PowerColor Announces PCS HD 4890 2 GB Graphics Accelerator

[btarunr]

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today announced a powerful upgrade to the HD4890 series: PCS HD4890 2GB GDDR5. This latest addition features 2GB of onboard memory, maximizing the graphics of the latest gaming titles. The added memory buffer allows more data to be saved, eliminating the need to access system memory and resulting in faster graphical performance.

Compatible with all essential features, the PowerColor PCS HD4890 2GB GDDR5 delivers 900MHz core speed and 1000MHz effective memory speed. Cooling the card is ZEROtherm's exclusive cooling system, providing a low temperature and noise platform for gamers who strive for superior overclocking and gaming performance.



"Even a powerful GPU can suffer from bottlenecks due to slow and insufficient video memory," says Ted Chen, CEO of TUL Corporation. "With the added 2GB GDDR5, the PowerColor PCS+ HD4890 fully utilizes the factory overclocking and single most powerful GPU."



Source: PowerColor

[Meecrob]

last info i saw showed little to no point in having 2gb ram on a 4800 series card.........probbly driver related as it was with my x800 and x1900 but still.....

[a_ump]

i think it is bus related actuallly, 256-bit GDDR5 can utilize 1gb for the best. But 2gb is too much, kinda like 256-bit GDDR3 is pointless with 1gb.

[Meecrob]

Originally Posted by a_ump

i think it is bus related actuallly, 256-bit GDDR5 can utilize 1gb for the best. But 2gb is too much, kinda like 256-bit GDDR3 is pointless with 1gb.

naa, buss isnt really an issue with ddr5 due to it being quad rate memory, I would bet you that we see no major perf boost till the 5k cards come out and the top end ones are all 2gb, then AMD/ATI will get around to optimizing the code again so that 2gb is used relitivly well.

either way, its not worth the money IMHO, I havent upgraded from my 8800gts 512 yet because it would cost me a good bit to get a card thats fast enough to make a difference :/

[a_ump]

o but the buss is. Though it's quad rate memory it still has it's limits. It is quad rate but that only allows it to adaquately use 1GB on a 256-bit bus, where as GDDR3 can't utilize 1GB memory on a 256-bit bus. GDDR5 256-bit bus's limit is 1gb just like GDDR3 256-bit is 512mb. Quad rate does give a benefit, it can use the 1gb, anymore is a waste. I think :P, i'm sure another more knowledgable member will give us their opinion.

[Wile E]

Originally Posted by a_ump

o but the buss is. Though it's quad rate memory it still has it's limits. It is quad rate but that only allows it to adaquately use 1GB on a 256-bit bus, where as GDDR3 can't utilize 1GB memory on a 256-bit bus. GDDR5 256-bit bus's limit is 1gb just like GDDR3 256-bit is 512mb. Quad rate does give a benefit, it can use the 1gb, anymore is a waste. I think :P, i'm sure another more knowledgable member will give us their opinion.

Yes, 256bit GDDR3 can use 1GB. I proved it with my 8800GT 1GB. The problem is, most games aren't optimized for large frame buffers. It has nothing to do with any sort of hardware limitation. The bus width doesn't play that large a part in the ability to access large frame buffers. The gpu is more important, as games with large memory requirements, usually have very harsh graphics processing requirements to go along with them.

Hell GTA4 uses something like 1.5GB of video memory, fully maxed out, and stutters like crazy on my setup, due to the lack of video memory, and having to swap to system mem. My system has more than enough gpu and cpu power to run it otherwise.

[Meecrob]

Originally Posted by Wile E

Yes, 256bit GDDR3 can use 1GB. I proved it with my 8800GT 1GB. The problem is, most games aren't optimized for large frame buffers. It has nothing to do with any sort of hardware limitation. The bus width doesn't play that large a part in the ability to access large frame buffers. The gpu is more important, as games with large memory requirements, usually have very harsh graphics processing requirements to go along with them.

Hell GTA4 uses something like 1.5GB of video memory, fully maxed out, and stutters like crazy on my setup, due to the lack of video memory, and having to swap to system mem. My system has more than enough gpu and cpu power to run it otherwise.

time to upgrade again?

[Wile E]

Originally Posted by Meecrob

time to upgrade again?

Nah. I just went ahead and bought it for my ps3 instead. lol.

[aCid888*]

And thats exactly where it should be played.


GTA was always pretty lame on the PC.

[a_ump]

Originally Posted by Wile E

Yes, 256bit GDDR3 can use 1GB. I proved it with my 8800GT 1GB. The problem is, most games aren't optimized for large frame buffers. It has nothing to do with any sort of hardware limitation. The bus width doesn't play that large a part in the ability to access large frame buffers. The gpu is more important, as games with large memory requirements, usually have very harsh graphics processing requirements to go along with them.

Hell GTA4 uses something like 1.5GB of video memory, fully maxed out, and stutters like crazy on my setup, due to the lack of video memory, and having to swap to system mem. My system has more than enough gpu and cpu power to run it otherwise.

so then, if you have a GTX 285 2gb or HD 4890 2gb it wouldn't lag then? since i think both of those would have the gpu performance to handle it.

[nafets]

The problem with GTA4 isn't from underpowered anything.

It's that the game is a horribly half-ass coded console port and doesn't properly utilize the power available from CPUs or GPUs.

Sure you could throw more money at it, getting a 18-core CPU and a 4GB Quad-SLI GPU setup, but it'll probably still run like crap. Only now the crap will be moving a bit faster.

Marketing a 2GB video card for the reason of being able to run a single game with marginal performance improvements is dubious at best.

[FordGT90Concept]

If the next generation of graphics cards wasn't so close to release, I would consider buying this.

[inferKNOX]

I agree with all you guys about 2GB vs 1GB giving absolutely ZERO extra real world performance on the 48xx's. It's been proven in tonnes of benchmarks.

[devguy]

So, why do we call gDDR5: gDDR5? Why not gQDR5, or gQDR?

[Wile E]

Originally Posted by inferKNOX

I agree with all you guys about 2GB vs 1GB giving absolutely ZERO extra real world performance on the 48xx's. It's been proven in tonnes of benchmarks.

Yeah, but what about future games? 2GB is a bit of overkill right now, but just last year everyone was saying 1GB is overkill.

To me, as long as the extra buffer doesn't hurt speed or cost extra by a ridiculous amount, the more the better.

[FordGT90Concept]

Originally Posted by devguy

So, why do we call gDDR5: gDDR5? Why not gQDR5, or gQDR?

Because GDDR5 is Double Data Rate, not Quad Data Rate. They are an evolution of DDR memory but the G is present to make it clear those chips aren't to JEDEC spec for system memory. GDDR3 is not the same as DDR3.

Originally Posted by Wile E

Yeah, but what about future games? 2GB is a bit of overkill right now, but just last year everyone was saying 1GB is overkill.

And I'm choking on 256 MiB! ...or...

[a_ump]

i thought GDDR5 was quad data rate, that's why when the memory is clocked at 975mhz on the HD 4890, they state it as 3,900mhz. 4x what the memory is actually running at. not a contradiction, its just a question

[FordGT90Concept]

Originally Posted by a_ump

i thought GDDR5 was quad data rate, that's why when the memory is clocked at 975mhz on the HD 4890, they state it as 3,900mhz. 4x what the memory is actually running at. not a contradiction, its just a question

4-bits per clock (4.0 Gb/s * 1.0 GHz = 4 b/s) is extremely low. I don't have enough information, or the information available is misleading, to calculate it.

[a_ump]

well poo on u ford, most of your responses are usually vast on explainations, was hoping for a nice article to read lol u fail me for the first time

[FordGT90Concept]

DDR3-1600 can do 384.0 Gb/s in tri-channel. It is hard to explain something when the figures are way out of expected bounds. Unless GDDR5 really is that slow. But even then, 4 bits/s is an ugly number.