Asus Extreme Radeon HD 4850 review
Posted by Julio Franco on 23 June 2008 - 13:12 · 17 comments & 13139 views
About the Author
Full name: Julio Franco
Forum name: JulioFranco
Contact: via forum PM
Submissions: Normal · Headline
Full name: Julio Franco
Forum name: JulioFranco
Contact: via forum PM
Submissions: Normal · Headline
Slashdot It!
Submit to reddit
Submit to blinklist
Bookmark on del.icio.us
Add to furl
Share on Facebook
Add to Windows Live
Add to Google- Advertisement
-
-
#2 Posted by GP007 on 23 Jun 2008 - 13:55
- They really need to get better cooling on these cards, then they'll be perfect at that price/performance level.
-
(6 replies)
#3 Posted by +stevember on 23 Jun 2008 - 14:56
- so 4850 at $199 is faster or very similar to my 3870x2 at $370.
Ouch ebay time. -
#3.1 Posted by Skynetfuture on 23 Jun 2008 - 15:16
- (stevember said @ #3)so 4850 at $199 is faster or very similar to my 3870x2 at $370.
Ouch ebay time.
OMG !
mid range pwn High ended X2 monster ! -
#3.2 Posted by GP007 on 23 Jun 2008 - 15:49
- This is why SLi and Crossfire is kinda pointless. YOu know the next gen single card will be faster than the current dual core SLi/Crossfire setup.
And this is just the 4850, I wonder what the 4870 and 4870x2 can hit. -
#3.3 Posted by WICKO on 23 Jun 2008 - 18:25
- (GP007 said @ #3.2)This is why SLi and Crossfire is kinda pointless. YOu know the next gen single card will be faster than the current dual core SLi/Crossfire setup.
And this is just the 4850, I wonder what the 4870 and 4870x2 can hit.
Uhh, never assume something that like that. I'll buy an extra 8800GT for 60$ less and get better performance out of it:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338&p=14
From those benchmarks, you can see that 8800GT SLI gets 13 extra frames in Crysis, 24 in COD4, 10 in Bioshock (theres more games but those ones interest me the most). So, would i rather spend 140$ getting another GT or 200$ to get a slower 4850?
You're just comparing it to AMD's cards.. which have been pretty lack luster the past few gens.
Last edited by WICKO on 23 Jun 2008 - 18:35 -
#3.4 Posted by GP007 on 23 Jun 2008 - 21:29
- (WICKO said @ #3.3)(GP007 said @ #3.2)This is why SLi and Crossfire is kinda pointless. YOu know the next gen single card will be faster than the current dual core SLi/Crossfire setup.
And this is just the 4850, I wonder what the 4870 and 4870x2 can hit.
Uhh, never assume something that like that. I'll buy an extra 8800GT for 60$ less and get better performance out of it:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338&p=14
From those benchmarks, you can see that 8800GT SLI gets 13 extra frames in Crysis, 24 in COD4, 10 in Bioshock (theres more games but those ones interest me the most). So, would i rather spend 140$ getting another GT or 200$ to get a slower 4850?
You're just comparing it to AMD's cards.. which have been pretty lack luster the past few gens.
That's what i'd compare a new AMD card to, the old one. We're talking about going SLi or Crossfire, If you already have an nVidia card you're not going to bother with AMD's anyways.
-
#3.5 Posted by WICKO on 23 Jun 2008 - 23:48
- (GP007 said @ #3.4)That's what i'd compare a new AMD card to, the old one. We're talking about going SLi or Crossfire, If you already have an nVidia card you're not going to bother with AMD's anyways.
But you mentioned both SLI and Crossfire, which made me think you were talking about both brands. The same goes for nvidia cards, I would sooner get another 8800 than a new nVidia card, because the only thing that would really beat that from nvidia's lineup is a 9800GX2.
My only point is that you should check benchmarks before assuming anything. For all you know, when the 5xxx series comes out, 4850's in crossfire might beat the top of the line for a lot less cash. -
#3.6 Posted by Smigit on 24 Jun 2008 - 06:35
- (GP007 said @ #3.2)This is why SLi and Crossfire is kinda pointless. YOu know the next gen single card will be faster than the current dual core SLi/Crossfire setup.You can never say to be honest.
It took NVidia more or less two years to really beat their 8800GTX range of cards with the G280, meaning if you invested in SLI for those early on you got a very good run out of them.
[edited post so it makes more sense]
Last edited by Smigit on 24 Jun 2008 - 18:04
-
#4 Posted by zeta_immersion on 23 Jun 2008 - 15:18
- put it in a freezer .. my god, at that temp who needs a bbq?
-
(2 replies)
#5 Posted by RPDL on 23 Jun 2008 - 15:25
- If I was to buy a Radeon 4850 I'd probably also buy a third party fan for it. But other than that it looks pretty good.
-
#5.1 Posted by GP007 on 23 Jun 2008 - 15:47
- These are just the first cards though. I'd wait for the next batch with better cooling. They might be the dual slot ones, so they'll take up more space but they should also be able to clock higher. 4850 OC version!
-
#5.2 Posted by jayr0 on 23 Jun 2008 - 20:02
- (GP007 said @ #5.1)These are just the first cards though. I'd wait for the next batch with better cooling. They might be the dual slot ones, so they'll take up more space but they should also be able to clock higher. 4850 OC version!
same here looking forward to this card
-
#6 Posted by +Beastage on 23 Jun 2008 - 16:04
- Well , finally a proper review , the 4850 is good but it is not magical ... I want to see what a 4870x2 can do
-
#7 Posted by Doli on 23 Jun 2008 - 20:33
- I missed a deal to get a 4850 for $150 at best buy... grrrrrrrr.
Best buy had a special 25% off on all VisionTek cards. Some stores got the 4850 early and honored the deal even if the cards didnt ring up by getting the manager to do it.
-
(1 reply)
#8 Posted by Airlink on 23 Jun 2008 - 22:52
- It's kind of early to be benchmarking these things. The drivers for the new cards are still beta-quality and the game support for the newer games is still rather spotty. Wait a few months and look at it again.
-
#8.1 Posted by WICKO on 23 Jun 2008 - 23:51
- Don't count on that too much. I thought the same about ATI's 2xxx series, and boy was it disappointing.
Even if they are working on performance improvements, I don't think we'll see much improvement for currently released games. Usually the improvements benefit new game releases, or bug fixes. The architecture hasn't changed much.
Already the Radeon HD 4850 is shaping up to be a rather interesting product as its suggested retail price has been set at just $200, right between the GeForce 8800 GT and 8800 GTS 512. With that in mind we would normally expect this new card's performance to at least exceed that of the 8800 GT, however, looking at its specifications the Radeon HD 4850 appears as it will be capable of much more than just defeating the competition's budget king.
The Radeon HD 4850 is comprised of a staggering 800 (160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs. Compare this to the 320 (64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs of the Radeon HD 3870 and you can quickly begin to understand why we feel this card could be much more potent than current mid-range offerings. Also to be noted, the Radeon HD 4850 boasts a memory bandwidth of 64GB/s, while the Radeon HD 3870 was limited to 57.6GB/s of bandwidth.