Just look for the X(FX) on the shelves!
XFX won the position of Top Graphics Card Vendor in our Hot 100 poll in issue 100, with its performance and great support being the most noteworthy and most often mentioned things that the company does well. This card is technically similar to the two ASUS 4890s that we looked at a little while ago, but as you'll see in a very short space of time there are some fundamentally different - and awesome - changes.
It's based on the same RV790XT chip that we went into detail about, but in case you need a refresher it's a chip manufactured on the 55nm process. Eight hundred shader units chomp through graphical information, while the 256-bit memory bus keeps the gigabyte of GDDR5 filled to the hilt with chunks of delicious oozey data. It also features the same Decap ring that every RV790XT chip has, which aims to provide extra stability at high clocks with the relatively small addition of three million extra transistors.
Since this is the XXX edition, the card runs a stock overclock of an impressive 50MHz on the core, while the memory speeds remain the same. Already increased over the RV770, this is pretty good to see. Not only does it have this overclock out of the box, it's also warrantied for the stock overclock (and they won't know easily if you decide to push it further either, if you don't mention it).
Physically the card is pretty impressive, following a similar design to the past high-end cards from ATI - a large translucent red shroud, complete with big sticker on the top. This one has some generic metal, as well as the XFX logo. Underneath this is a large copper block that mounts on the core of the card, with three heatpipes and a large aluminium heatsink to draw the heat away then radiate it. A powerful squirrel-cage fan sits at the end, which inhales cool air and exhales it out the back of your rig - most of it, anyway. We took one of these cards apart online, and this one is put together identically.
The design allows it to trundle along at idle with a temp of 58 degrees Celsius and 56.9dBA, though this rockets along to 70 degrees and a rather loud 72.8dBA. Oddly this seems to be due to the fan deciding to wait slightly longer than usual to increase in speed, only doing so at the last minute to VROOM out the heat building up. Being a 4-pin PWM fan means you can take control and adjust this through software, however.
We weren't quite satisfied with the factory overclock, so instead we pushed it 'til it squealed at us, then pulled off a fraction and were left with final clockspeeds of 965MHz core, and 985MHz memory. While it's only a tiny increase on the memory, the extra speed on the core was better than the ASUS cards could manage.
Performance for the card was very nice, topping ASUS' scores by 500+ on 3DMark06, more than 400 on Vantage and getting higher average frames in Crysis (admittedly this was only like one frame per second extra, so you won't notice it at all, but it counts!). Overclocking increased the performance even more, while still remaining stable under load.
The bundle is quite nice, providing all the cables and drivers that you'd need as well as a full copy of HAWX. It's packed into a giant X shape - literally an X, which will look incredibly attention-grabbing on the shelves and the best part? The price is low enough to only be a $50 jump from the basic cards, which gives you an overclock and a game.
Issue: 109 | February, 2010