14 DAY TRIAL // AMD's upcoming Radeon HD 4890 graphics card, which has been making an appearance on the Internet as a Sapphire-made model, has recently been listed by a Netherlands-based website with a price tag of under €259,95. There are few details on when the card will become available, but the current listing points to an upcoming official release. The card is expected to up the ante for AMD's line of Radeon HD 4000-series graphics cards, by offering a factory-overclocked version of the RV770 graphics processing unit.
According to early details on the new graphics solution, the Radeon HD 4890 is based on the RV790 GPU, which comes as a factory-overclocked version of AMD's current RV770. The card, as listed by the online reseller, boasts a core speed of 850MHz and a memory clock speed of 3900MHz. Based on a PCI-Express x16 interface, the Sapphire card has been fitted with 1GB of GDDR5 memory and is priced at €259,95.
It also appears that the PCI special interest group has just certified the upcoming card as compatible with the PCI Express 2.0 specifications.
The difference, in terms of performance, between the Radeon HD 4870 and the Radeon HD 4890 graphics cards should be relatively small, especially since the upcoming card will only provide users with slightly higher frequencies. However, according to other reports, the Radeon HD 4890 might also be offered in an X2 package. This card could become AMD's new flagship model, slowly replacing the current HD 4870X2.
The RV790-based Radeon HD4890 graphics card is expected to boast the same 55nm manufacturing technology as the company's other HD 4000-series models. The first 40nm cards will debut sometime later this year, according to recent rumors. As far as the Radeon HD4890 is concerned, the new card is expected to make a debut sometime next month, although the company has yet to confirm that.