Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel i7 920 @ 3.8GHz (190MHz x 20)

Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P (Supplied by Noctua)

Motherboard(s): GIGABYTE EX58-UD5 (Supplied by GIGABYTE)

Memory: 3 X 2GB OCZ Technology PC-12800 DDR-3 8-8-8-24 (OCZ3G1600LV6GK)

Hard Disk(s): Western Digital 300GB Velicorapter (Supplied by Western Digital)

Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2, Windows Vista SP1 64-Bit

Drivers: ForceWare 182.06, Catalyst 9.2, Catalyst 8.14.10.0647 (HD 4890)

With a new card we always like to compare it against everything that it should be going up against, along with the card it's taking over from. We will be seeing how much extra performance the HD 4890 gives us over the predecessor, the HD 4870, while also seeing how it compares to some of the top single GPU performs from NVIDIA like the GTX 285 and GTX 260; both of which are hot models for the green team.

3DMark Vantage

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.1

Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com

Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmarkvantage/

Buy It Here

3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware.

3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.

In our first test we see a good jump in performance when compared to the HD 4870. Performance here is a fair bit slower compared to the GTX 285, but this is mainly due to the fact that the NVIDIA offering makes use of PhysX which gives a big boost in performance.