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: Catalyst 9.5

Today we'll see how this overclock affects overall performance when compared to a stock clocked card like the ASUS HD 4890 Voltage Tweak we looked at recently. We'll also see if the ATOMIC version of the HD 4890 from Sapphire runs any cooler, quieter or manages to draw more or less power than a reference design card.

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 the extra MHz on offer yields a pretty nice performance increase. The best increase can be seen at the higher X setting.