Asus Radeon EAH4890

Manufacturer: Asus
UK Price (as reviewed): £224.24 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed): $259.99 (ex. Tax)

Core Clock: 850MHz
Memory Clock: 3,900MHz (effective)
Memory: 1GB GDDR5
Warranty: Three years parts and labour

The Asus EAH4890 card is set at the stock Radeon HD 4890 speeds, but that doesn't stop it from making a rather awesome box. Normally we all whip the new hardware out and chuck the box away, however Asus's compartmentalised black and gold design gives a positively sublime feeling, and the impression it's worth the money put into it.

Inside the box there is:

• Drive and Manual disks
  
• Active DVI to HDMI adapter (with audio passthrough)
  
• DVI to VGA adapter
  
• Molex to 6-pin PCI-Express power adapter
  
• CrossFire bridge
  
• Component breakout cable
  
• Composite adapter
  
• Asus leather mousemat

We'd highly recommend downloading the latest Catalysts from AMD itself, as always, but at least Asus drops in plenty of connectivity in the box. It's missing an HDMI cable that some premium bundles offer, and the mouse mat is cute but far too small to really use.

Asus's card uses a reference design with custom image over the top only. It comes with a three year warranty, which is slightly longer than many other ATI partners.

PowerColor Radeon HD 4890 PLUS

Manufacturer: PowerColor
UK Price (as reviewed): Around £235 (inc. VAT) for the PLUS model, £209.99 (inc. VAT) for stock.
US Price (as reviewed): Unknown, $249.99 (ex. Tax) for stock

Core Clock: 900MHz
Memory Clock: 3,900MHz
Memory: 1GB GDDR5
Warranty: Two year parts and labour

PowerColor, or rather AMD, dropped in its pre-overclocked HD 4890 to us, but unfortunately it was the bare card only so the box shot below is a pre-rendering from PowerColor itself.

Inside the box there is:

• S-Video to component cable
  
• CrossFire bridge
  
• DVI to HDMI
  
• DVI to VGA adapter

The bundle is pretty much the same as Asus, except without the leather mat. PowerColor's PLUS model comes pre-overclocked by 50MHz on the core, totalling 900MHz, but keeps the same stock cooler. With a two year warranty the PowerColor card doesn't have much in the way of a long term investment, but when you consider the rate of graphics depreciation - in two years you'll likely want to upgrade anyway.