ATI Radeon HD4850

[Kryten]

Is starting to appear in the shops.

Not a bad buy for anyone in the market. Getting lots of crap sites through with worrying benchmark differences. Some are reporting performance and power consumption near identical to the 8800GT, where others are citing a 65% increase in speed. That's a hell of a lot of difference, but either way sounds like it might be worth keeping an eye on.

The only thing ATI didn't have in mind (nor most of us) is nVidia's 9800GTX+, a die shrunk part for a similar price which could well blow it back out the market. I've yet to see any useful information on the latter though, but I keep hearing that it's the next 8800GT. I'm not so sure just yet...

 

[Lethul]

Im intressted in the 4870 myself, and i wanna see how the 4870x2 will perform

Planning on getting a new comp after the summer, hopefully will have a lot of benchmarks and stuff to go buy then and let me settle between 4870 and 9800gtx+

 

[Kryten]

Saw a couple more sites this morning, the results appear to have started to level out in the 4850's favour. So yeah, the 4870 would be another interesting thing to see. Could be another good year

 

[Kryten]

Here we go:
HD 4870 - £240 inc VAT
Scan Computers UK: 512MB HiS HD 4870, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), 3600 MHz GDDR5, GPU 750 MHz, 800 Cores, 2 x DL DVI-I/HDTV

HD 4850 - £130 inc VAT
Scan Computers UK: 512MB Gigabyte HD 4850, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), 1986 MHz GDDR3, GPU 625 MHz, 800 Cores, 2 x DL DVI-I, HDTV

But is there £110 worth of juice extra in the 4870? Time will tell.

 

[TdC]

by cores I presume they're what the other camp call shaders?

/clueless

 

[inactionman]

Pretty much.

The 4870 price is a bit inflated at the moment, due to a lack of availability (July is when it's expected in large numbers). They should be well under £200 by mid-july. Plus there's a 1Gb version coming out, and the 1Gb 4870x2 (and maybe a 4850x2) in august.

 

[Mazling]

Pretty much.

The 4870 price is a bit inflated at the moment, due to a lack of availability (July is when it's expected in large numbers). They should be well under £200 by mid-july. Plus there's a 1Gb version coming out, and the 1Gb 4870x2 (and maybe a 4850x2) in august.

I for one will be watching benchmarks and prices for these new ati cards, like a hawk ;-) Ati seem to have become that bit more competitive ... certainly until this GTX+ appears.

 

[Yaka]

ati seems todo things in cycles, after this they will prolly go back to releasing crap cards compared to nvidia for a couple of years then come out with another nifty chipset.

 

[Helme]

I hope for AMD/Ati's sake that this is their new 9800, they sure need it and nVidia needs to be dislodged sometime

 

[Kryten]

Aye. Don't really want anyone to be dislodged though, if there's a decent choice then people can use a "preferred brand" without losing out on performance or price.
All's looking good though

 

[Kryten]

9800GTX+ vs 4850

Legit Reviews - ATI Radeon HD 4850 Versus NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ - Battle For Mainstream Market Share

Interesting article complete with benchmarks. As usual, I take them with a tongue in cheek value. The gaming benchmarks are reasonably similar between the two, but 3DMark2006 results showing a much stronger result from the GTX+, coming out nearly 2000 PenisMarks in front. Sound's like a touch of driver fiddling going on there

Article is still certainly worth a read if you're after the general specs and direct comparison between these two cards. Whichever you buy, it doesn't look as if you'd be too dissapointed.

 

[Helme]

Aye. Don't really want anyone to be dislodged though, if there's a decent choice then people can use a "preferred brand" without losing out on performance or price.
All's looking good though

I more meant it as competition improves overall quality, and the tougher the competition the better products and prices for us

 

[Helme]

AMD ATI Radeon HD 4850 Crossfire Force 3D & PowerColor


Holy crap! look at the performance of this card, and it's basically HALF THE PRICE of the 9800GTX and performs equally good, I'm extremly impressed by ATI at the moment and I'm seriously considering Crossfireing 2 of these cards when I get money later this year, they are truly stunning performance wise, and looking back at older cards they also managed to cut the power consumption 30%(!).. nVidia is in for a tough time I believe, especially considering this is the 'budget' card, can't wait to see how the 4870 performs.

 

[Kryten]

Aye, but it's going to have a tough time up against the GTX+ when it's out for a similar price. Interesting to see yet again how the benchmarks fluctuate between these different sites, and more so when you start ramping up the detail and resolution.
Certainly looking very good though, especially looking at crossfire performance, then of course once the GTX 200 nVidia series matures, prices will drop a tad more

 

[Helme]

Obviously prices will drop but that goes for the 4850 aswell, and the 2nd generation of the chips will probably impress even more.

 

[inactionman]

So the 4870 reviews are out, and they look bloody good. OCUK have some in stock, but the prices are rediculous.

I think I'll wait until the 1Gb versions are around, and the prices drop a bit (end of July I hear).

 

[Wij]

I have an X1950-XTX. Would a 4850 be noticably quicker ?

 

[TdC]

yes. I recently installed one in a mate's pc and it even seems quicker than my 8800GTS o0












edit: though my 88'does run at 1920x1200 and his 4950 runs at 1280x1024

 

[Kryten]

It's definitely quicker than a GT or GTS alike Stonking bits of kit even now time is passing by a bit.

 

[Wij]

I run my radeon 1950xtx at 1920x1200 all the time as it's native rez. might consider an upgrade if it's going to be noticably quicker / quieter / less psu drain...

 

[TdC]

well I don't know about power consumption Wij. methinks it will be around the 150-200W mark under load but I'm sure there are websites who have actually checked it.

 

[Wij]

Looks like more wattage

Think it'd be wise to upgrade PSU first...

 

[TdC]

what's the rest of your system like? Intel's newest will be out end of year, but that will prolly entail a psu/mobo/cpu/ram upgrade for you o0

 

[Helme]

SweClockers.com - Artikel: Höstens grafikkort


Pretty much lists all this years cards power and heat output


edit: viloläge = idle.

 

[TdC]

awesome! well there you have it Wij; a 4850 will take anything between 200 and 320W under load depending on what it's clocked at.

Thanks Helme!

 

[Wij]

what's the rest of your system like? Intel's newest will be out end of year, but that will prolly entail a psu/mobo/cpu/ram upgrade for you o0

Core 2 6400
Gigabyte mobo (DS3 ?)
2gb Giel 800MHz
X1950 XTX
300Gb SATA HD
500Gb USB2 HD
Fatal1ty sound card
Antec Sonata Case + 400W PSU

I used to run overclocked by 50% but the mobo seems barmy now (last year or so) and won't post at anything other than default settings (even 1MHz over/underclock)

I guess I need a new PSU before anything else really.

 

[TdC]

hmm well if you think your mobo's on the blink perhaps replacing that as well. you can prolly get a P35 based mobo for not a lot, though I would recommend it's bigger brother the P45.

A psu with some more oomph can be a pretty hefty upgrade, pricewise, if you're looking to get a good one I guess. Still, it will be a worthwhile investment as you will be able to carry it over into whatever system you will be getting round about next upgrade time.

I also have the Sonata case, but I got the 550 with ditto psu so I guess I will be ok yet, I have no issues with the current setup (Q6600/4gb/8800GTS/4x750GB spinpoints)

 

[Helme]

awesome! well there you have it Wij; a 4850 will take anything between 200 and 320W under load depending on what it's clocked at.

Thanks Helme!

The 320W HD4850 was actually in Crossfire, so I think the highest was like 230W?


Anyways, you can click 'Nästa sida' and see results in different games/3d marks, the tests include an 8800GT card and you can see it's quite a big difference.

--

edit again: The Antec Sonata 3 case actually has the most price-worthy PSU on the market considering you get it with a really good box, it can actually output 560W(!) for extended time without any problems at all, if the older version is anything like it I believe you'll have no problems at all running a 4850 on it as long as you have the proper card power connectors.

Else the Corsair 450W PSU is really cheap, and will run it with no problems at all, for a more futuresafe PSU you might want to look at the Corsair 650W as it comes with the extra grapic card connectors for SLI/Crossfire, which with a HD4850 is a given upgrade in the future when the card price drops down below £70 or so, so I would really take this into consideration if you were also to get a new motherboard, maybe the Asus P5Q-E or Pro?

 

[TdC]

yeah getting an SLI or crossfire ready board seems good future-proofing tbh. having said that, I have also had some SLI's from the get go and I'd never get a complete set right off from the get go again, but a little speed boost after a year or two seems worth it.

 

[Ch3tan]

Damn you all!

Wij let me know how you get on if you upgrade without changing the components.

I have the same components at you, but I never overclocked for long, so my board is still happy too.

The 1950xtx has served me well, but dawn of war 2 is around the corner, and running it a 1920*1200 may put a bit of strain on things