Reviews - PowerColor's HD 4850: ready to punch above its weight

[HEXUS]

We test PowerColor's HD 4850 to see how the 'little card that could' stacks up against its rivals.

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[Zak33]

SWEET SPOT!!

[Lee @ SCAN]

These are Bargain Cards...

So much so, Carlh has just bought a 4850

[kalniel]

Shame about the choice of games again in this article - see feedback on the last one for some suggestions. Otherwise good review and nice card.

Can you (or someone at SCAN maybe?) verify the package at retail matches what you reviewed? So many cards reviews say they come with PowerDVD for example but when you open them up at home it's missing.

[stevie lee]

stop tempting me to raid my ISA.. quit dangling these shiny cheap fast cards infront of me.. you're so cruel HEXUS..

still at least theres nehalem to look forward too... AAARGH!!!!

I'm going out of my tiny little fragile mind at the moment.. down to my last backup mobo, cpu and graphics - I'm desperate to upgrade.. and you HEXUS keep tormenting me with all this graphical goodness.. that i can't afford..

when are the 4870x2's out, is it still end july/start august?.. I might buy 2 - might last another 7 years like my recent PC did..

[Carlh]

Originally Posted by kalniel

Shame about the choice of games again in this article - see feedback on the last one for some suggestions. Otherwise good review and nice card.

Can you (or someone at SCAN maybe?) verify the package at retail matches what you reviewed? So many cards reviews say they come with PowerDVD for example but when you open them up at home it's missing.

As Lee stated I bought the Sapphire version of this card yesterday, it came with the following accessories

S Video Cables

DVI to HDMI Adapter
DVI to DSub Adapter
Driver Disc

All the other bundles of the 4850 I belive come with the same accessories as it looks like the UK got the "lite" versions.

If you do buy one of these cards -I would recommend that you create your own profile in the Catalyst manager as the default profile has the fan set really low so the temps were 75C on idle - I created my own profile and set the fan to 50% minimum and the temperature decreased to 54C - at least until updated drives come out for the 48XX Range of cards

[kalniel]

Thanks for that Carl, maybe it'd be handy for Hexus to mention that the bundle they reviewed isn't what you buy in the UK.

[Michael H]

I believe Tarrinder did mention in the Sapphire review that the UK was likely to get a 'lite' package different from the one reviewed.

In terms of the Powercolor card reviewed here, I think it's pretty safe to say you'll get the bundle shown.

[CK_1985]

I still can't get over just how good these cards are.

I've only ever bought green team before but I can safely say that if I were looking for a new graphics card right now (which I'm not as I'm still happy with my faithful old 8800GT!) I wouldn't think twice about switching sides.

nVidia have definitely lost this round and the real winners, as always when there's a power shift like this, will be the consumers.