XFX HD 4890 XXX 1GB PCIe Graphics Card

Packaging & Appearance

This is perhaps the first time I have come across such a box design, if indeed you can call it a box. The X shape is very striking to look at and the box design must surely have been developed from a master or Origami as getting an X shape like this must take some doing. The outer design is very appealing being gunmetal grey and red with faux screws holding the package together.

The front of the box displays the bare essentials such as product name and 1GB of DDR5/ATI CrossfireX technology emblems. Nowhere on the box that I could see though were the usual XXX stickers, something that will no doubt be rectified for retail versions. Flipping the box over we get a more in depth specification list as well as XFX advising you to register the product to take advantage of their industry leading 5-Star Support program.

 
box front box rear
 
Here’s where things went a little awry. Opening the box, without tearing the nicely designed sleeve eventually got the better of me so after 5 minutes of head scratching and a few expletives, I gave up and just tore into it. While it’s all very well designing a nice looking box, it just felt wrong tearing it open like that. I guess it’s the Yorkshire man in me that thinks about the resale value before even using the item at hand. Once I made a few strategic tears, I did figure out that it was possible to open it up without tearing but alas the moment had passed and my patience had dwindled.
box side box inner

So here we have another interesting design, the ‘box through a box’ perpendicular style, again forming an X. This time, it was much easier to get into the contents with one box sliding out from another. The lower box, contained 2 section with the upper section containing the accessories, user guides and the lower compartment holding the graphics card itself.

box open accessory box
 

The accessories are both complete and comprehensive. Two user guides were provided along with a support CD. Sadly the support CD didn’t have any drivers on it, instead it simply guides you to the XFX website. While this is a good prompt to use the latest available drivers, I can only hope that the drivers are available on launch as the most recent CAT 9.3’s were not compatible. Finishing off the accessory list were a DVI/VGA adaptor, an HDMI adaptor, 2×6-pin to dual Molex connectors, a crossfire bridge, the included HAWX game and a novelty ‘do not disturb’ sign.

accessories manual
 
Finally we get to see the card in all its glory. Being based on a reference design, XFX have not fixed what isn’t broken and so simply added there own branding to the plastic cooler top. In fact the more eagle-eyed among you may well notice the original sticker can just be seen around the edges. The rear of the card is a mass of SMD’s and screws with a small backplate holding the copper triple heatpiped cooler to the GPU.
 
card front card rear
 
The connectivity of the card is a standard dual slot affair with 2xDVI ports and a TV out port. I would have liked to have seen colour coded DVI ports as with some of the XFX Nvidia cards but that’s a minor issue that can easily be rectified in future releases. At the power end of the card we see that ATI have managed to stick to the 2×6-pin PCIe power ports rather replacing a 6 pin with a more powerful 8-pin ensuring that users of older PSU’s can still take advantage of this card.
dvi pcie
 
The card has two Crossfire tabs ensuring the card is CrossfireX compatible (something we will put to the test in a later review). On the back of the card is a multitude of SMD’s and power/fault indication LEDs (red). In the centre of the card is a small backplate held down by four spring loaded screws.
crossfire side 2

The cooler was easily removed thanks in part to the simple way the cooler is attached. The paste used is nigh on perfect both in consistency and amount and ensured the GPU got very good mount. Thermal pads were chosen to provide convection of heat from the memory chips and power regulators.
cooler paste
 
Qimonda DDR5 chips are the memory chips used on the XFX4890XXX card we reviewed today which should ensure some excellent overclocking ability. Below right we see the GPU core itself which while not being reduced in die size, it has had a number of tweaks, again hopefully improving the overclocking possibilities of the card as well as increased the stock speeds of the card.
memory gpu
Based on the reference design, the XFX 4890XXX card is nothing out of the ordinary to look at. Sure the packaging is very interesting and the accessories are excellent but I would have liked to have seen a little more originality with the card itself rather than a change of sticker. Being a XXX version I was surprised to find there was no indication of this anywhere to be found on either the packaging or the card itself save for the advertised clockspeed.

Enough of the aesthetics, let’s take a look at the cards overclocking abilities and the test setup used for todays review…