Introduction

PowerColor is one of the first ATI AIBs to release their own HD 4890 design called HD 4890 PCS it features a non-reference cooler and custom PCB .

AMD has made clear that RV790 will have plenty of overclocking potential, so PowerColor went all out and is shipping their HD 4890 PCS with stock clocks of 950 MHz core and 1100 MHz memory. As cooler a solution from Zerotherm is used. Last but not least, the voltage controller design has been changed as well, most probably to reduce cost significantly. All this results in a card that will not cost more than most reference cards: $249.


PowerColor simply reused their HD 4890 package and slapped a "PCS" sticker on of it.



You will receive:

• Graphics card
• Documentation + Driver CD
• CrossFire bridge
• DVI Adapter + HDMI Adapter
• TV out Adapter

The Card

Like the HD 4890 reference design, the cooler uses two slots. Unlike the reference design it only cools the GPU and not other components. Due to the cooler design there is some airflow going to the PCB which helps with cooling.


The card has two DVI ports, the most common output configuration today. If you want to use the card with your big TV screen you can use the included HDMI adapter. In case you need an analog port you can also use the included DVI adapter.
For HDMI Audio, NVIDIA requires you to feed an external audio source, for example from your motherboard's on-board audio, to the card via SPDIF cable. AMD on the other hand has integrated a sound device inside their GPUs which is the easier solution for most users.


You may combine up to four HD 4890 cards in CrossFireX for better performance and image quality. It is also possible to combine HD 4890 cards with HD 4830/4850/4870 but you will take a performance hit because of the mismatched CrossFire configuration.


Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.

A Closer Look

The cooler installed on the PowerColor HD 4890 PCS is provided by Zerotherm. A base makes contact with the GPU core and four heatpipes are used to transport the heat away to a large number of cooling fins.


The memory chips are cooled by little metal plates that act as heatspreader. Since they are located directly below the heatsink there is always some air flowing around them which helps with cooling.


The little heatspreaders are attached using an incredibly strong thermal tape. Please do not try to remove them, you might rip the memory chip off the board instead. Despite the color, the heatspreaders are not made from copper as you can see on the second picture where I scraped away some paint.


Two six pin PCI-Express power connectors are required to supply additional power to the graphics card.


The voltage regulator area is cooled by a tall copper colored heatsink, which is not real copper either. Still, it does a great job at keeping the VRMs cool.


The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Qimonda and carry the model number IDGV1G-05A1F1C-40X. With a cycle time of 1.0 ns, they are specified to run at 1000 MHz.


PowerColor has made some changes to the voltage regulation circuitry. Instead of dual Volterra controllers, they use a single OnSemi NCP5388. It does not have an I2C interface so software voltage control will not be possible.


This is AMD's RV790 GPU. It is identical to RV770, except for improved signal routing which allows higher overclocks. It is made on a 55 nm process at TSMC Taiwan, the 959 million transistors occupy 282 mm² of die area.

Test System

• All video card results were obtained on this exact system with the exact same configuration.
• All games were set to their highest quality setting

Each benchmark was tested at the following settings and resolution:

• 1024 x 768, No Anti-aliasing, No anisotropic filtering. This is a standard resolution without demanding display settings.
• 1280 x 1024, 2x Anti-aliasing, 8x anisotropic filtering. Common resolution for most smaller flatscreens today (17" - 19"). A bit of eye candy turned on in the drivers.
• 1680 x 1050, 4x Anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filter. Most common widescreen resolution on larger displays (19" - 22"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.
• 1920 x 1200, 4x Anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filter. Typical widescreen resolution for large displays (22" - 26"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.