XFX Radeon HD 4890 OC XXX 1,024MB
Here's the XFX Radeon HD 4890 OC XXX 1,024MB.
Don't bother looking for meaningful physical differences between this OC and the XT version: they aren't there. Take away the XFX branding and, outwardly at least, it's an identical card.
The mojo here is that ATI will be selling - at a slight premium we guess - Radeon HD 4890 GPUs that are the pick of the bunch; screened to perform at even-higher speeds. That's why the OC variant GPU is pre-rated to 900MHz, representing a 50MHz jump over XT and 150MHz (20 per cent) over HD 4870. Memory speeds, however, are set at an XT-matching 3,900MHz, although ATI gives partners free rein to clock their respective cards in at higher frequencies.
XFX's XXX Edition, which is ostensibly a Radeon HD 4890 OC 1,024MB, ships with 900MHz/3,900MHz clocks.
There are rumours that ATI's partners will be launching 1,000MHz core/shader and 4,000MHz GDDR5 memory OCs, but XFX plays it safe.
The packaging for the card is kind of cool, too.
Summary
A faster-clocked model of the HD 4890 family, the OC part, productised as an XXX Edition by XFX, should cost around £230, with the GPU buy-in premium passed on to the consumer. How about NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 275?
