its two variants will be termed HD 4770 and HD 4750, and not HD 4750 and HD 4730, as reported earlier. The HD 4770 SKU will be distinct in being the first mainstream graphics card with GDDR5 memory. It will use its 128-bit wide bus to accommodate 512 MB of memory. The HD 4750 on the other hand, will stick to GDDR3. The reference model may have 1GB of it. HD 4770 is expected to be priced around the US $120 mark, making it a head-on competitor to the GeForce GTS 240, which is known to be a re-badged GeForce 8800/9800GT with higher reference clock-speeds. The HD 4750 has GeForce 9600 GT in its sights, with its expected initial pricing ranging around the $100 mark. The two are expected to follow the RV790 launch, and will arrive in May, close to two months after the GeForce GTS 240 comes to be.

Following reports of AMD's next flagship GPU, the RV790 being pushed to April, a fresh report from Hardware-Infos suggests that its sibling, the RV740 will join the league of the company's product launches slated for April. Company sources tell Hardware-Infos that the company has no product-launches scheduled for the upcoming CeBIT event held in Germany. The report suggests constraints of TSMC, a major foundry partner for AMD's graphics product group (GPG), with regards to its 40 nm bulk manufacturing process, as a likely cause although this bit wasn't endorsed by the source.

Another source shed some light on the specifications of the two graphics processors. It is suggested that the RV790 has expanded machinery at its disposal, with 960 stream processors and 48 texture memory units. Engineering samples based on the said GPU are known to carry faster memory chips. The specifications coupled with the suggested higher clock speeds of 850/975 MHz (core/memory) help explain how the RV790 could manage to pose competition to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 accelerator. The RV740 on the other hand, is said to carry 640 stream processors, 32 texture memory units, and a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface.

AMD has been working the ATI RV790 GPU for a while now. It appears to be like it will take a little longer for the company to release an SKU based on it. Contradicting earlier reports, it is known that the RV790-based SKUs stay within the Radeon HD 4800 series, and not form the HD 4900 series.

The flagship single-GPU product based on the RV790 is to be called Radeon HD 4890. Samples based on the RV790XT A11 are currently running at speeds of 850/975 MHz (core/memory). AMD is reportedly telling its partners that the RV790XT is expected to be around 20% faster than the RV770XT (HD 4870), and has NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 285 in its sights, for head-on competition. Additionally, AMD may force NVIDIA to reconsider its pricing, since the RV790XT is expected to be priced between US$199 to US$249, up to $150 cheaper than the GeForce GTX 285 in its current pricing. Unfortunately, one has to wait till April.

Conceived to be a successor to the RV770 graphics processor, the RV790 emerged out of various media-leaks as the next big thing for ATI, in its never-ending pursuit for market leadership. Information on this mysterious new GPU has been trickling in at leisure, and it has been shaping up to be a current-generation GPU built using newer manufacturing technologies that could make it cheaper to produce. What we do know about RV790XT based engineering samples so far, is that they carry faster memory chips that are rated to operate a higher frequencies, 1 GHz to be precise, but specified by AMD to run at 975 MHz.

Fresh details sourced by Hardware-Infos from internal sources point out to the possibility of AMD stepping up the core clock speeds by as much as 100 MHz, taking it to 850 MHz. The ramp in clock speeds however, come at the expense of increasing core voltage to 1.3 Volts. There have been several reports speculating the core voltage so far, on of which points at 1.23V for 750 MHz. Another grey-area for now is the RV790's shader domain, with a certain level of ambiguity surrounding stream processor count. All of this leads us to believe that AMD hasn't finalized the specifications of RV790 and could be racking its brains on this one. AMD is expected to make critical announcements on its new GPUs in March and might choose the CeBIT event as the ideal platform.

After RV740, the next AMD venture on the 40nm silicon process will be the company's next flagship GPU: the RV790. With this core AMD hopes to reclaim the performance and value crowns, more importantly, energy efficiency the newer fab process hopes to bring to the current-generation GPU.

Quite obviously, AMD will assign new SKUs to the products based on the RV790. The safest guess would be the formation of a new sub-series under Radeon 4000, the Radeon HD 4900 series. German website ATi Forum has learned that indeed AMD planning on a new sub-series based on the new GPU, following scoops on RV740 making the Radeon HD 4700 series. Once again, AMD might create two products based on a single GPU and one flagship dual-GPU accelerator, to begin with. The company's lackluster optimism in the R700 Pro (Radeon HD 4850 X2), has shown on the upcoming series with no mention of a second-inline dual GPU accelerator. In ATi Forum's theory, the RV790XT gets HD 4970, RV790Pro gets HD 4950 and the dual-GPU flagship SKU could be named Radeon HD 4995 X2. Talk about competitive naming.

Having taped out late last year, samples based on the new RV790 graphics processor have been doing rounds in the industry. A few more details have surfaced about it. Earlier noted to have identical clock speeds to that of the RV770XT (Radeon HD 4870), the RV790 samples are now known to have higher memory clock speeds. While the Radeon HD 4870 has its memory frequency at 900 MHz GDDR5 (effective 3.60 GHz), the samples carry memory clocked at 975 MHz (effective 3.90 GHz). Interestingly the memory chips on the sample, labeled IDGV1G-05A1F1C-40X, made by Qimonda, are specified to run at 1.00 GHz, reaching the 4 GHz effective memory speed mark. The samples feature 1 GB of memory. The RV790 is AMD's new current-generation graphics processor built on the newer 40nm silicon fabrication process. The new process is expected to reduce the GPU's power consumption and thermal footprint. The RV790 is conceived to be an immediate successor to the RV770 GPU.

Some of the first batches, rather iterations, of RV790 and RV740 engineering samples have begun surfacing. Sources reveal bits and pieces of the new GPUs' specifications to Hardware-Infos. Being some of the first samples, these are merely iterations en route the development of the final product, though trend has it that preliminary information about AMD GPUs have a tendency of turning out true. We will exempt the RV770's final stream processor count from these.

The RV740, a mainstream GPU from AMD, is on course of becoming the first GPU in production, to be built on the 40nm manufacturing node. It carries 640 stream processors and a core clock speed of 700 MHz. It features a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory bus, churning out bandwidth that rivals equally clocked GDDR3 with double the bus width. The memory bus will be clocked at speeds between 800 and 900 MHz (3.2 GT/s and 3.6 GT/s). Products will carry 512 to 1024 MB of memory. The GPU houses 32 texture memory units (TMUs) and 8 raster operations pipelines (ROPs).

NVIDIA snatched the performance crown from ATI with the introduction of the GeForce GTX 295 accelerator, and its launch itinerary for CES 2009 includes the GeForce 285, NVIDIA's second fastest graphics accelerator. NVIDIA's campaign to regain the performance crown was spearheaded by the G200b graphics processor, that, while not offering anything new, helped cut manufacturing costs and reduced the thermal envelope of the GPU, making conditions favourable for a dual-GPU accelerator, the GeForce GTX 295.

AMD on the other hand, has announced price-cuts to respond to the GeForce GTX 295, by lowering the prices of its Radeon HD 4870 X2 accelerator. The G200b is likely to get a competitor from AMD by March, when the company is looking to release the industry's first GPU built on the 40nm manufacturing process, the RV740. But wait, there seems to be something larger on the cards, according to the various sources Hardware-Infos got in touch with. AMD is planning the RV790 graphics processor. It will be a current-generation GPU built on the next generation 40nm manufacturing technology. There is a lot of speculation surrounding the RV790's specifications, with some of the more plausible ones hinting it has two additional SIMD clusters (960 SPs) and a total 48 texture memory units (TMUs). Both the RV740 and RV790 are slated for March, there's also a little indication of AMD using the occasion of CeBIT for its announcements and product launches.

Sources tell Expreview that AMD is working on a new graphics processor (apart from the mysterious RV790), as an immediate reaction to the 55nm high-end GPUs NVIDIA is set to release. NVIDIA on its part is working on GeForce GTX 260 (55nm), GeForce GTX 285 (successor to GeForce GTX 280) and the dual-GPU monstrosity, GeForce GTX 295. To rival this, according to the source, AMD is working on the RV775 and derivatives based on its yields' performance.

These GPUs are slated for January thru March 2009. It has some very interesting specifications. To begin with, 840 stream processors. While stream processors on a current generation RV770 cannot be added/subtracted in quantities of 40 stream processors, perhaps, the increment of 40 SPs is derived from an extra ALU cluster the RV770 comes with by default (which helps in die harvesting, where the spare ALU cluster makes up for any damaged cluster, thereby improving yields). This would require near-perfect GPUs in the making (if re-engineering of the RV770 on a large scale is to be avoided). Another interesting point is regarding the smaller die. At this point we are clueless as to how that is possible without re-engineering the RV770 at a large scale. Treat yourselves to the specifications meanwhile:

The RV770 graphics processor changed AMD's fortunes in the graphics processor industry and put it back in the race for supremacy over the larger rival NVIDIA. The introduction of RV770-based products had a huge impact on the mid-range and high-end graphics card markets, which took NVIDIA by surprise. Jen-Hsun Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA has been quoted saying that they had underestimated their competitor's latest GPU, referring to RV770. While the Radeon HD 4870 graphics accelerator provided direct competition to the 192 shader-laden GeForce GTX 260, the subsequent introduction of a 216 shader variant saw it lose ground, leaving doubling of memory size to carve out the newer SKU, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. Performance benchmarks of this card from all over the media have been mixed, but show that AMD isn't giving up this chance for gaining technological supremacy.

In Q4 2008, NVIDIA is expected to release three new graphics cards: GeForce GTX 270 and GeForce GTX 290. The cards are based on NVIDIA's G200 refresh, the G200b, which incorporates a new manufacturing technology to facilitate higher clock-speeds, stepping up performance. This looks to threaten the market position of AMD's RV770, since it's already established that G200 when overclocked to its stable limits, achieves more performance than RV770 pushed to its limits. This leaves AMD with some worries, since it cannot afford to lose the wonderful market-position its cash-cow, the RV770 is currently in, to an NVIDIA product that outperforms it by a significant margin, in its price-domain. The company's next generation graphics processor would be the RV870, which still has some time left before it could be rushed in, since its introduction is tied to the constraints of foundry companies such as TSMC, and the availability of the required manufacturing process (40nm silicon lithography) by them. While TSMC takes its time working on that, there's a fair bit of time left, for RV770 to face NVIDIA, which given the circumstances, looks a lost battle. Is AMD going to do something about its flagship GPU? Will AMD make an effort to maintain its competitiveness before the next round of the battle for technological supremacy begins? The answer is tilting in favour of yes.