iXBT Labs take a further look at the ATI RADEON HD 4890 1024MB card. This graphics card is somewhere between RADEON HD 4870 1GB and HD 4870 X2 in terms of performance and price, but closer to the former, of course. The new product is positioned against GeForce GTX 275, which corresponds to the recommended price of $260.

I'd like to say that the graphics card from HIS (that we have actually received from AMD) worked at 900 MHz instead of 850 MHz (core). However, we decided to use typical frequencies (as it was a reference product, not an overclocked one). That's why all our tests were run with the 4890 operating at the nominal 850/975 MHz. We'll consider those 900 MHz to be a deviation. We are looking forward to production-like Turbo cards with increased frequencies (the same concerns the GTX 275).

Now to the point. RADEON HD 4890 has apparently reinforced the 4xxx family from AMD, bringing it real close to the single-GPU flagship from NVIDIA -- GeForce GTX 285 (it's actually the 4870 X2 that was designed to compete with it). Besides, GeForce GTX 260, which used to compete with the HD 4870 well, is apparently outperformed by the new product.

It would all have been great, and we would have praised RADEON HD 4890, but for NVIDIA launching a new competitor -- GTX 275. It's almost just as powerful as GTX 285, but it's equipped with a 448-bit memory bus instead of a 512-bit bus (so its memory volume is reduced from 1024 MB to 896 MB).

Our tests show that GTX 275 is a good product. But let's keep in mind two things: (1) it will be a limited edition, while the 4890 card comes in bulk; (2) we'll publish the GTX 275 review a tad later, where we'll analyze aspects of the new AMD-NVIDIA confrontation.