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- Date:
- Monday , August 03, 2009
- Author:
- Matthew Krysiak
- Editor:
- Brent Justice
- Google +1
ASUS EAH4890 TOP Video Card
Based on the Radeon HD 4890 GPU, the new ASUS EAH4890 TOP has numerous improvements over the reference design, including a new cooling solution and improved power circuitry. We compare it against a reference Radeon HD 4890 and a GeForce GTX 275 in the latest games including Call of Juarez Bound in Blood, Ghostbusters, and Demigod.
Introduction
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. is one of the largest and most successful computer hardware manufacturers in the world. A Taiwan-based company, they manufacture a wide variety of computer hardware, including motherboards, video cards, optical drives, notebooks, networking equipment, and barebones desktop and server systems, among many others. In 2006, their products received 2,168 awards from various enthusiasts and IT related media outlets. Their over 100,000 employees shipped 55 million motherboards in 2006; that means one in three desktop PCs sold in 2006 were powered by an ASUS motherboards.
Today we are going to be focusing on ASUS’s premier Radeon HD 4890 model: the EAH4890 TOP.
ATI Radeon HD 4890
The AMD Radeon HD 4890 was launched on April 1, 2009. It is powered by AMD’s latest generation GPU the RV790. Its forbearer, the RV770, can be found on the Radeon HD 4870 and 4850 series of video cards. Meant to take the place of the HD 4870 as AMD’s fastest single GPU video card, the reference frequencies have been increased on the HD 4890. The GPU clock rate increased by 100MHz to 850MHz and the memory clock rate has increased by 75MHz, for an aggregate data-rate frequency of 3.9GHz, which is 300MHz over the Radeon HD 4870.
ASUS EAH4890 TOP
For those looking for an out of the box boost in performance compared to a reference HD 4890 the EAH4890 TOP is one that can answer the call. ASUS has increased the GPU frequency by 50MHz to 900MHz and the memory by 100MHz to 4GHz. While this isn’t the most impressive increase in frequencies that we have seen it does have other unique attributes. The EAH4890 TOP that we have on our test bench today represents a major change to ASUS’s HD 4890 line. The previous EAH4890 model they offered was a mainly a reference HD 4890 with the addition of "Voltage Tweak." This new line we are evaluating today includes "Voltage Tweak" but also has a few other notable upgrades: the cooling solution has changed to a dual fan solution, they are now using Super ML capacitor technology, and the video card now uses an 8-pin and a 6-pin auxiliary power connectors (instead of just two 6-pin.)
The EAH4890 TOP comes in a box that is 16"x9.5"x3.5" and uses a hellish theme with a knight on the front. The front of the box also prominently displays several key attributes about the video card.
The first icon notes the use of six 230mm heat pipes and promises to keep the video card 10c cooler, we will test this later. The next icon notes the use of Super ML capacitors. These capacitors essentially do the same thing as the usual electrolytic capacitors except they are able to filter out unwanted fluctuations in the GPU supply voltage: This could lead to higher overclocks.
The final icon of special note on the front of the box is "Voltage Tweak". "Voltage Tweak" refers to the ability to adjust the Vcore on the video card from 1.2 to 1.45 inside of the ASUS SmartDoctor utility. Our stock Vcore was at 1.312 and ASUS SmartDoctor allowed us to increase it or decrease it by .001 increments.
Frankly, the EAH4890 TOP won’t win any beauty prizes for looks. The plastic shroud that covers the heatsink is matte black and the two (90mm and 80mm) fans both have red blades to add some accent. ASUS has also done away with the standard red PCB board and has used a black one. The head of the video card has the standard exhaust port, two DVI ports, and an S-Video port. It is also worthy to note that unlike some upgraded cooling solutions we have seen in the past, the exhaust port is actually used with the heatsink ducting air to it.
On the tail end of the video card is something unique for the HD 4890, one 8-pin and one 6-pin auxiliary power connectors instead of the two 6-pin connectors. Also on the tail end is a 3-pin and 4-pin fan header, while they probably could have gotten away with just a Y-cable.
On the back of the video card we can see one of the Super ML capacitors right between the PCI express pins and the back of the GPU. The video card comes with the basics: a Driver CD, a speed setup guide, a DVI to D-sub adapter, a DVI to HDMI adapter, a two 4-pin to 6-pin power adaptor, a two 6-pin to 8-pin power adaptor, a HDTV cable, and a crossfire bridge. It also comes with a mouse pad that has the ASUS logo embossed in it though it is a little small for gaming at only 8.5" by 7".