Asus HD4850 512mb PCI-E Graphics Card EAH4850
Test Setup & Overclocking
Published: 30th June 2008 | Source: Asus | Price: £120 |
Test Setup
A common mistake made when benchmarking graphics cards is that the rest of the PC system isn't sufficient enough to test the GPU to its limits. This results in a bottleneck situation, where the system can only run at the speed of its slowest component. For this reason, the test configuration chosen below has been specially selected to give each of the graphics cards on test the headroom they require in order to produce the best results.
A selection of games and benchmark suites has also been chosen to test each of the cards with several game engines. Each of the cards will be run at both low and high resolutions with varying levels of texture filtering to represent the use of the card with both small and large screen sizes.
3DMark05
1024x768 / 0xAA / 0xAF (Default)
1920x1200 / 4xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / 4xAA / 0xAF
3DMark 06
1280x1024 / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / 4xAA / 0xAF
3DMark Vantage
1280x1024 / Performance Mode
1900x1200 / Extreme Mode
1280x1024 / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / 4xAA / 0xAF
3DMark Vantage
1280x1024 / Performance Mode
1900x1200 / Extreme Mode
Quake4
1280x1024 / Ultra / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920x1200 / Ultra / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920x1200 / Ultra / 4xAA / 4xAF
Unreal Tournament III
1280x1024 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
Call of Duty 4
1280x1024 / Max / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920x1200 / Max / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920x1200 / Max / 4xAA / 4xAF
F.E.A.R
1280x1024 / Max / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920x1200 / Max / 4xAA / 0xAF
1280x1024 / Max / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920x1200 / Max / 4xAA / 0xAF
BIOSHOCK
1280x1024 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1280x1024 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
Crysis
1280x1024 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
With the new architecture, we really wanted to grab a 9800GTX to compare straight to the HD4850, so we added this to a nice list of other cards to help you see what its performance is like compared. Interestingly, it is supposed to go up against the 8800 GT's of this world, but really a 9800 GTX is clo.......OK we'll leave that bit until later :)
A recent feature to enter the Overclock3D GPU review system is the "Cost per FPS" scale. This scale gives a rough indication of which card offers the best bang per buck based on the price of each card at the time of this review. Looking in some e-tailors, we found that the Asus HD4850 was listed at a pretty sweet £141 @ SCAN, so we can see how this adds up below:
Overclocking
Using only the the ATI Overdrive™ facility built into the driver control panel, the maximum overclock we were able to obtain from the HD4850 was 750mhz on the core and 1120mhz on the memory. Going any higher than this caused random system freezes, overheating and visual corruption issues during testing. Benchmarking at the overclocked speeds produced the following results in 3DMark Vantage:
The overclock was most certainly worthwhile, with the "Extreme" 1900x1200 results in Vantage shooting up by over 500 points and the "Performance" score by an even more impressive 1268 points. Now let's move onto the rest of the benchmark results...
Most Recent Comments
Been spying on this review for a while 
.
So its not the most powerful card in the world. But it can be had for £120. VFM wise i can't see anything better atm. Rather tempting to pick up 2.
.So its not the most powerful card in the world. But it can be had for £120. VFM wise i can't see anything better atm. Rather tempting to pick up 2.
Looks like a great card, wonder if i can Crossfire them on my commando.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by name='nunzio'
Looks like a great card, wonder if i can Crossfire them on my commando.
|
Aye, just worried about the fact they might need PCI-e v.2
Nice review m8. Looks like ATI are slowly clawing back some performance.
very nice looking cards 
XFX should come across to the Red camp
i think XFX and ATi would make some damn fine cards together..
but yea, nice
good review
XFX should come across to the Red camp
i think XFX and ATi would make some damn fine cards together..
but yea, nice
good review
lol yeah XFX ATi cards would be the best.
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT....its about time ATI stopped cowering behind the bikesheds...it bodes well for the 4870 and x2 derivitives.....
Great review as ever Jim, the cost per frame is simply staggering on this card, much lower than nvidia 
Awesome review and card really. ATi bringin back VFM, nuff said really
It is really tempting to get one of these, and then get another for crossfire at a later date.
Great reviews as always!
Great reviews as always!
Not to bad a card really, performance is goodish... but price, WOAH!
For £120 that is a smoking card!
I think I might have to buy a 4870x2 when they come out, ati seems to have won this round
I think I might have to buy a 4870x2 when they come out, ati seems to have won this round
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by name='Mr. Smith'
For £120 that is a smoking card!
I think I might have to buy a 4870x2 when they come out, ati seems to have won this round |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by name='Mr. Smith'
For £120 that is a smoking card!
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by name='nunzio'
Looks like a great card, wonder if i can Crossfire them on my commando.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by name='Jim'
8x 8x config might not work too bad with these cards actually. Especially at the price. Doesn't matter too much if you loose a few fps thru PCI-E bottlenecks
|
The HD 4850 is by far the best card VFM wise recently. I think it'll be even more of a hit than the 8800gt. Unless nVidia drastically reduce the price of there 9800gtx to the same or lower price level.
The Hd 4850 appears to beat the 9800gtx and the 8800gtx in most games. I was thinking of upgrading my 8800gts 640mb to a 8800gtx, but I'm glad I didn't as this card is cheaper and performs better.
I showed the card to my bro, and with a little persuasion I made him buy it. He'll be happy with it hope fully, upgrading from a x1950pro lol.
Also he got the HD 4850 for about £115 delivered from pixmania.com, hasn't arrived yet though.
Great review Jim, as always. 
The price/performance ration is clearly top with the 4850, but I’m looking more in the direction of the 4870 for my self.
It would be nice to see, how a 4870 performs against the gtx260 in a battle review
.
And now that there will also be a black edition 4870 that can go over 1Ghz with its cpu, nvidia will have a hard time.
Better cards from ati, lower price for us, at least I hope nvidia will lower their prices.
The price/performance ration is clearly top with the 4850, but I’m looking more in the direction of the 4870 for my self.
It would be nice to see, how a 4870 performs against the gtx260 in a battle review
. And now that there will also be a black edition 4870 that can go over 1Ghz with its cpu, nvidia will have a hard time.
Better cards from ati, lower price for us, at least I hope nvidia will lower their prices.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by name='cl0ck_ed'
I think the commando is actually 16x/4x. The 4x bus of the second slot is too crippling to performance. I was looking at two of these cards for crossfire on the same board and after researching crossfire on the p965 chipset there is little point. Best to sell the commando and buy a x38 or x48 mobo.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by name='cl0ck_ed'
The HD 4850 is by far the best card VFM wise recently. I think it'll be even more of a hit than the 8800gt. Unless nVidia drastically reduce the price of there 9800gtx to the same or lower price level. The Hd 4850 appears to beat the 9800gtx and the 8800gtx in most games. I was thinking of upgrading my 8800gts 640mb to a 8800gtx, but I'm glad I didn't as this card is cheaper and performs better. I showed the card to my bro, and with a little persuasion I made him buy it. He'll be happy with it hope fully, upgrading from a x1950pro lol. Also he got the HD 4850 for about £115 delivered from pixmania.com, hasn't arrived yet though. |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by name='Jim'
For most P965 boards that would be true, but the Command actually has a "Crosslinx" chip that splits the bandwidth of the first PCI-E slot into 8x/8x when running cards in Crossfire.
Bloody hell thats a good price |
For the cheap price, sign up to Quidco, and you get 5% off at pixmania, you can also get money off at Misco and Novatech.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by name='cl0ck_ed'
Are you sure? Can’t find that anywhere. On the asus site it says 16x/4x. Sure your not thinking of the Blitz.
For the cheap price, sign up to Quidco, and you get 5% off at pixmania, you can also get money off at Misco and Novatech. |
Blitz has the Crosslinx, Commando is x16 and x4
looks very nice. how does it compare to the 8800 gts in practice? It seems to have much better stats.
I have a question about it.... I'm interested in putting this in a lower end pc, to keep me going until Xmas for a new pc build.
The specs are roughly:
Antec p150 case w/ neo430w psu
2gig DDR Ram
bunch of hdds
MSI 7800gtx (256meg)
Amd 3800x2 cpu (oced from 2.0ghz to 2.4ghz)
With the bottleneck of both the ram and the cpu, will I still get a reasonable boost in games, with their fps?
It's cheap enough to buy if I get more than a say, 30fps jump.
The specs are roughly:
Antec p150 case w/ neo430w psu
2gig DDR Ram
bunch of hdds
MSI 7800gtx (256meg)
Amd 3800x2 cpu (oced from 2.0ghz to 2.4ghz)
With the bottleneck of both the ram and the cpu, will I still get a reasonable boost in games, with their fps?
It's cheap enough to buy if I get more than a say, 30fps jump.
CSS Valid
http://www.overclock3d.net/gfx/artic...213733164s.jpg
Asus HD4850 512mb review
By Kempez & Jim (dont ask)