AMD's new ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4860 and HD 4830 chew pixels with 40nm teeth
By Paul Miller 
posted Mar 3rd 2009 10:54AM
posted Mar 3rd 2009 10:54AM
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4850 vs. ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4860
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GASP! You will be mine, oh yes, you will be mine.
those bitches are tiny! and soo beautiful.
dunno, i've always had a thing for ATI graphics over nVidia...could be because of the hundred and fifty bucks I saved getting the 4850 that puts up better framerates than what nVidia could offer. Open box 4850, Sapphire version, stressed and overclocked the SHIT out of (max ATI Overdrive settings, 700mhz core and 1200 memory) and never gets over 64 degrees in COD4 or FSX, $100 shipped. Like, are you freakin joking!? No brainer.
I've also always liked ATi (except for when their catalyst software sucked - but that was years ago)
I picked up my HD4870 yesterday for $130 Canadian (about $110USD) off Kijiji. These cards are getting cheap! :) Just 3 months prior I bought my HD3850 for $90CAD.
Million Dollar Question: Can anyone tell me why "image sharpening" is grayed out on nvidia drivers? I have the 285 GTX and its grayed out. At work on my quadro FX 3500 its not.
Please keep in mind that ATI can't make 64bit drivers that work, so it's OK if you go for 32bit windows.
That's one shiny ass penny!
The pennies are so shiny and 7 years old.... I do not know how engadget does it.
2002 pennies?
Not just any 2002 penny. It's a S(an Francisco) mint penny. Limited government production for collectors only.
@IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII (BarCODE)
Wow nice catch! San Fransisco mints are pretty tough to find these days.
San Francisco is not intended to be used as currency. They are minted and sold to coin dealers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Mint
What a dumb idea to put a pretty logo on the heat spreader where it's just going to be covered up! ;-)
Brand identity shouldn't exist anymore?
Where else would you put it? It only has two sides.
You all know that is only a graphics render for advertisement and that sticker isn't on the actual product right. If you don't you guys are idiots.
I think you're probably wrong, Tarn. I'm sure they'll print the dimensions of the package, in mm, on each and ever shipped product.
This is what my 4850 looks like, I imagine it will be similar.
http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/8821/clean.jpg
Apparently winks don't go very far around here...
Heat output...? I'm assuming it's going to take a little bit more to cool these than previous chips. But damn, that's a lot of graphics performance for a portable machine.
Off-topic, i wonder how one of those would perform in a PSP2...
Not necessarily if you paid attention to die shrinks of any size the heat generated always goes down when you go smaller.
It will generate less heat. These are the new 40nm process shrinking from 55nm, so it would have a tamer power consumption than their predecessors, which fits in with the process shrink and the specs. A lower power consumption would point to a less heat being generated as well.
I know heat's supposed to go down, but with high clocks and a tight space, won't heat still be a possible issue?
Again no more than current hardware. With a die shrink from 55nm to 40nm you can run at higher clock rates and still not generate the kind of heat the older 55nm GPUs produced. That is why the 45nm processor chips can overclock on stock cooling well above 4Ghz as it would have required larger heatsinks and watercoolers to get the same results with a 65nm processors.
Two cents apiece?! im sold XD
At first I thought "What, they're using a freaking 128 bit width memory bus?" Then I was like "Oh, but they're using GDDR5." Now, I'm like "That's a very smart move for a mobile processor, as bus width really increases complexity, which you don't want for a mobile part."
Well played ATI. You promise a lot more GFLOPS than nvidia for their new 2xxM parts. You better deliver. Let the mobile graphics wars begin.
Here's hoping for a desktop version. Sounds ideal for a HTPC.
These looks great. I have a tough time getting pumped for nvidia after their 8600M bad solder/heat issues that no one seems to EVER remember or ask Nvidia about.
Big fan of 40nm, these things are going to smoke nvidia in power and heat requirements....
I'm just waiting for the 8600M GT in my lappy to blow up so i can upgrade to one of these
@Hans Gruber FTW
Just give it a dip in the bathtub.
or if u really want to blow it up, use gasoline. (it's cheaper now.)
pwn nvidia..bitch smack
Wait, I'm confused. I thought graphics cards were those huge ass things with the huuge cooling things on top. Why is this so tiny?
Those are for laptops.
You're thinking of the desktop ones.
Those are just the cores, the actual card would include things like the VRAM chips, controllers, power regulators and a bunch of other stuff.
Those are some seriously strong chips. ATI hasn't really had a great lineup of high-end mobile cards that I know of. Now I know different. Yay.
Those chips are bumpable, I hope that does not make you feel uncomfortable.
I wonder how it'll take for this to show up in tablets...sigh...
it would have been more appropriate to have a 2009 penny to commemorate the size comparisons
have any been minted yet?
"In God We Trust"... How appropriate, AMD/ATi needs all the help it can get now.
For straight GPU processing ATI is fine but if you want to make sure your hardware can take full advantage of OpenCL and GPU Compute Nvidia is the only way to go. ATI is over a year behind.