Today AMD recently announced its newly RV790 based Radeon HD 4890 card, and you should know that their RV790 is an improved version of the RV770 you might know as the Radeon HD 4870's ticker. The basic specifications are still the same and the only changes the end users should be aware of were done on the clocks. The Radeon HD 4890 runs at 850MHz for the core, which was tough to reach with the Radeon HD 4870 even with water cooled versions. This new GPU is much more flexible and allows us to overclock the core to +900MHz. This is the reason why AMD allowed its partners to launch overclocked boards on day one, and XFX isn't the one to miss out on such opportunities. - FudZilla

XFX Radeon HD 4890 1GB XXX Graphics Card Review

Currently, all the Radeon HD 4890 boards come with reference cooling and PCB, and the same goes for XFX's card. This means that the only difference is the sticker and the clocks. One thing that will surely separate the XFX's card from the rest of the pack sitting on the shelves is the box, which is quite unusually shaped. XFX made X-shaped boxes before, but we don't recall them being this detailed and well made. XFX is probably the partner that changed the box design most frequently. An interesting design like this still leaves enough space to write all the important information and the different features.

The XFX Radeon HD 4890 XXX edition comes with reference cooling that is quiet in idle mode, and although it gets loud in 3D, it's still far from intrusive. The higher clocks on the Radeon HD 4890 made AMD alter the Radeon HD 4870's cooler a bit. They added more copper for better dissipation and the cooler still pushes hot air out of your case. This time, AMD used three copper heatpipes going from the copper base to the heatsink, whereas the Radeon HD 4870's cooler had two. The PCB was slightly altered mostly to regulate the additional power requirements, a direct result of higher clocks. The changes are most visible in the back.

As we mentioned before, we managed to overclock the XFX Radeon HD 4890 XXX edition to 970MHz and the board ran stable while gaming and testing. The AMD Radeon HD 4890 is without a doubt faster than the Radeon HD 4870 and the GeForce GTX 260, but NVIDIA has another ace up its sleeve with the GeForce GTX 275. This board was launched on the same day as the Radeon HD 4890, probably to spoil AMD's fun. We still didn't get a chance to test this card, but the results we've seen suggest that it's slightly faster than the new Radeon HD 4890. Of course ATI will again handle a lower pricing policy as we are used to.

So let's get real though, the Radeon HD 4890 is a great graphics card with great performance and priced at only $230, which is the lowest priced reference card. Now XFX sent us their overclocked Radeon HD 4890 XXX version, which runs at 900MHz and we'd dare to guess it should sell somewhere around $260. With the graphics card, XFX will give away the newest Tom Clancy game, which features DirectX 10.1 support. This feature is currently just exclusive to AMD's cards, as NVIDIA decided not to implement this but rather to switch directly to DirectX 11 whenever it shows its face which might be sooner than you think.

Now however, we'd sincerely recommend turning DirectX 10.1 on in games that support it, since AMD's boards will use it well and surely run faster than GeForce GTX 200 series cards. The XFX Radeon HD 4890 graphics card comes with 1GB of GDDR5 memory, which is its default frame buffer size. Their memory runs at reference 3900MHz effectively. If you crave overclocking, this card will offer a lot of flexibility. The Radeon HD 4890 XXX edition is currently the best and fastest AMD single GPU video card, and if you decide on buying it we promise you won't regret it but will certainly enjoy the action.