Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 2GB Vapor-X Video Card Review

Conclusion

Without a doubt, the Sapphire HD 4890 2GB Vapor-X is a good all-round card which can really pump out the framerates in literally any game on the market today at any resolution. That in itself though speaks volumes about the current state of the PC gaming market’s influence on the design and construction of both current and future GPUs. When a sub-$300 card can play new games (and upcoming games) fluidly at extreme resolutions with both AA and AF enabled, one really has to wonder if there is any reason at all to consider higher-end cards at all. This in effect displays exactly what we have been saying for a while now: when it was released, the HD 4890 hit a sweet spot in the market and it can still claim to be king of the hill when it comes to the price you pay for performance.

While I can talk all day about the value to be had within the $200 to $300 price segment with both the GTX 275 and HD 4890 competing head to head, this review is about Sapphire’s 2GB version and as we already stated, it has a lot going for it. The additional memory clock speed allows it to maintain a good lead over the reference card in most games but we have to remember that the architecture itself can be a major bottleneck. Other than performance, Sapphire has made sure to include every other bang and whistle in order to make sure customers get the most for their money. A good accessory package as well as both HDMI and Display Port outputs along with a dedicated VGA port are all major selling points.

The main benefit of this card though is its heatsink. The Vapor-X technology allowed Sapphire to take a card with an obscenely loud reference cooler and make it into a thing of near-silent beauty. To make matters even better, the low amount of noise goes hand in hand with very respectable cooling performance. I just wish it could have contained the hot air without pushing it into the interior of the case.

Unfortunately, we have to inject a bit of a reality check into this Sapphire love-in since there are some factors which contribute to drag our opinions down a bit. It is painfully obvious that 2GB looks great on paper but in reality it has little to no effect on gaming. Granted, there are some instances where the larger framebuffer does come into effect but as testing went on, it became more and more obvious that the HD 4890’s core is anything but starved for memory bandwidth even with the reference 1GB. The Extreme tests did end up demonstrating that doubling the framebuffer can have its advantages but is the approximate $60 to $80 price premium for this card worth it? Maybe it will be to some people but not for us.

With so much emphasis being put on the efficiency of the Vapor-X cooler, we expected Sapphire would have taken full advantage and binned their cores for higher clocks. This wasn’t meant to be and we end up with card sporting a measly 20Mhz pre-overclock on the core which is frankly a little insulting considering the cooling potential. In addition, I never mention actual overclocking experiences since it is usually based on luck of the draw rather than card design but we are far from the only ones claiming lackluster core overclocks with this product.

As you can probably tell, our opinions about the HD 4890 2GB Vapor-X ranged wildly from loving it to questioning a few of Sapphire’s design decisions. While it may not be the greatest value around, it will definitely give the performance you crave without breaking the bank. This is what we would call a good card topped with an excellent piece of technology by way of its Vapor-X cooler. As such, it gets our Dam Innovative Award.

Pros:

- Good performance
- Well-rounded accessory package
- Amazing cooling potential
- Quiet

Cons:

- 2GB of memory mostly pointless
- Price
- 2 year warranty