3DMark 06

3DMark 06 is a synthetic benchmark used by gamers and enthusiasts from all over the world. Made by Futuremark, this benchmarking software tests the CPU and GPU mainly with some minor influence of the other things such as the Operating System. 

Although we don't have a GTX275 in house to compare to, the HD4890 does come very close with the GTX280 which is a better card than the GTX275.

3DMarkVantage

3DMark Vantage is the latest addition to the 3DMark family, and was also made by Futuremark. This newer benchmark, once again, places emphasis on the CPU and GPU, but I only saw the need to include the GPU results. 

Crysis

This game has been out for quite a while now, and it still is one of the best looking games out there. Based off the CryEngine, this game was and still isn't what you would call optimized, and continues to make even the high end cards suffer.

 Here we can see there's a huge difference in frame rate between the HD4890 and GTX280. While the 9800GTX is falling away, both the other cards seem to be holding there ground even at the higher resolution. Next, let's turn up the eye candy!

Crysis Warhead

Next up at bat is Crysis Warhead. It's not a sequel to the first game, but rather a different character. You play through the game in the eyes of a character named Psycho instead of Nomad like you did it in the first installation of the series. Warhead looks better, but tends to kick you in the special spot because it does. Let's see how the HD4890 performs on this game.

FarCry 2

This game is much more optimized to run on a wider range of PC's than the two Crysis selections were. In this game, you are trying to take out "The Jackal" while being able to free roam a no-name country in Africa while working for two rival factions at the same time.

You can see how much smoother this game runs than the two Crysis games. Without the eye candy turned out, the most the HD4890 is behind the GTX280 is 4FPS. Eye candy will really show the difference, however.

The ATI card really takes a hit at 1680x1050, coming in at a 25FPS loss. However, the GTX280 only yielded a ~15FPS loss. The frame rates are still well above what's visible to the human eye.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Although this game has been out for quite some time, I felt that people still are really looking at how well different cards perform in this game since it's still one of the most played PC games out there. Also, keep in mind, this is tested with everything maxed out.

 As you can see, this game is very well optimized to run well, even on budget systems and mid-end laptops. The higher resolution did take a 20FPS hit, but what's it matter? It's still above 100FPS!

Company of Heroes

Another extremely smooth running game. This is also the only non-First Person Shooter that we tested.

Overclocking

In my overclocking tests, I used AMD Overdrive, which I will touch a bit more on just a little bit down the page, and used ATi Tool to check for artifacts. GPUz was also used to watch temperatures, fan speeds, and just to overall look and check all the different clocks and settings.

So far, I was able to achieve a core clock of 975MHz which is fairly impressive on this already overclocked card, and totals out to be a 50MHz gain. For the most part, I was somewhat disappointed about this since I have been reading about other 4890 variants which come with a core clock of 1GHz. Although I didn't that 1GHz core clock, I did come pretty close, and we also need to take into consideration that this card is running of the reference design and cooler. So, perhaps with an after market cooler, or perhaps a water block we would be able to reach that 1GHz core clock.

AMD Overdrive

This is a very neat little part of the Catalyst Control Center(CCC). It allows you to monitor temperatures, see how loaded/stressed the card is, and also at what percent the fan is running. Honestly, I was expecting this overclocking part of the CCC to be complete crap like a lot of other included overclocking programs that sometimes come with motherboard. I must say, AMD Overdrive has proven itself to be very accurate and useful to me, and was right on par with Riva Tuner.

Temperatures

Temperatures of the GPU affect every component in your case, especially if you don't have a high airflow case like mine. The temperatures of this Diamond HD4890 XOC weren't all that bad, and the difference between idle and load was about 15 degrees celsius. At 25% fan, the idle temperatures were 60C, and load was 76C. When I cranked the fan up to 45%, the idle temperature dropped to 54C and the load went down to 69C. These temperatures were at stock speeds.

When I overclocked the core clock and memory speeds, the temperature difference was only an average of 2C higher. This is awesome, and it would be stupid, to me at least, to leave the card at stock speeds. 

Conclusion

Pros:

• Looks Great
  
• Performed Flawlessly
• Overclocks even further past the factory OC
• Solid construction
• Catalyst drivers & Control Center are very easy and convenient
• Price - $254.99

Cons:

• Fan might seem loud to some
• No built in HDMI(included adapter)

After extensive consideration and testing, I'm going to give the Diamond HD4890 XOC a 9.5/10 and the Tech Arkade Golden Ghost Award!