Testing:

For comparison purposes, the Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon HD4890 1GB graphics card was tested against the following other cards:

» Leadtek Limited WinFast 896MB GTX260 EXTREME+
» Sapphire 512MB Radeon HD4770
» Sapphire 512MB Toxic Radeon HD4870
» Sapphire 512MB Vapor-X Radeon HD4850
» Sparkle 512MB GeForce 9800 GTX+

All Radeon based cards used the Windows 7 64-Bit approved version of the Catalyst Control Center version 9.5. All Nvidia based cards used the Windows 7 64-Bit approved version of Forceware 185.85 (and PhysX was enabled).

The tests to be executed include one synthetic benchmark, four benchmarks included with 3D games, a look at the Windows 7 Experience rating, some power consumption testing, and thermal testing. Each card was run through the following tests, and the system was rebooted between each run.

» FutureMark 3DMark Vantage
» World in Conflict (DirectX 10)
» Crysis (DirectX 10)
» Lost Planet (DirectX 10)
» Company of Heroes (DirectX 9)
» Windows 7 Experience
» Thermal Testing
» Power Consumption Testing

FutureMark 3DMark Vantage:

FutureMark's 3DMark Vantage was the first test to be executed, and higher values are better for all results reported. The complete suite of tests was initially executed in "Performance" mode, which uses a 1280x1024 resolution. Thanks to some extra PhysX/CPU help the GeForce GTX260 beats the Radeon HD4890 at stock speeds when it comes to total score, but when overclocked the Radeon HD4890 is the winner. Just looking at the GPU scores you can see that the Radeon HD4890 holds the edge at stock speeds and while overclocked.