HIS HD 4890 iCooler x4 1GB GDDR5Cheap and Cheerful usually means low in value and nasty when it comes to PC tech, but this HIS 4890 card manages to offer a lot for a relatively low price.

Specifications

The box for the HIS HD 4890 iCooler x4 Native HDMI 1GB GDDR5 is very compact and ... plain is the wrong word; pure would perhaps be better. A white background with images of ice flows, and of course the pertinent information on the front, and extended information on the back. Inside we have a white box with a cut out showing off the card inside. This cut out however, is only seen once you open the box.

Included with the HIS HD 4890 iCooler x4 Native HDMI 1GB GDDR5 is the card itself, a coupon to download the Stormrise game, a Crossfire bridge connector, an HIS mini folder with the driver disk and manual and two Power adapters. The software disk has more than just the driver (Windows 7 compaitble driver) but also has the BumpTop 3D desktop software as well. The power adapters are of two different kinds; the first is the regular two 4 pin Molex to one 6 pin PCIe and the second is a two 4 pin Molex to one 8 pin PCIe. Yes, this card uses an 8 pin PCIe connector, although I've successfully run the card with two 6 pin connectors. YMMV.

The card itself is very ominous looking with its big black glossy cooling setup which is highly reflective (and prone to gathering dust thanks to static cling). The transparent blue fins on the fan are curved and help provide greater airflow with less noise to the heatpipe cooler.

At the rear of the card we can see the aforementioned PCIe power connectors. Again, I've run the card with two 6 pin adapters but you may find you need to use an 8 pin, and of course the 8 pin would be preferable if you're overclocking. The ram at the rear of the card is covered by a black heatsink which can be seen under the overhang of the cooler.

The back of the card is pretty uneventful but there is a matching heatsink for the ram on this side of the card. The IO panel sports three different ports; a DVI-I port, a VGA port and a native HDMI port.

Testing

Testing the HIS HD 4890 iCooler x4 Native HDMI 1GB GDDR5 consists of putting it through it's paces in a few games and also seeing how far we can overclock it. For comparison, I'm using a 4870 1GB card and the 5770. Obviously the 4890 is going to be the faster card here, but the other 2 cards sit in the same sort of area for price currently and will give us a reference to compare how much of a difference there is.

Test Setup: Intel Core 2 Duo 6420 @ 3.00GHz, 4GB of OCZ PC2-6400 Ram @ 900MHz, Asus Blitz Formula, Maxtor Diamondmax 10 7200 250GB HDD, Asetek Waterchill Watercooling, Hyper Type M 730w PSU. All latest drivers as of October 2009 and the OS is Windows 7 RC1.

Software

Left 4 Dead – Recording a custom demo on the No Mercy – Sewers level (outside in the rain), we used FRAPS to record frame rates as we played back the demo on all cards at same settings.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars – ETQW gives us our OpenGL test results as we run through a recorded demo on the Slipgate level. Settings for all cards were the same.

Racedriver: GRID – Grid has some very good looking visuals. We used FRAPS as we took a Skyline for a test drive around the Ring. Settings for each card were set to highest possible for that card.

Batman: Arkham Asylum - This is a new game to our testing, and we used FRAPS along with the games inbuilt benchmark to gather our scores. The benchmark itself only lasts for 90 seconds or so, which means the last 30 seconds of our results are while sitting in the menu looking at the results, but things are equal across all cards tested. Settings are at highest for each card.

Assassin's Creed – We headed for the nearest tower from the bureau roof in Acre and repeatedly climbed to the top. With 2 leaps of faith and a good look of the city from on high, we once again used FRAPS to record our framerates. Settings for each card were set to highest possible for that card.

Crysis Warhead – We used the Framebuffer benchmark tool to run through the Ambush demo and recorded the results with FRAPS. Settings for each card were set to highest possible for that card.

Devil May Cry 4 (Benchmark) – DMC4's benchmark provides a nice way of testing that anyone can do. Results are all from the benchmark itself, and include average frame rates as well as 4 graphs for each level tested. Settings for all cards were the same.