ATI Radeon HD 4850 gets official: available immediately

Considering that we've already seen AMD's ATI Radeon HD 4850 benchmarked, it's not like we really needed some official verbiage to cement our belief that the unit was real. Nevertheless, said verbiage certainly doesn't hurt, and that's precisely what's been delivered this morning. The HD 4850 is a single-slot PCIe 2.0 card featuring 512MB of DDR3 RAM, a 625MHz clock speed, 993MHz memory speed, 480 stream processors and support for CrossFireX / DirectX 10.1. We're also told that at least Diamond Multimedia's HD 4850 is available as we speak from a number of fine retailers, thus we presume everyone else's version of the card shouldn't be too far behind.

[FrankTheCrank @ Jun 20th 2008 10:07AM]

Nice looking card. But why must they use those small 40mm fans? Those fans get so loud when they start cranking away. Yuck.

It's time to build a water cooled rig.

[Danakin @ Jun 20th 2008 10:12AM]

agreed, small loud fans...too much like hockey.

[loudthing @ Jun 20th 2008 12:50PM]

@ Danakin

A little uncalled for, don't you think?

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Jun 20th 2008 2:20PM]

I think they just give a chance to other producers to make (surely) better card.

My most hated hated problem is that the fans cannot be clean. Even in relatively tidied up room, in 6-8 month time the cooling system gets filled with dust. And the cheap design simply doesn't allow to remove it.

[Wwhat @ Jun 20th 2008 6:32PM]

Best to wait for the releases with improved coolers probably, not only is this loud but I hear the thing is hot as hell too and can use some improvement, even when it can handle the heat well and graphics cards only have to last 18 months it still seems wrong to me to have something be 70+℃ at idle.

[AC @ Jun 20th 2008 10:09AM]

awesome. this card is quite tempting, but I'll probably wait for the 4870

[Flashpoint @ Jun 20th 2008 10:11AM]

These things are far behind the Nvidia 9000 series.

The bottom line...DOES IT RUN CRYSIS?

[Redstripe @ Jun 20th 2008 10:26AM]

Who said they are far behind the nvidia? You gotta look at benchmarks before you open your mouth.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=580&type=expert&pid=4

And yes, it does play Crysis. In fact it has slightly better performance than the BFG 9800 GTX 512 which is the same price.

[Brian @ Jun 20th 2008 10:28AM]

You sir, have Failed.

Can people not give this a rest?

[broli @ Jun 20th 2008 10:29AM]

Ranking you down

Check!

Bashing you...

Maybe you should pull your head out of your ass and familiarize yourself with the current state of things.

Check!

Wasting my time on some e-tard.

Double check!

[ethana2 @ Jun 20th 2008 10:51AM]

Even if it was 10% less powerful than nVidia's offering at the same power level, I'd go AMD in a heartbeat.

They know what they're selling.
hardware.
nVidia doesn't seem to have that figured out yet, and it has some pathetic and ugly consequences.

[Ninjakamster (PS360 FTW!) @ Jun 20th 2008 11:16AM]

Your mom can't run Crysis.

[Blastar @ Jun 25th 2008 3:44PM]

I 've got the HD 2900XT 512MB with an Intel Q6000 and I run Crysis at 45 fps.
Don't think that Ati are not good cards.
The ultra expensive models might be better that the half priced Ati cards but if you measure that money per power the Ati are far more in the frond than Nvidia ones.

[Jason @ Jun 20th 2008 10:15AM]

OT: Does ATI still make crappy drivers?

[Justin @ Jun 20th 2008 10:19AM]

ATI's poor driver days are long, long past. They've been releasing an new Catalyst driver _every_month_ since the Radeon 9700 series.

Generally speaking, ATI's drivers may actually be a step up from nVidia's, at least on Windows platforms.

[ethana2 @ Jun 20th 2008 10:53AM]

Linux user here, AMD has done a complete turnaround, releasing
1. quality same day catalyst drivers
2. hardware specs

We have awesome open source drivers being made for their cards which get better each and every day.

If their windows drivers are better too, well, good for you guys.

[Wwhat @ Jun 20th 2008 6:34PM]

No they now make poor installers instead :/

[babydill @ Jun 20th 2008 10:16AM]

there is about 6 different manufacturers producing the 4850 card and newegg.com is sell all of them as of Jun 19th

[Justin @ Jun 20th 2008 10:17AM]

Far behind the 9000 series? Shut your mouth, fanboy.

The 4850 is on-par or above the 9800 GTX (see extremetech's benchmark analysis), AND nVidia had to drop the GTX $70 down to $200 so it could compete.

This card is at or above the 9800 series, and at a much cheaper price than nVidia previously was offering.

[initialxy @ Jun 20th 2008 10:30AM]

agreed, not to mention that 4870 will be significantly better.

[leo @ Jun 20th 2008 10:36AM]

Does anyone know what type of Power supply this will need? I have 400W currently. Not sure if that is enough. Dont want to do OverClocking.


Also, for those who are interested, today (maybe today only) www.live.com is giving 15% off on Ebay buy now options. This card is on ebay (search for HD4850 not HD 4850) for under $200. Also I got an email from Ebay today morning for 10% off Coupan. That makes this card around $156 including shipping. VERY VERY TEMPTED to buy this card.

[kjb434 @ Jun 20th 2008 10:49AM]

400W would be pushing it. You may want to go higher....

[Usagimaru @ Jun 20th 2008 6:13PM]

I think I saw a benchmark review that said you needed 450W. But if your PSU is high quality it will probably be ok to run it. Try using the 'power supply calculator'

[leo @ Jun 20th 2008 11:15AM]

This is the Ebay Coupon Code : CJUNE0810P
I just used it and the Live.com cashback.

[rlynd3 @ Jun 20th 2008 11:59AM]

@leo

Thanks for the heads up on the discounts!.. come to papa 4850 :)

[phanbouy @ Jun 20th 2008 1:13PM]

come to Butt-head

[k.j. @ Jun 20th 2008 10:44AM]

Does anyone know what type of Power supply this will need? I have 400W currently. Not sure if that is enough. Dont want to do OverClocking.


Also, for those who are interested, today (maybe today only) www.live.com is giving 15% off on Ebay buy now options. This card is on ebay (search for HD4850 not HD 4850) for under $200. Also I got an email from Ebay today morning for 10% off Coupan. That makes this card around $156 including shipping. VERY VERY TEMPTED to buy this card.

[OneLove @ Jun 20th 2008 10:45AM]

Nvidia FTW!

[ethana2 @ Jun 20th 2008 10:53AM]

No.

nVidia can go screw themselves.

[MojoKid @ Jun 20th 2008 11:16AM]

More details and performance numbers here:
http://www.hothardware.com/News/ATI_Radeon_HD_4850_RV770_Sneak_Peek/

[alur @ Jun 20th 2008 12:17PM]

There's some crossfire tests at http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338 as well :)

[.alur @ Jun 20th 2008 12:19PM]

There's some crossfire benchmarks as well at http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338

[Vasileios Georgitzikis @ Jun 20th 2008 11:13AM]

engadget:

its 800 stream processors thank you very much :)

[disophisis @ Jun 20th 2008 4:55PM]

I was going to say that as well. 800 vs 480... someone must have messed up somewhere.

[wrabbit @ Jun 20th 2008 12:02PM]

Well, this is still not "nvidia killer" as it were but it does seem like ATI (ain't calling them AMD yet, just not ready) is picking up the pace and is on the right track to giving nvidia run for its money once again. That's good news in my book.

Now let's see what AMD can do in regards to Intel.

[Ninjakamster (PS360 FTW!) @ Jun 20th 2008 12:07PM]

Since there's several manufacturers making the same card at about the same price, does it matter who I buy it from or can I just pick the prettiest one? ; )

Do some manufacturers make the same card better than others, like Asus vs MSI or Gigabyte, etc.?

[Will @ Jun 20th 2008 12:22PM]

Make sure you check out the warranties. Some are generic, some are pretty amazing. Take EVGA for example. They offer a lifetime warranty, which allows for overclocking, replacement of the stock cooler, and pretty much whatever you want to do to the card, as long as there's no physical damage to it. If you make it light on fire, you're in trouble, but aside from that it's a fine deal.

Just don't forget to register online for coverage with 30 days of purchasing.

[Bunson @ Jun 20th 2008 12:28PM]

Testing comment system.

[Wwhat @ Jun 20th 2008 6:36PM]

I like the avatar :)

[sinai @ Jun 20th 2008 12:32PM]

this just means i can get my second 3870 that much cheaper.

[Paul @ Jun 20th 2008 1:05PM]

Wow, look at the power consumed by these cards at IDLE! I never really thought about how much power these things consumed, but just sitting there doing nothing consumes 150W of power (and this is considered a good figure compared to the competition). That's a huge amount of power consumption, especially if you leave your PC on most of the time and (like me) rarely even get the chance to test the cards capabilities with gaming. I wasn't surprised to see the near 200W draw at load, but 150W at idle is (should be) quite alarming to anyone actually paying their own electric bills.

Seems like I read somewhere (probably here) that a manufacturer was developing some sort of "hybrid" card that utilized a low powered mode for most things and then kicked in the big boy in only when needed for high powered work. To me, this makes a lot of sense and should perhaps be in the near future for all of these cards. Certainly something needs to give to allow us occasionally gaming green-minded (and not infinitely wealthy) folks to sleep well at night.

[futurepastnow @ Jun 20th 2008 2:14PM]

That 150W figure is total system power consumption. These cards are actually very efficient at idle compared to a couple of generations ago.

[Wwhat @ Jun 20th 2008 6:38PM]

Comparative (Total system) power consumption as tested by legitreviews: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/731/17/

[ShadowKain @ Jun 20th 2008 1:49PM]

Glad to see AMD throwing up a little competition to the 9800 GTX line of Nvidia ( even though I choose Nvidia). I saw the benches not long before I saw this here. Keep fighting AMD, Nvidia LOVES competition. (see release of gtx 280 :).....)

[Morten @ Jun 20th 2008 4:49PM]

I love that fan design its so cool :D

[Morten @ Jun 20th 2008 4:50PM]

i would buy it just to play with the fan O.o