The Atomic series of graphics cards are one that we really do get excited about when it comes to Sapphire products. Since unlike a lot of other companies who overclock, Sapphire tend to really mix it up with these particular series. We don't only see some serious clock speeds, but also something fancy in the heatsink department which always helps bring the card to a new level. With that said, we have high hopes for the Atomic version of the Radeon HD 4890. We don't want a little bump in clock speeds nor do we want a cooler that doesn't perform better than the stock cooler, be it in the temperature or noise department. So let's see or find out if Sapphire can impress us with their Atomic edition. - TweakTown

Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 Atomic 1GB Series Review

From the word go the Atomic version of the Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 is looking epic. As soon as we pulled the box out of our ordinary brown box the card was sent in we were happy to see just so much shine. And while we instantly thought how annoying it was going to be to photograph, it was still shiny, oh so shiny. The front of the box is actually very plain, but elegant at the same time. We have got the Atomic logo with the model underneath. The bottom right corner has the Vapor-X logo which is in reference to the cooling solution Sapphire has opted for. Turning to the back, we have a run down on some of the product highlights.

Now as we mentioned before, Sapphire always tends to mix it up in the cooling department when they attach the Atomic naming scheme to a model and as you can see this model is no different with a more traditional type fan and heatsink being used. We can see in the middle of the card a fan which is placed directly over the top of the core. We also see that Sapphire has a sticker on their card which again shows the Atomic and Vapor-X logo that we saw on the front and rear of the box. We have also got the Sapphire logo on the fan along with the ATI one and the model in the top right corner.

Having a look at the top of the board, we can see that Sapphire has opted for a heatpipe design. We have four that come from the core and move out to the aluminum heatsink, this just helps move the heat away from the core and get it off the card. While we tend to see connectors that resemble the reference model, it's a bit different. So while we still have two power connectors at the back of the card, one is an 8-pin, while other Radeon HD 4890's we've seen use a dual 6-pin setup. The clocks are where the Atomic version should shine, and shine they do. With a stock GPU clock of 1000MHz we've got some serious power on offer.

The Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 manages to offer some serious power thanks to the massive 1000MHz core on offer which is way up on the already high 850MHz that a reference clocked card follows. It's also great to see that Sapphire hasn't just stopped with the core but also ramped up the memory speeds which helps to improve the overall performance of the card. This serious performance comes at a cost though, and you're looking at around twenty percent more expensive than a stock model. What that extra money gets you is a better bundle, a better cooler that runs quieter along with a nice jump in performance.

If you want some serious speed, a quieter running card and don't mind spending the extra dollars, the Atomic version of the Radeon HD 4890 from Sapphire is an absolute awesome buy. If you don't want to spend that much yet still want a bit of a performance increase along with a new cooler, it might be worth looking at the Toxic or Vapor-X version of the card which doesn't carry the high price tag. All in all we've got a pretty kick ass card and if you are looking for a top of the line Radeon HD 4890 this is just the one worth looking at. In typical fashion Sapphire hasn't disappointed and makes good use of the Atomic name once again.