Renowned overclocker Chew* set a speed record for AMD's new value dual-core processor, the Athlon II X2 255. Based on the Regor core, the X2 255 is a monolithic dual-core chip, with just two physical cores on die, and additional L2 cache, with no L3 cache. This cuts the TDP of the chip to 65W. On the bench built by Chew*, the X2 255 reached 4800.1 MHz, with a BClk of 320.01 MHz, multiplied by 15.0. The chip's natural multiplier value is 15.5x, its stock speed is 3.10 GHz. A VCore of 1.696 Volts was set.

The processor was cooled using a Mach 1 phase cooler. The bench consisted of an Athlon II X2 255, Gigabyte GA-MA785GPMT-UD2H motherboard - another mainstream component which proved its mettle, OCZ DDR3 1600 MHz Black Edition certified memory, PC Power & Cooling 1200W PSU, and ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics. The CPU-Z validation for this feat can be found here. In the same occasion, Chew* could overclock the chip to 4050 MHz using a reference AMD CPU cooler (which comes bundled with higher-end AMD chips). More pictures at the source.

Having reclaimed the positions of having the fastest graphics cards and the most powerful GPU with the DirectX 11 compliant Radeon HD 5000 series, AMD is looking to make DirectX 11 accessible to all market segments. Later this month, AMD is expected to announce its lower-mainstream Radeon HD 5600 products, but with it, also an addition to the Radeon HD 5800 series: the Radeon HD 5830. This product is expected to fill the gap between Radeon HD 5770 and Radeon HD 5850.

The Radeon HD 5770 is priced in the sub-$200 range, while the HD 5850 at around $300. This gap is currently held by the previous-generation Radeon HD 4890, which faces competition from some NVIDIA GeForce GTX 200 series products. It is expected that the Radeon HD 5830 will be about as powerful as a Radeon HD 4890 in current applications, while being priced slightly lower, and a little more competitive owing to its feature set and future-proofing. The new product could be announced on the 25th Jan. No additional details or specifications are known at this point.

Following a recent exposé of pictures and performance figures of the Radeon HD 5750, another one covering that of the ASUS Radeon HD 5770 has surfaced. Using a test bed powered by an AMD Phenom II X4 945, 4 GB of DDR3-1333 memory, and Windows 7 64-bit, a member of the Chinese PC enthusiast portal community MyMyPC.com put an ASUS Radeon HD 5770 accelerator through 3DMark Vantage Performance preset (to yield its GPU score), 3DMark06, and FurMark (to check temperatures). It was compared to other popular graphics accelerators in (or around) the sub-$200 league, including Radeon HD 4890, GeForce GTX 260, and GeForce GTX 275. While in the 3DMark06 test the Radeon HD 5770 edges past the GeForce GTX 260, with 3DMark Vantage (GPU score), it lags behind the rest of the league, by at least around 1000 points. This gives an indication that as far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5770 could be comparable to the Radeon HD 4870, at least in these applications.

Less than 24 hours after its launch, one of the first custom design accelerators based on the Radeon HD 5870 have began to surface, one of the first ones made by Sapphire. Whether or not this is a complete custom design (includes custom designed PCB and coolers), Sapphire is ready with at least its Vapor-X cooler designed for the new GPU. This picture found on Xtreme Systems forums shows the cooler fitted on the AMD reference PCB. However, a newly announced contest conducted by Hexus.net shows a CGI drawing of the accelerator in its promotional graphic, which shows the PCB to be slightly shorter, and blue in colour. One can also see from the drawing that the PCI-E power connectors are located at the same spot where they were located on most Radeon HD 4890 accelerators. Hopefully cheaper, or at least factory-overclocked accelerators aren't far away.

Force 3D rolled out a refreshing take on the ATI Radeon HD 4890 with its own-design F4890P-G5-350-FS. This model offers all features of the GPU running at AMD reference clock speeds of 850/975 MHz (core/memory), while needing only one 6-pin power connector, while most other accelerators based on the GPU require two, some overclocked models even needing a 6+2 pin power connector to replace one of them. This card has a slim design, with a short PCB, and a decent Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin-Turbo Pro cooling the GPU. It holds 1 GB of GDDR5 memory, and includes DVI-D, HDMI and D-Sub for connectivity. It has started selling in Japan for a fairly standard price.

ATI partner HIS, popular for the IceQ series graphics cards, seems to have something up its sleeves for the Radeon HD 4890, although it's not an IceQ product. The HIS Radeon HD 4890 iCooler X4 is touted to be the company's non-reference offering that boasts of superior cooling performance. The cooler consists of a central fan that pushes air onto aluminum fin heatsinks on either sides. From what we can see, two 8 mm heatpipes convey heat to these. The card holds 1 GB of GDDR5 memory, and reference AMD clock speeds of 850/975 MHz (core/memory). The bundle includes the company's recently announced Bumptop 3D desktop environment software. Expect this to be priced on par with most other Radeon HD 4890 accelerators.

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.

PowerColor is readying a new custom-designed Radeon HD 4890 accelerator that breaks-away from the reference design, and its lavish components. The new AX4890-1GBD5 seems to concentrate on a simpler, value-oriented design. The accelerator sticks to AMD's reference clock speeds of 850 MHz for the core, and 975 MHz for the memory. It loads 1 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface. Other features are fairly standard for the SKU. This product follows PowerColor's HD 4890 PCS+, PCS++ series, apart from the common reference design. It is expected to be positioned around the US $200 mark.

Club 3D global market leader for graphics cards, today announced the release of its new HD4890 graphics card designed specifically for gamers and HD video enthusiasts. The new Club 3D HD4890 delivers High-end performance to users at excellent value. The custom cooling design stays quiet in low demanding operations and cool in heavy 3D applications to ensure safe operating during all your tasks.

Additionally, adopters of the new HD4890 graphics card will find a wide range of adapters bundled inside the retail package to ensure a trouble free integration with HDMI, VGA and DVI displays. Make use of the bundled CrossFireX Bridge by setting up a CrossFireX system to max out your games in any situation and resolution. By maintaining the high quality and reliability standards of existing Club 3D products, the new HD 4890 graphics card rewards users with a high performance product.

MSI today announced the R4890 Cyclone graphics card. This Radeon HD 4890 card uses the same basic design as its R4870 Cyclone, and a lite version of AMD's reference PCB. The card first surfaced in May, during the run-up for the Computex event. The card's star attraction is the cooler, consisting of a GPU heatsink with radially-projecting aluminum fins, from this heatsink about four 8 mm heat-pipes arise, conveying heat to two suspended, curved aluminum fin blocks on either sides of the heatsink. The cooler is nucleated with a 10 cm PWM-controlled fan. The memory and VRM areas are care of this cooler's air-flow.

MSI used a few innovations of its own on the PCB which it calls "military class", including flat-bed high-c capacitors that can be found on server and workstation components, a solid-state choke that has lower core energy loss compared to traditional chokes, and an all-solid-state-capacitor design, which is a standard-issue for graphics cards in its class. The R4890 Cyclone comes in three variants based on clock speeds - R4890 Cyclone, R4890 Cyclone OC, and R4890 Cyclone SOC. These cards come with clock speeds of 850/3900 MHz, 880/3900 MHz, and 1000/4000 MHz, respectively (core/memory). Expect availability in a few weeks. The press-release follows.

Thermalright is readying a couple of VRM area coolers for the AMD reference design ATI Radeon HD 4870 and Radeon HD 4890 graphics accelerators. The Thermalright VRM-R1 and VRM-R2 work in conjunction with the company's T-Rad series GPU coolers, and strive to provide a high level of cooling that allows better overclocking.

The cooler consists of an a heatsink that covers the VRM area of the accelerator. From this heatsink arise two nickel-plated copper heatpipes that convey heat to a small but dense aluminum fin block. This block is big enough to let you latch an 80 mm fan onto it for active cooling. Both VRM-R1 and VRM-R2 are essentially similar in size and shape of the components, except for that the two differ in the positioning of the aluminum fin block. For VRM-R1, the block propagates perpendicular to the plane of the motherboard, while that of the VRM-R2 propagates parallel to the plane. Both coolers weigh 160 g. They are compatible with most Thermalright GPU coolers, namely HR-03 Rev.A, HR-03 GT, HR-03 GT V2, T-Rad2, and T-Rad2 GTX. They will hit stores very soon.

Products of Thermaltake's ISGC series have become representative of silent and good performance coolers. Users have already been expecting the newest ISGC VGA cooler to complete the collection. Now, finally the ISGC-V320 is coming with lots of killer features.

The ISGC-V320 is a true masterpiece of Thermaltake's R&D team. Its foremost feature, as a matter of course, is its surprising silence which it inherited from the original ISGC Fan. The ISGC-V320 is equipped with two 120 mm ISGC fans. Users can adjust the fan speed from 800 to 1300RPM according to their needs. Broad compatibility of the ISGC-V320 greatly enhances its convenience factor. Supported are the last graphics cards such as the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 and ATI Radeon HD 4890. 5 heatpipes in combination with a large dissipation surface ensure best performance under high stress. With these powerful parts, ISGC-V320 can easily take loads of up to 320W.

Major ATI partner Sapphire is releasing a variant of the HD 4890 Vapor-X accelerator, with double the amount of memory: 2 GB. Being a variant, it retains the rest of the feature-set, with a blue non-reference PCB, Sapphire Vapor-X GPU cooler, and separate heatsinks over the VRM and memory areas. The card comes with clock speeds of 870/4200 MHz (core/memory), and provides output from DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort connectors. It is expected to retail in Europe for as low as 226 EUR.

Earlier this April, TechPowerUp and HIS announced the "Design Your HD 4890 Contest", to celebrate the launch of AMD's flagship Radeon HD 4890 graphics accelerator. The contest involved designing the accelerator's body graphics, an important ingredient in making the product. The winner receives a free Radeon HD 4890 accelerator with the winning design printed on the accelerator. The first and second runners up receive HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ4 512 MB, and HIS Radeon HD 4650 iSilence 512 MB respectively.

Nearly 60 days of contest time, and an overwhelming response of 314 entries later, a panel of 11 judges from HIS, AMD, and TechPowerUp selected the top three entries, along with a short list of noteworthy designs. Here are the winners:

Korean cooling specialist Zalman introduced the ZM-RHS90 heatsink specially designed for ATI Radeon HD 4890, and HD 4870 reference-design PCB. The heatsink is made of anodized aluminum. It measures 93.4 x 36.5 x 23 mm (LxWxH), and weighs 55 g. Due to the large number of Radeon HD 4890/HD 4870 graphics cards in the market using the reference AMD PCB design, Zalman expects a good compatibility range. The heatsink is mounted behind the VDDC chokes, and covers the most significant set of MOSFETs on the card. It uses push-pin retention mechanism. The use of this heatsink is recommended by Zalman, when users opt for their compatible GPU heatsinks that don't cover the card's VRM area. It will arrive at stores very soon.

AMD is preparing yet another performance-mainstream Radeon HD 4000 series SKU. The Radeon HD 4790 finds lineage from the Radeon HD 4890, currently AMD's fastest GPU. The RV790 GPU will be given a new set of specifications and memory configuration, to yield an SKU that performs better than the Radeon HD 4770, and slightly better than HD 4850. It beats us as to why it is positioned in the HD 4700 series, and not say "Radeon HD 4860", but we are too late to comment on that.

Specifications-wise, the RV790 core runs at 600 MHz, slightly lower than the RV770 in Radeon HD 4850 (625 MHz), but its performance increment over it comes from the use of GDDR5 memory. The GPU makes use of a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. It handles 512 MB of memory clocked at 800 MHz (3200 MHz effective). Being based on the RV790, it is pin-compatible with any existing HD 4890 PCB. Price-wise, it is expected to sit between the HD 4850 and HD 4870.

AMD is expected to introduce a series of price-cuts next month, for its ATI Radeon HD 4800 series graphics products. The price-cuts may amount to as much as US $50, perhaps taking advantage of the low manufacturing costs. The cuts also come ahead of the time-frame in which the company will introduce a DirectX 11 compatible future-generation of ATI Radeon, to sync with the commercial launch of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system.

When implemented, the price of the high-end Radeon HD 4890 is expected to be $199, down $50 from its current price of $249. Radeon HD 4870 will sell for $149 from its current listing price of $199, although there needs to be some clarity on how the 1 GB and 512 MB variants are positioned. Finally, the Radeon HD 4850 will enter the $100 realm, to substitute the Radeon HD 4770, which seems to be suffering an acute stock shortage.

Having hit the 1.00 GHz (core) mark with its recently-introduced Radeon HD 4890 Atomic Vapor-X, Sapphire still finds the need for a card with the Vapor-X cooler sans the factory-overclocking, leaving some headroom for enthusiasts to play with. The new HD 4890 Vapor-X uses a non-reference blue PCB, along with the Vapor-X cooler similar to that on the HD 4870 Vapor-X model. A vapor-chamber plate makes direct contact with the GPU. It conveys heat to a radial heatsink cooled by a central fan. The memory is cooled by heatsinks, while the VRM-area is cooled by a heatsink of its own.

Sapphire uses AMD reference clock speeds: 850 MHz (core), and 975 MHz memory. The card features 1 GB of GDDR5 memory. Its outputs are care of DVI, D-Sub, HDMI and DisplayPort connectors provided right on the card. The card will reach retail in a few weeks' time.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today announced a powerful addition to the PowerColor HD4890 series: the PCS++ HD4890. As an advanced version of the PCS+ HD4890, the PCS++ HD4890 has all the key features of the PCS+ HD4890, including ZEROtherm's exclusive cooling system, the fastest ever single GPU solution and a four-heatpipe design to deliver the most efficient cooling performance. The ZEROtherm cooling system provides the perfect balance between operating in a quieter environment and heat dissipation performance.

The PowerColor PCS++ HD4890 overclocking ability shines through, delivering the utmost gaming experience with its default 1010MHz core speed and 1100MHz memory speed. In order to offer the most stable overclocking platform, the PCS++ HD4890 has an upgraded PWM design through, using polymer capacitors and reducing RDS(on) of MOSFET. The result is a reduction in temperature and output voltage, providing a stable and cool overclocking solution.

There are overclocked Radeon HD 4890 cards, and then there are overclocked Radeon HD 4890 cards. The difference between the two seems to be that the latter comprises of the "real" RV790OC-class SKU that runs at speeds in excess of 900 MHz, and offers a considerable overclocking headroom. The former, is mainly partners utilizing whatever headroom standard batches of RV790 offer, to come up with factory-overclocked settings that spice up specs-sheets. MSI joined the league of AIBs making a high-end Radeon HD 4890 accelerator, keeping the 1.00 GHz core frequency as a milestone.

Following Sapphire with its Atomic HD 4890 Vapor-X, MSI seems to be readying the R4890 Cyclone. This card uses a cooler similar to what some of its Radeon HD 4870 cousins sport, while using an elaborate, yet standard power circuitry. The cooler consists of a radial heatsink from which 2~4 8 mm heatpipes convey heat to two aluminum fin blocks that are arranged on either sides of the heatsink. A fan nucleates the heatsink, although it didn't make it to the picture. Over to the PCB, MSI does away with the lavish digital PWM circuitry on the reference PCB, and in its place, put a 5+2 phase standard DPAK power circuitry. What's fascinating about this PCB is that it carries the AMD brandmark, leading us to believe that AMD may have come up with a cost-saving PCB design that is available to its AIBs. The R4890 Cyclone is set for launch in the upcoming Computex 2009 event.

Sapphire has a new high-end graphics accelerator in the works for launch next week: the Atomic HD 4890. The card features a blue reference PCB by AMD with a few enhancements, paired with Sapphire's Vapor-X cooler to keep this factory-overclocked card cool, and more importantly, quieter than the reference cooler.

What makes this card even more special is that Sapphire generously overclocked it. The core runs at 1000 MHz, and the 1 GB of GDDR5 memory at 1050 MHz (2100 MHz DDR, 4200 MHz effective). The Catalyst Control Center ATI Overdrive page shows its GPU core overlocking limit upped to 1100 MHz, from the 1000 MHz limit release-drivers were noted to come with. To sustain such high speeds, the card's VRM has been slightly expanded. The card uses an 8-pin PCI-E power connector alongside a 6-pin one. The price of this card is yet to be known.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today announced a powerful addition to the PowerColor HD 4890 series: PCS+ HD 4890. PowerColor's Professional Cooling System PLUS or PCS+, delivers the ultimate overclocking ability with GDDR5 onboard memory, 950MHz core speed and 1100MHz effective memory speed with memory data transmission rates up to 4.4Gbps, offering the power to tackle the most extreme 3D games.

PowerColor's PCS+ HD4890 features ZEROtherm's exclusive cooling system. A 52-piece designed fin and 4 heat pipes brings substance to the stylish black Ni coated surface that enhances hardness and anti-oxidizing. The PCS+ HD4890 also provides an enhanced fan control helping to automatically adjust speeds with different temperatures, allowing a better user experience.

AMD announced a platform refresh today for Dragon platform technology, including the new AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition processor. As AMD's fastest ever quad-core processor, it brings all the capabilities gamers, enthusiasts and do-it-yourselfers have come to expect from AMD, including world record setting performance, high-speed DDR3 memory support and AMD OverDrive 3.0 technology, giving users more control over their computing experience.

The Dragon technology refresh consists of the new AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition processor, AMD 7-Series chipsets and award winning ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics. With this platform refresh, AMD is combining its fastest processor with the massive graphics processing muscle of its most powerful GPU to deliver high definition video entertainment and "beyond HD" resolutions3 that allow gamers to take the latest games to the extreme.

Earlier this month, amongst extensive news and reviews coverage of the ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics accelerator, TechPowerUp in partnership with Hightech Information Systems (HIS) announced the "Design Your Own HD 4890 Contest", where we will be giving away a special HIS Radeon HD 4890 graphics accelerator with body graphics designed by you. Your winning design makes it to the first prize itself, while first and second runners up receive other great prizes by HIS.

Thanks to the great response from our readers, we have decided to extend the contest up to May 31st 2009. We are overwhelmed by the creativity many of our contestants have exhibited, some even thinking they could come up with more than three design candidates. We have therefore decided to up the limit to five, just to let you step up your chances by a good margin. For participation, contest rules, or simply to browse through the entries so far, please visit this page.

Towards the end of March, we caught a glimpse of a yet to be named high-end custom-designed Radeon HD 4890 accelerator from ASUS. The accelerator makes use of an exotic VRM design to facilitate high clock speeds and overclocking potential. Back then, we couldn't get pictures of what cooled the beast. Thankfully, NordicHardware has a few pictures of the cooler, along with more details in place.