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Sapphire HD4890 1GB Atomic PCI-e Video Card Test Methodology: To test the Sapphire 4890 Atomic, we used the same test bed as the 4890 Toxic, as well as the same tests. We will also take a long look at the overclocking capabilities of the Atomic.
Here is a recap of our tests:
Overclocking:
One area that I expected the Atomic to be substantially different from the Toxic is in the realm of overclocking. While the Atomic runs 40MHz over the Toxic, the Atomic is supposed to represent the absolute best of the best. I would hope that the Atomic is capable of clocks over and beyond even what the impressive Toxic is capable of. Auto-Tune has been very impressive lately, and on the Atomic, it was again very close to achieving the true maximum clock. Auto-Tune got us up to 1050MHz on the core and 1160MHz on memory. By confirming the overclocks in Furmark, we found that the maximum overclock is 1045MHz on the core and 1075MHz on the memory, except on Crysis where clocks had to be reduced to 1035MHz on the core and 1065MHz on memory. While Auto-Tune did overshoot the memory clock by quite a bit, having it nail the core clock within 5MHz is pretty impressive. What has been a little disappointing, however, is that the overclock of the Atomic is almost identical to the overclock of the Toxic, netting a mere 5MHz more on the core, and 5MHz less on memory. The big question at hand then, is the headroom of the Atomic and the Toxic the same? Or perhaps the Toxic sample I received is an exceptionally good overclocker? Or even worse, is the Atomic sample I received sub-par? Only time and the results of more cards will effectively tell what the truth is. One interesting detail in all of this, however, is in the reported vGPU of the Toxic and Atomic cards. The Toxic hit its overclock at a reported 1.4V, while the Atomic did it in only 1.3625V. One potential advantage the Atomic Edition could have had is software support for voltage tweaking, which may have made a more profound effect in the final overclock. Of course, since the Atomic uses the same cooling setup as the Toxic, the cooling performance and ambient noise is essentially identical.
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