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CNET editors' rating:
3.5 stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 4.0 stars out of 5 reviews
- See all user reviews
Product summary
The good: Respectable price-performance, more so in dual-card mode; flexible, single slot design.
The bad: Competing (and pricier) Nvidia card is faster; runs very hot.
The bottom line: AMD's new ATI Radeon HD 4850 is a solid midrange 3D card that will run pretty much anything, and it boasts some forward-looking features to boot. It might be worth waiting for the price to drop just a bit, at which point this card will become much more attractive.
Specifications: Graphics Processor / Vendor: ATI Radeon HD 4850; Max Resolution (external): 2560 x 1600; Video Memory Installed: 512 MB; See full specs
Price range: $189.99 - $281.99
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 06/24/2008
- Released on: 06/25/2008
As a standalone 3D graphics card, and depending on the game, AMD's new $199 ATI Radeon HD 4850 is very competitive with Nvidia's $229 GeForce 9800 GTX+. What's potentially more exciting is that the 4850 also seems to scale better in dual-card Crossfire mode than anything Nvidia has for the same price. It's also only a single-slot card, which gives you more flexibility in the kind of system you can use it with. Physical convenience aside, if the price on the 4850 falls to the $150 range (which is very possible), it will be time to get legitimately excited about the sheer value found in this new card. Right now, it's only a pretty good standalone part. If you're looking for a relatively inexpensive dual-card upgrade, however, the Radeon HD 4850 is worth getting excited about right away.
The Radeon HD 4850 chip is AMD's second 55 nanometer part, and on paper, it seems to compare well with the GeForce 9800 GTX+.
| ATI Radeon HD 4850 | GeForce 9800 GTX+ | |
| Price | $199 | $229 |
| Manufacturing process | 55nm | 55nm |
| Core clock | 625MHz | 738MHz |
| Stream processors | 800 | 128 |
| Stream processor clock | NA | 1,836MHz |
| Memory | 512MB | 512MB |
| Memory speed | 993MHz | 1.1GHz |
The specifications to notice here is the stream processor count and the stream processor clock speed. The stream processors paths are essentially where the 3D graphics magic happens. Therein the card processes all of the geometry, the various shaders, and other components of the scene. It's also where the card-based computing takes place, about which Nvidia has been making a lot of noise over the past few months. AMD has its own implementation of GPU processing, which we'll get to shortly.
We wish we could track down the shader clock speed for the Radeon HD 4850. The driver software doesn't report it, and we couldn't get AMD to provide us with a number. Its 800 streams look impressive compared with the GeForce 9800GTX+ 120 count, but that might not matter as much if the Radeon HD 4850's speed is significantly slower than the 9800's 1,836MHz rating. The results in our performance charts make us think that whatever Radeon HD 4850's stream speed is, that's probably the case.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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2,048x1,536 (4x anti-aliasing, 8x anisotropic filtering) |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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1,600x1,200 (high quality) |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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1,600x1,200 (high quality, low water, 4x anti-aliasing) | |
1,600x1,200 (high quality, low water) |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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2,048x1,536 (4x anti-aliasing, 8x anisotropic filtering) |
As usual, Sarju Shah at GameSpot was kind enough to share his test results with us. From a single card perspective, we find the Radeon HD 4850's Crysis scores average, its Team Fortress 2 scores outstanding, and its Call of Duty 4 scores unimpressive. On the whole, we translate those scattershot results to mean that for most games, the Radeon HD 4850 will provide acceptable performance, even on a 24-inch LCD at their native resolution. Smaller displays and resolutions will run very smoothly, although in every case you'll likely need to dial down the image quality settings. You may also feel a noticeable performance crunch around the end of August or the beginning of September when we expect a fresh crop of challenging PC titles.
Continue reading- See more CNET content tagged:
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 4.0 stars out of 5 reviews
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Where to buy
Diamond Viper Radeon HD 4850:
$189.99 - $281.99
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
|---|---|---|---|
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$195.49 | Yes |
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$281.99 | Yes |
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$209.95 | Backorder |
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Buy.com
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$189.99 | Yes |
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NothingButSoftware.com
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$206.98 | Yes |
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