The clock speed on XFX's HD 4890 Black Edition is a bit of a record breaker - it was the first retail graphics card to reach the dizzying heights of 1GHz. Thanks to 1GB of very tasty (if expensive) GDDR5 RAM, its also hit 4GHz for memory frequency too - m,aking the Black Edition something of a cash-strapped enthusiast's wet dream... To further demonstrate its prowess it actually beat the GTX 285 by a single frame with 1920 x 1200 and Enthusiast settings.

Magazine issue number 25

A bargain, even in today's competitive market. Very high overclocking card with a strong bundle and free game (HAWX). This card would also earn a performance award based on our manual overclock.

XFX have been the single most successful graphics card manufacturer over the course of Driverheavens award history as they often combine killer performance with very reasonable price points and market leading end user support... we know from past history that XFX pick all the cards for their XXX series very carefully, so if our final clocks of 970 core and 1070 memory are anything to base a purchase on, this could well be one of the most best overclocking cards to get your hands on.

When looking at performance versus price, the XFX Radeon 4870X2 wins in every single one of our benchmanrk. This underlines its position as the best value video card for owners of large full-HD monitors.

Magazine publication Issue 22

For the first time, we have tested and XFX card not coming from Nvidia. HD 4850 650M 512MB DDR3 DUAL DVI TV PCI-E XXX with its long name is actually the famous Radeon HD 4850 but with that special XFX flavor. XFX guys used their own cooler, ended up using different PCB painted black, overclocked the card and sell it at about €140.

This card is the 9800 GTX+’s direct competitor, and XFX HD 4850 XXX is a capable cards that beats it in quite a couple of tests. You can find the reference HD 4850 at about €120, but XFX’s card comes with an overclocked core, dual slot cooling that will add to the card’s overclocking potential, and a name that says you didn’t make a mistake in buying this card, as XFX once again proves it’s a force to be reckoned with.

On that note, we sincerely recommend the HD 4850 650M 512MB DRR3 DUAL DVI TV PCI-E XXX, as the HD 4850 still has one of the best price/perofrmance ratios out there.

“This is the third XFX Radeon that we have tested and it is without doubt the most impressive. It has a great looking colour scheme between the red DVIs and black PCB and the cooler looks good when compared to the standard ATI design. It is not just all about looks though as the thermal performance under load is exceptional, especially considering the low noise levels.

Gaming performance of the 4850 XXX is also very good and the card is able to keep pace with the more expensive GTS 250 and in some cases even manages to exceed it.

Another strong point for this product (and all recent Radeons) is the ability to function as a media card. Whether it is the excellent Blu-Ray acceleration or the ability to output video and 7.1 audio via HDMI consumers will not be disappointed...”

Magazine Publication, Croatia.

Review In Swedish.

But when HL2 was fired up, you will see that this value card still held its own against the faster videocards. In reality, you wouldn't see much in the way of a difference in gaming if you had a decent processor and motherboard.…Far Cry 2 results was the result of ultra high quality settings and with a few tweaks, the game will be playable. The card certainly held its own even when hammered with 8X AA and 16X AF with maximum detail settings… when all is said and done, this is still a great card and remember that XFX's customer service is second to none when fixing a problem if something goes wrong with the product's construction.

With the XFX HD4770 we think we're seeing a shining beacon that delivers far more than can be expected in this class. At the same time we're also looking at an optimized cooling solution from XFX that not only makes the card lighter than the reference design but also makes it even less noisy than the already very quiet reference cooler from ATI...

XFX HD4770 kicks our Tweak'O'Meter to a clean top-grade of 10.0 for a graphics card that delivers far more than expected in regard to both performance, bundle and price. Competing in a very aggressive marked segment XFX HD4770 still manages to stand out from the crowd. Not only is the performance of a single card top notch compared to the price, but used as a multi-GPU setup you're truly getting great bang for the buck. To make the deal even sweeter you also get a newly released top game title at no extra cost.