Back in April, AMD unleashed its fastest graphics chip so far, dubbed as RV790. This chip will be cemented in history thanks to the fact that it was the first GPU to break these 1GHz barrier, and many AMD partners managed to hit 1GHz even with the reference air cooling. However, this reference cooler gets extremely loud while cooling GPU's at 1GHz so many partners just opted for their own coolers. PowerColor is one of the few companies that took to water cooling the RV790, which as you know is the ticker within the Radeon HD 4890 graphics cards. And PowerColor named this their LcS version, which is really about the liquid cooling solution that is far more superior and provide near noiseless operation. - FudZilla

PowerColor Radeon HD 4890 1GB LcS Edition Review

The overclock on the Radeon HD 4890 LcS board isn't particularly high compared to reference speeds. We have seen that PowerColor has an couple of faster, air cooled cards in its offer, also running at 950MHz. Though still, water cooling is an appealing feature when we're talking about the RV790, as it easily gets over 90°C not to mention that it will greatly help with any potential overclocking. Most RV790 cores can easily run at 1GHz, provided the cooling is adequate. Also the memory got a boost on PowerColor's graphics card but only by 100MHz effective compared to reference speeds. It features 800 shaders for you gaming pleasure.

The card's PCB is a reference design. It is painted red and has two PCI Express power connectors, eight memory modules and two CrossFireX connectors which enable it for a system with up to four graphics cards. PowerColor made the water block in cooperation with the famous water block maker EK. As a certificate of quality EK's logo proudly graces the front of the Radeon HD 4890's water block. The LcS edition box looks pretty nice and quite compact, while there is just enough space left to list the important specifications. The Radeon HD 4890 LcS version is a water cooled, and this almost always means easy overclocking.

In our case, we easily hit the once so magic 1GHz barrier for the GPU chipset. Unfortunately, the LcS' memory doesn't downclock when in idle mode resulting in higher consumption than on the GeForce cards, where the memory downclocks when idle. However, this GPU will downclock on Radeon cards as well and when the video board is not in 3D mode the GPU will run at 240MHz. The PowerColor Radeon HD 4890 LcS version is one of the best Radeon HD 4890 graphics cards we've tested. It comes with a water block made in cooperation with EK's experts, and water cooling usually means great overclocking potential.

The card is already overclocked by 50MHz but with cooling such as PowerColor used it's a shame not to try and push it even further. We pounced on the chance to break the 1GHz barrier for the GPU and it went without a hitch. Their water block keeps the graphics and memory temperatures in check, and we surely appreciated the golden silence while gaming at 1000/4800MHz. The LcS edition is priced at about $399 and is just pretty hard to find since it's a limited edition, making it much pricier than the reference card but silent operation and a card that stays cool at 1GHz surely makes it worthwhile.