VisionTek ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB GDDR3 PCI Express Graphics Card 900241
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- 512MB GDDR3 memory
- DirectX 10.1
- ATI CrossFireX multi-GPU support for highly scalable performance (Use up to four discrete cards with an AMD 790FX based motherboard)
- PCI Express 2.0 support
The VisionTek ATI Radeon HD 4850 brings the power of graphics, supercomputing to gamers, setting a new standard for visual computing. Redefine the way you play and take HD gaming to the extreme with best-in-class performance. The new TeraScale graphics engine delivers an immersive, cinematic gaming experience. Add this GPU to your PC and watch Blu-ray movies and play HD content with incredible visual fidelity. Do it all with break-through efficiency that doesn¿t compromise performance.
Sapphire Video Cards
VisionTek ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB GDDR3 PCI Express Graphics Card 900241
List Price: $ 124.99
Price:
Great card but terrible drivers,
At the 200 dollar price point, your choices right now (August 2008) are basically the HD4850, and the 9800GTX (or 9800GTX+). Both cards are excellent values for the price, but ultimately I went with the 4850 for two reasons. The first reason is that the 4850 is single slot (compared to the 9800GTX being two slot, and a bit longer I believe). The second is that the 4850 doesn’t use as much power as the 9800GTX (and I’m using it with a 430watt Antec power supply, which is lower than the recommended 450watt for the 4850.)
The reason I give the 4850 4 stars and not 5, is that ATI has released this card (and let it sit for a month now) with drivers that do not work. What I mean by this, is that the drivers don’t properly tell the fan on the card that it needs to spin, when the temperature of the GPU core gets to a certain temperature. The result of this is that the card will idle at 90 celcius, and go over 100 celcius at load (which is not good, trust me). The problem applies to all 4850’s and 4870’s regardless of manufacturer. Luckily there is an easy way to up the speed of the fan (I set it to 40%, and I now idle at 60 celcius, load at 70) to get the proper cooling. I don’t however think that the problem has gone away, as there is no reason a fan should have to spin at a constant 40% speed (which will wear out the fan eventually) to achieve the proper cooling. The 4850 needs to slow it’s clock speed when not in use to reduce heat (the speed of the GPU and Ram) which it currently does, but not enough. Ultimately the 4850 probably needs to be converted to a dual slot card with a proper heat sink (you can find cards from Sapphire and MSI with after market heat sinks applied. They should be the norm, not the exception).
As for performance, I can now play Crysis on High at 1080p without the framerate ever dipping to unplayable rates (something that I couldn’t even come close to doing with my old 7900GT). Basically, if Crysis will run at 1080p, any other game on the market will, so that should give you some idea of the performance of this card (for an in-depth look, I suggest googling for “4850 benchmarks”)
One last thing; This card comes with it’s own HDMI audio drivers. Unfortunately, these drivers disable your onboard audio, which will then require you to re-enable them in the bios. This is great for a home theatre PC, but not so great for someone that wants to be able to listen to things over headphones, while still having the option of using the HDMI audio. If I didn’t know how to re-enable onboard audio in the bios (most people wouldn’t), I’d have been left without any audio other than HDMI (which isn’t a big deal I guess. My reciever has a headphone jack, but the headphone port on my PC is in a more convienient position)
All things considered, the 4850 is easily the greatest 200 dollar graphics card I have ever purchased. It will play anything on the market at 24″ monitor resolutions (1920×1200, or 1920×1080) with no problem (except Crysis if you enable Anti-Aliasing, which you don’t need to do in Crysis anyway. Even the 450 dollar GTX280 from Nvidia has problems with Crysis and AA) which is saying a whole lot considering that in generations past, you needed the top of the line, wallet destroying graphics card to even consider gaming at those resolutions. Whether or not you should go with ATI’s 200 dollar card, or Nvidia’s 200 dollar card, is really all up to you. For my money though (and most of the enthusiast press’s money) the ATI 4850 is currently king at the price, and will probably stay there until Nvidia comes out with a product between the 9800GTX+ and the GTX 260.
One last thing (I promise). If you are looking for an ATI card, and are wondering which company to buy from (Sapphire, Visiontek, MSI, Asus, Powercolor, etc) I suggest Visiontek for the simple fact that Visiontek has the longest warranty of any of ATI’s board partners. Basically if anything (that isn’t your fault) goes wrong on the 4850 for the life of it, VisionTek will either fix your card, or send you a replacement. Most of the other companies max out at about 3 years, so if your card were to drop dead in 3 years and 1 day, you’d be out of luck. Just my two cents (Full disclosure: I’ve had Sapphire cards that worked fine for years, EVGA cards that worked for years, Pny cards that worked for a day, MSI cards that worked for a week etc. There are failure rates with all computer components, so if you get a dead card, don’t freak out. Most, if not all, of the approved ATI or Nvidia vendors will gladly send you a replacement card)
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|Excellent product!,
Well, I can’t say much about this product that isn’t good. It’s a matter of perspective as I upgraded from a VERY old computer (almost 5 years). Also, this is my first experience with ATI cards, which made me a little reluctant at first, but I’m a very happy camper now.
But, that being said, here they are:
Pros:
1. FAST card. All of the games I’ve played are running excellent in full settings. I am, however, still running on a 17″ LCD, meaning max of 1280×1024. However, that should be good enough for any average gamer. I am expecting to purchase a 22″ monitor and maxing out at 1600×1050, but understand the card should run anything available at the market right now at maxed settings.
2. Excellent price. It’s amazing how video card prices have dropped exponentially for good cards, and that’s a plus for customers.
3. Limited lifetime warranty. As far as I’ve researched, this is the only Radeon card manufacturer that offers a lifetime warranty.
Cons:
1. After being installed, I couldn’t even install Windows on the new computer because it was overheating. The problem turned out to be the fan needed a little “push” to start running. No problems after that!
2. VisionTek’s customer service was slow in responding to my inquiries regarding the overheating, and didn’t offer much troubleshooting or really professional communication. However, after explaining all of the trouble (and a 10-email chain back and forth) and troubleshooting, they offered to RMA the card for the warranty. However, since I live outside the US there aren’t any non-expensive ways of doing this. If VisionTek reads this, I’d suggest offering other types of support for customers in trouble.
All being said, the card is running in an excellent way in Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit without any visual trouble 🙂
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|visiontek hd 4850 ….the fire of performance,
It is the new hd 4850 …the card is nice and have great performnce and price.u can maximize your settings and play smoothly..but not on crysis..
and this is not a big problem..the only peoblem is that it runs very hot..when i first tried it..the temperature was 80 c at normal and 95 c durimg playing..but u can incrase the speed of the fan to 50% and then it will be cool and the fan still silent..if u increased it over 65 it gets very noisy..if u have a large case with powerful power supply and good cooling system,u can overclock this card easily..
it is a very good choise for 200$$..
enjoy
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