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MSI Radeon HD 4890 1GB OC Graphic Card Review

Author: William West

Factory overclocking has become a mainstream offering among most of the top video card mfgs and why not?  Gamers are always looking to get the most from their systems and hardware enthusiasts will always look for the best hardware components to assemble the perfect system.  MSI has created a great deal of a card that combines both of these into a single package.  The MSI Radeon HD 4890 OC is factory overclocked for increased performance and is sold at the normal retail price.  Still the overclocking potential hype of the HD 3890 didn't live up to what Ninjalane was expecting.  The meager overclock rendered a little more untapped performance but nowhere near what was rumored.  However with any overclocked product mileage varies so you have to take what you can get.

After running the MSI Radeon HD 4890 through our benchmarking suite and various hours of gameplay a beast of a single core card emerged.  In most benchmarks the card fell behind our reference systems but never by a huge margin and when you consider the price difference that margin tends to be erased.  Overall the MSI Radeon HD 4890 1GB OC card will make any gamer happy even on the most extreme of gaming resolutions. For those looking to get even more out of their systems you have the flexible Crossfire technology that is less restrictive when it comes to linking GPUs together especially when compared to SLI technology.

Great gaming experience at extreme high resolutions
Price to performance ratio is very good
Good overclocking potential
Factory overclocked for no extra cost
Able to play most modern games with all setting turned all the way up
Built in High-Def Audio for HDMI pass through

Not as fast as the GeForce GTX 275 in many of the games tested
Overclocking hype did not live up to expectations

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