AMD's Radeon HD 4890 came in at a crucial time, to replenish the company's competitiveness in the performance graphics market against a stronger GPU lineup from NVIDIA. The newer fleet of 1 GHz HD 4890 OC cards from various vendors manages to lock horns with GeForce GTX 275, while not charging too much of a premium over the reference speed models. This is where manufacturers such as MSI chip in with unique product design, cooler enhancements, and bundles that sweeten the deal further. The MSI HD 4890 Cyclone SOC will retain its distinctiveness thanks to its Goliath cooler that grows horizontally, and not vertically (remains limited to two expansion slots in your PC case).
Performance-wise, the HD 4890 SOC armed with its 1 GB of GDDR5 memory and both its clock domains at 1 GHz, provides enough horsepower for high-definition gaming, with decent levels of visual detail. It is a neat 10% faster than the reference-design accelerator, and is one of the fastest accelerators for its price. With its level of performance out of the box, it sits halfway between GeForce GTX 275 and GeForce GTX 285. The latter being 4% faster, also ends up being 20% costlier, making your choice a tough one if you're looking beyond this one.
Its biggest unique selling point, the Cyclone cooler, does a satisfactory job in keeping the overclocked card cool, though it is not as quiet as we wanted it to be. At least it's not disturbingly loud. When idling however, the cooler is whisper-quiet compared to most accelerators in its class. Armed with DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI connectors, the connectivity options are good for the common users looking to directly connect their displays to the card without using dongles, though the same could be bane for those with two displays needing a DVI connection each.
Being branded as an "OC" accelerator, the least we could expect would be better overclocking potential compared to the base model, as premium SKUs are expected to be of higher manufacturing grade, and the first choice of the discerning overclocker. This is where the MSI HD 4890 SOC is a let down. With close to no overclocking headroom left on the GPU and a little of it on the memory, don't expect to set speed records with this card. The low overclocking headroom also leaves a window open for the competing GeForce GTX 275 to catch up with its overclocking potential. The power consumption has a similar reputation. To support the overclocked speeds, MSI have raised the GPU voltage, and the VRM design seems to be less efficient than the reference design solution, too. As a result, this is the most power-hungry single-GPU accelerator that came to our labs in recent times.
At its suggested retail price of US $249, the MSI HD 4890 SOC is a decent buy for its target buyers, gamers looking for peace of mind when it comes to high-definition gaming.