Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 1GB Atomic

Overclocking

After seeing the very significant performance increase over a stock 4890 afforded to the Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 1GB Atomic by its sizeable 150MHz core overclock we were doubtful over how much more we could realistically squeeze out of the card. The answer, somewhat unsurprisingly, was not much, and despite numerous attempts we simply could not push the card much further than its already mammoth stock overclock, eventually managing a stable 50MHz (200MHz effective) overclock to the GDDR5 memory and a measly 25MHz increase to the core.

This meagre overclock improved performance in Crysis at 1,680 x 1,050 with 4xAA by 1.2fps and at 1,920 x 1,200 by 1.1fps, improvements of three per cent over the card’s pre-overclocked factory speeds. However, this limited amount of overclocking headroom doesn’t really spoil the show too much thanks to ATI and Sapphire’s already incredibly ambitious factory overclock.

You see, we’ve gotten used to expensive pre-overclocked cards offering maybe five of at most 10 per cent increases in clock speeds and performance, with board partners erring on the side of caution and not pushing hardware too hard. While this meant that you could push these cards quite a bit further with a bit of patience and time, wouldn’t you rather have that boosted performance from the outset and covered by the warranty rather than having to go to the bother of overclocking?

Yes, we realise that sentence is... not a usual bit-tech comment to say the least!

Final Thoughts

Sapphire has been very bold by releasing this card with such a massive overclock out of the box, and has reminded us of just what the benefits of a stock overclocked card can be to the end user - and not just to the board partner’s bottom line. The performance boost is so marked ahead of a stock HD 4890, so significant that ATI could have easily got away with selling the card as a completely new model; after all, a GTX 285 was only around five or 10 per cent faster than a GTX 280 when it replaced it back in January, and even now the GTX 285 is, on average, less than 10 per cent faster than the £50 cheaper GTX 275.

Yet here we have a card that’s able to match or significantly better the GTX 285, something that a stock HD 4890 was simply not able to do in the majority of tests, and redefines what we can expect from a pre-overclocked graphics card. The HD 4890 was fast, but not fast enough, cool but too noisy in doing it, and got outshone by Nvidia’s GTX 275. That’s most certainly not the case with the Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 1GB Atomic – it’s faster, it’s cooler and it’s quieter.

Price wise, we’ve only been able to confirm USA pricing which will be around $300, $60 to $70 more than a stock clocked HD 4890, and at that price we have to say it is a fantastic deal, especially as it’s $20 cheaper than even the cheapest GTX 285, a card the 1GHz clock Sapphire HD 4890 Atomic frequently outperforms at the more popular resolutions. For 30 per cent more cash, you’re getting a serious performance boost, as well as near silent operation – well worth it in our opinion.

UK pricing though is about as predictable as the last day of the Premier League and while direct conversion of the USA prices points to a cost of around £220 we imagine that, from experience, the card will hit e-tailers for more towards £250 considering the positive press and inevitable UK price hikes. If it does indeed launch for £220 then it’s even better value than it is in the USA and we'd recommend it in a heartbeat, and even at £250 is still strongly worth considering; again, it’s a case of spending 30 per cent more for a serious performance boost and much quieter cooling.

As always though, the market isn’t that simple, with the comparable GeForce GTX 285 receiving a stealthy and much needed price cut down to £250, doubtless to compete with ATI’s 1GHz new kid on the block. You can even pick up an ATI Radeon 4870 X2 for the same sort of money, which needless to say, outpaces the 4890 so long as the CrossFire drivers have been sufficiently optimised for the game in question. Similarly those concerned about PhysX on board GPU acceleration or CUDA support are still limited to choosing an Nvidia card, although we’ve seen nothing since Mirror’s Edge in January to convince us of the sustained need for these features.

Nevertheless, for pure single GPU graphics performance, the Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 1GB Atomic is now very much the top dog and combined with the excellent quiet custom cooler Sapphire has used represents an all-round excellent card. While the HD 4890 might not have had the best initial reception, in this guise it is most definitely born again hard.

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