HD 4850 review thread.

Is there any clue to when the first cards with modified cooling could come ?

 

that'd be the Sapphire or Asus 4850 1GB version and.. i'm not sure itf it's out already.

http://en.expreview.com/2008/07/04/the-sapphire-hd-4850-in-blue-breeze/#more-508


Asus 4850 1GB with Zalman cooler, release date July 30th:
http://videokaarten.centralpoint.nl/asus/90-c1cl55-l0uay00z/eah4850-htdi-1g/?ref=1


though this site: http://azerty.nl/producten/product_detail/518/85362/asus-eah4850-htdi-1g.html has the release date a week earlier at July 23rd.

So. .a good 2 weeks then?

 

Thanks.

1GB seems like an overkill though.

 

Depends.

 

Honestly. If I were in the market for a card. A 1 gigabyte 4870 seems like the best idea from the ATI side of things. While ATI may manage its memory better((I cant confirm or deny that)). I think 1 gigabyte has longer staying power. Its my biggest problem with the 9800GX2 and 9800GTX + cards. Being 512 megs memory limited.

After doing some tests with the 9800GTX + SLI. I just cant help but feel 512 megs limits its potential. Just like the 9800GX2. With performance levels of the HD4850/4870, I dont think 1 gigabyte is overkill at all.

 

You got an HD4800 with 1 GB?

 

I can't believe I'm about to say this - I agree with you ChrisRay.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go change my pants....

 

Digit Life has their usual, in-depth review finally translated and ready to digest.
http://www.digit-life.com/articles3/video/rv770-part1-p1.html

 

That would be very cool to see in a working Quad Crossfire configuration. Be interesting to see 8x Numbers at 2560x1600 with 4 of those GPUS running in AFR.

 

Is the heating up really an issue. I am about to buy the Sapphire HD 4850 512mb card. The reviews say it reaches 80degrees under load! I don't have air conditioning in my room, will it be a problem? I am buying the Cooler Master Centurion 590 cabinet with an extra side fan 140mm near the GFX card. Will it run stable?

 

They are designed to run at these temps.

 

For how long, exactly? *SCNR*

You have to understand that people are a little sceptic about this when their CPUs are at full alert at oftentimes under 80 degrees centigrade and in case of a GPU are told not to worry. Are CPU-makers all whimps and GPUs are the only ICs with balls?

 

It seems heat tolerance of CPU's and GPU's has been trending upwards. I still remember my old P4 2.4c that would immediately lockup at anything higher than 50 degrees centigrade. Yet my new Core 2 Duo E8400 is happily running along at around 65-70 degrees centigrade.

Still, if my video card didn't vent out the back of the case, I'd be worried about all that heat dumped into the case. My experiences with heat + HDs = much more failed HDs.

That's the number 1 reason I couldn't justify getting a 4850.

Regards,
SB

 

So, would a 120mm fan next to the 4850 on the side of the cabinet solve the problem? Will it be able to throw the heat out or is there some problem with the architecture of Single Slot cooling that the heat remains trapped in.

 

It's worth remembering that heat and temperature aren't quite the same thing: it's perfectly possible to have something with a temperature like 90 degrees Celcius but transfers relatively little heat to the environment. This is whether the TDP comes in handy as it clearly tells you how much energy per second you need to transfer from the chip to keep it under the Tc max value.

 

Single-slot coolers transfer heat from the card to the air inside the case, and thus cause everything else inside to heat up. Dual slot coolers (decent ones) transfer heat from the card to the air outside the case by blowing the air out through an expansion slot hole. Mounting a fan on the inside of the case next to the single-slot card would distribute the heat a little more evenly inside the box, but the heat the graphics card produces would still be inside instead of outside.

 

I meant a 120mm fan throwing air out of the cabinet.The centurion 590 cabinet has a provision for 2 fans on the side of the cabinet to throw air out.I know they will not be as good as a fan mounted on the heat sink , as in a double slot cooling, but at least the hot air around the GFX card will keep moving out.


Will that be enough to keep it stable? is my question.

 

It would certainly help. The thing with cases and airflow is that just throwing fans willy nilly everywhere is sometimes counter productive if it results in areas with no air movement.

A well designed case with good airflow doesn't necessarily have a ton of fans. However a ton of fans can somewhat overcome bad cableing and help alleviate large concentrations of heat in localized areas.

So yes, a side mounted fan could help vent the heat from the video card that is right under (next to) it, however it could create dead zones in other parts of the case.

Myself, I use a shuttle SFF case due to the need to transport it with me for months at a time as I go to Japan. I "could" just get a gaming laptop but that is far more expensive and less performant in the long run. So any single slot performance video card would dump unreasonable heat into the case, the 4850 just being on the upper end of that scale.

Regards,
SB

 

Actually, I took a look in my BIOS recently and noted that my CPU is idling, in the BIOS at 89C.

However, lifetime calcs for GPU's are caclulated at high temps than you are seeing here.

 

Problem I see with 4850 type cards is that too many people underestimate the value of a well ventilated case. Most dont even understand the concept. So in the event that these people have a poorley ventilated case, they may encounter heat related problems with a 4850/8800gt.