Posted 07/14/09 at 03:45:23 PM by Paul Lilly

MSI this week announced the R4890 Cyclone series graphics card. Like other HD 4890 videocards, the Cyclone comes equipped with 800 stream processors and 1GB of GDDR5 with a 256-bit memory bus, but what separates this card from the pack is its cooling solution.

According to MSI, the Cyclone is the only HD 4890 to sport a 10cm PWM fan. The cooling solution also packs four 8mm heatpipes, which the company says is 60 percent thicker than traditional heatpipes and offers up to 90 percent better cooling efficiency. The end result is a 1GHz core clockspeed, making the Cyclone the fastest clocked HD 4890 yet.

Taking the marketing blitz to another level, MSI boasts "Military Class Components." These include Hi-c capacitors made of Tantalum, an all-in-one solid chock, and all solid caps.

No word yet on price or availability.

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Posted 04/02/09 at 01:32:51 PM by Paul Lilly

Holy moly, what a day it's been in graphics cards. Nvidia and ATI are set to do battle in the mid-range market, the former with today's announcement of the GeForce GTX 275 videocard, and ATI with the launch of its HD 4890 videocard.

While Nvidia's announcement may have been intended to steal some thunder from ATI's HD 4890 launch, it hasn't seemed to make much of a difference. According to news site DailyTech, 50,000 Radeon HD 4980 videocards have already been shipped to retailers, many of which have been sold to end-users before today's launch. A quick glance at the Egg shows several models selling for $250, with mail-in-rebates bringing the price down another $20, including XFX, who recently defected as an Nvidia-only board partner to sell both ATI and Nvidia brand videocards.

Rumored specs turned out to be largely true for ATI's new part. The RV790-based 4890 comes with a core clockspeed of 850MHz, or 100MHz faster than the HD 4870. Other goodies include 1GB of GDDR5 clocked at 975MHz on a 256-bit bus, 800 stream processors, 40 texture units, 16 ROPs, and a 190W rated maximum TDP (60W idle).

Anyone plan on upgrading?

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Posted 03/26/09 at 09:39:57 AM by Paul Lilly

Maybe looking to steal a bit of thunder from Nvidia's upcoming GeForce GTX 275 release, there's a chance AMD will release its ATI HD 4890 on April 2nd, a week ahead of schedule, says VR-Zone. The reviews and news outlet doesn't cite any sources, but did say that both Asus and Gigabyte have already begun selling the HD 4980 in Taiwan and Hong Kong for HK$2,280 (US$297) and HK$1,999 (US$258), respectively.

As previously reported, reference specs for the RV790-based HD 4890 include 1GB of GDDR5 memory running at 3,900MHz and a core clockspeed of 850MHz. No official release date (that we know of) has been given, but if AMD does introduce the new card on April 2nd, it will have beat Nvidia to the punch by a full week if Nvidia sticks to its April 9 release date for its upcoming GeForce GTX 275. A likely scenario if, as VR-Zone claims, "their GTX 275 isn't ready yet and the clocks aren't even finalized."

Stay tuned!

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