AMD Radeon HD 4290 On Linux

Last week we delivered benchmarks of the AMD Athlon II X3 425 processor running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS while this week we are continuing in benchmarks from this triple-core budget processor as we try out its gaming performance when paired with an AMD 890GX motherboard boasting integrated Radeon HD 4290 graphics.

The ATI Radeon HD 4290 is AMD's newest integrated graphics processor that was introduced two months ago and it supports up to OpenGL 3.3, the core runs at a 700MHz clock, DirectX 10.1, 40 shader processors, UVD2, Hybrid CrossFire X, dual video streams, and supports DisplayPort / HDMI / DVI / D-Sub connections. While the IGP carried the RS880D codename, it is not an R800 / Evergreen derived IGP but is based upon their older but still excellent R700 generation. The AMD 890GX Chipset where the Radeon HD 4290 integrated graphics can be found on newer AM2+ / DDR2 and AM3 / DDR3 motherboards. Aside from boasting AMD's newest integrated graphics capabilities, the 55nm built 890GX can also provide up to 14 USB 2.0 ports, Serial ATA 6GB/s (when used with a SB850 Southbridge), PCI Express 2.0, and will work with AMD Phenom II / Athlon II / Phenom / Athlon processors. There is also the AMD 880G chipset with the same Radeon HD 4290 graphics core but it is running at a lower (500MHz) clock speed.

For benchmarking the ATI Radeon HD 4290 graphics under Linux we compared its performance to the discrete Radeon HD 2400PRO, HD 2600PRO, HD 3650, HD 4550, HD 4650, and HD 4670 graphics cards. The test system consisted of the AMD Athlon II X3 425 overclocked to 3.21GHz, an MSI 890GXM-G65 motherboard, 4GB of OCZ DDR3 system memory, and a 250GB Seagate ST3250310AS Serial ATA hard drive. On the software side was Ubuntu 10.04 LTS with the Linux 2.6.32 kernel, X.Org Server 1.7.6, and the ATI Catalyst 10.4 display driver.

Benchmarks that we ran for this comparison with the Phoronix Test Suite included Warsow, VDrift, Nexuiz, and Lightsmark. While AMD continues to improve their integrated graphics processors, at least under Linux they still are not up to the speed of being able to handle the Unigine engine well and other demanding OpenGL games.