HIS HD 4890 iCooler x4 1GB GDDR5

Manufacturer:
Price:
Everyone loves a bargain. And with the release of the 5xxx series cards, the older generation cards are being sold off quite cheaply. Pretty much anything from the 48xx line up is relatively speaking, quite cheap now, and we are seeing the usual shake up in designs as manufacturers are moving stock. The 48xx series of cards are a fantastic series, and without anything definitive to show off DX11 as yet, then most folks are not going to miss out on anything by not buying a 5xxx card just yet. have a new 4890 card added to their catalogue; the  HD 4890 iCooler x4 Native HDMI 1GB GDDR5. Sporting the big black obsidian (well, plastic) cooler and promising low temperatures and low noise levels, we had to take a look at this now cheap alternative to a top end 5xxx series.

Specifications

Model Name	HIS HD 4890 iCooler x4 (Full HD 1080p) Native HDMI 1GB (256bit) GDDR5 Dual Link-DVI / VGA / HDMI (HDCP) PCIe (RoHS)
Chipset	Radeon HD 4800 PCIe Series
Pixel Pipelines	800 stream processing units* (Unified)
Vertex Engines	800 stream processing units* (Unified)
Memory Size	1024MB
Manu. Process	55nm
Memory Type	GDDR5
RAMDAC	400MHz
Engine CLK	850MHz
Memory CLK	3.9GBps
Memory Interface	256bit
Max. Resolution	1920×1200 (single-link DVI) or 2560×1600 (dual-link DVI)
Bus Interface	PCI Express x16
Power Requirements	500 Watt or greater power supply with two 75W 6-pin PCI Express® power connectors recommended (600 Watt and four 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode)
Ports	1x VGA, 1x DVI, 1x (Native) HDMI

 

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.

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Left 4 Dead (DirectX 9)

We used the same settings of 1680×1050, 4xMSAA, 8xAF for all cards which allows us to see clearly the difference in frame rates. The 4870 and the 5770 give very similar numbers but as expected, the 4890 stretches it’s head a little further and provides a very smooth experience. With the preponderance of new maps for Left 4 Dead of late, and some of them being under optimized/a little heavy duty, it’s nice to have that little extra from the 4890 during play.

Enemy Territory Quake Wars (OpenGL)

All three cards were set to maximum settings via the menus in game (but no soft particles), with a resolution of 1680×1050. Once again, 4xMSAA and 8xAF was used. To be honest, this test is getting a little redundant, but you can clearly see that the 4890 has much higher average and minimum frame rates.

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Racedriver: GRID (DirectX 9)

All settings were maxed out to Ultra or High (as applicable) along with 8xMSAA and 16xAF at 1680×1050 for all cards. However using an end user hack to increase the visual levels beyond the maximums I was still able to get higher frame rates than the other two cards with the 4890. That said, the visual benefit was to my eye at least non existent. What can clearly be seen however is the rarely lower than 60 minimum frame rates the 4890 provides.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (DirectX 9)

Batman is a new game to me, but I wanted to show some numbers for this UT3 engine based game. The benchmark is only around 90 seconds long, so the frames from about the 95 second mark onwards are looking at the results. There is little in the way of graphic control within the game so we set things up within the CCC instead, and got the above scores with 4xMSAA, 16xAF at 1680×1050. Again, the 5770 and 4870 are virtually identical in scores, but the 4890 provides a much smoother game play experience when things get tough on screen at these graphic settings.

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Assassin’s Creed (DirectX 10)

All settings for all cards were at maximum available for my setup. When you are on the rooftops and there is plenty on screen, the game experience is actually quite similar on all three cards, but when you climb a tower or find yourself in an alleyway and the visuals are restricted somewhat, then the 4890 begins to ramp up it’s performance.

Crysis Warhead (DirectX 10)

Crysis Warhead punishes cards, and even this 4890 doesn’t put out the greatest of numbers, but it’s certainly very playable compared to the competition we have here. It’s a pretty big jump in frame rates and it can make all the difference in game.

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Devil May Cry 4 Benchmark (DirectX 10)

HIS 4890

HIS 5770

HIS 4870

The 4890 resoundingly wins this one with the numbers rarely falling under the 60fps mark, which is quite important for this particular game as it lacks good motion blur to compensate for low frame rates like other games do. The 4890 obviously grabs a solid A score here, as do all the cards in fact.

Overclocking

Overclocking went quite well, and I’m pleased to say the iCooler x4 did it’s job of keeping things both cool and quiet. The 4890, like the 4870 does however chuck out a lot of heat, and in my case it did have a tendency to raise the temperature at the top of my enclosure where my PSU fan had to work a bit harder. Anyway, the performance gain over non-overclocked results is actually quite worth the effort here. Even if you were to only let the CCC do the overclocking work for you, I’d do it. Default clocks are 850 Core, 975 Memory. Overclocked the card reached a stable 975 Core and 1080 on the Memory.

Final Words

I really like the HD 4890 iCooler x4 Native HDMI 1GB GDDR5 card. It’s a very high performer, looks great in an ominous no fuss manner, it’s quiet and the cooling setup works well for the card itself. It does however warm up the inside of your case and be aware of the power requirements.

Having Native HDMI is a great way to keep down the cabling so the more we see this on a card the better I say. The power requirements do mean you may want an 8 pin PCIe connector, especially if you are a serious overclocker, however we’ve had no trouble running the card on two 6 pin connectors, and didn’t get a better overclock from using an 8 pin. Still, YMMV so keep it in mind before you buy.

The card itself will happily run with Full HD monitors and if you are willing to sacrifice some higher settings, you’ll easily be able to reach into higher resolutions as well. Game performance … well, we didn’t come across much that bothered this card at all (except Crysis of course) and the visual quality is the usual ATI excellent. Naturally of course you also get the usual ATI options for accelerated video playback.

Price wise, the HD 4890 iCooler x4 Native HDMI 1GB GDDR5 is (at time of writing) at , which is the cheapest 4890 there, and with the 5770 at $160 this doesn’t look too bad of a deal at all now does it?

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