[W1zzard]

Introduction

Today AMD launches their new Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 Series. Both cards are built around the new RV770 graphics processor. The GPU comes with a largely increased number of shaders: 800 vs. 320 on the previous generation. Another new feature is support for GDDR5 which will be included in the Radeon HD 4870 only, not in the 4850. The HD 4870 has lower memory clocks because it uses GDDR5 which offers twice the bandwidth clock-to-clock when compared to GDDR3.

AMD is determined to claim price/performance leadership in the $199 and $299 segments, that's where those cards are positioned. A R700 card called HD 4870 X2 will appear later this year and is supposed to fight for the performance crown.

For reference, see our other HD 4850 review:
PowerColor Radeon HD 4850.

Both cards tested today use the AMD reference design, cooler and clocks, so there will be almost no differences between both reviews.

	Radeon HD 3850	Radeon HD 3870	GeForce 9600 GT	GeForce 8800 GT	Radeon HD 4850	GeForce 8800 GTS	Radeon HD 4870	GeForce 8800 GTX	GeForce 8800 Ultra	GeForce GTX 260	GeForce GTX 280
Shader units	320	320	64	112	800	128	800	128	128	192	240
ROPs	16	16	16	16	16	16	16	24	24	28	32
GPU	RV670	RV670	G94	G92	RV770	G92	RV770	G80	G80	GT200	GT200
Transistors	666M	666M	505M	754M	956M	754M	956M	681M	681M	1400M	1400M
Memory Size	256 MB	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB	768 MB	768 MB	896 MB	1024 MB
Memory Bus Width	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	256 bit	384 bit	384 bit	448 bit	512 bit
Core Clock	670 MHz	777 MHz	650 MHz	600 MHz	625 MHz	650 MHz	750 MHz	575 MHz	612 MHz	576 MHz	602 MHz
Memory Clock	828 MHz	1126 MHz	900 MHz	900 MHz	993 MHz	970 MHz	900 MHz	900 MHz	1080 MHz	999 MHz	1107 MHz
Price	$120	$150	$140	$160	$199	$210	$299	$390	$520	$449	$649

Packaging & Contents

The MSI package is quite big and is similar to what MSI uses for their graphics cards. On the back you have a load of information, some being not totally accurate like "5.1 Audio". Also the back looks a bit crowded to me with all the information being displayed.



You will receive:

• Graphics card
• 2x Quick User's Guide
• Driver CD (not included with our press package)
• DVI Adapter + Video Out cable
• CrossFire Bridge
• 2x DVI connector adapter

The Card

AMD has successfully engineered the Radeon HD 4850's power budget to be able to work with a single slot cooler.


The card has two DVI ports, basically the most common output configuration these days. In case you need an analog VGA port you can use the included DVI adapter. When using an HDMI adapter (not included!!), you will also have access to HDMI+HDCP+Audio, which allows easy setup of a media PC. A new feature of the Radeon HD 4xxx Series is that 7.1 audio is now supported, the previous cards supported only 5.1 audio with HDMI.


Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.

A Closer Look

AMD's cooler is made of Copper and cools GPU, memory and voltage regulators. If you compare the baseplate of MSI's cooler to the baseplate of the PowerColor card you can see small differences.


All HD 4850 cards support CrossFireX for up to four GPUs working together. This allows you to easily scale performance in case you need more power under the hood.


A single 6-pin PCI-Express power connector delivers power to the card. The card will only work with external power connected.


The GDDR3 chips are made by Qimonda (formerly Infineon) and have the model number HYB18H512321BF-10. The chips are rated at 1.0 ns (= 1000 MHz) which is pretty much what we saw during overclocking. You will see the much faster GDDR5 only on the HD 4870 which will be announced on the 25th.


Unlike the NVIDIA GT200, the AMD RV770 GPU is not that big with a die size of 256 mm². Just like all other ATI GPUs the GPU is made at TSMC in a 55nm process.

Test System

Test System
CPU:	Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.6 GHz (Wolfdale, 6144 KB Cache)
Motherboard:	Gigabyte P35C-DS3R Intel P35
Memory:	2x 1024MB A.DATA DDR2 1066+ CL4
Harddisk:	WD Raptor 740ADFD 74 GB
Power Supply:	OCZ GameXStream 700W
Software:	Windows XP SP2
Drivers:	NVIDIA: 175.16, GTX 280 177.34 ATI: Catalyst 8.5, 4850 8.6

• All video card results were obtained on this exact system with the exact same configuration.
• All games were set to their highest quality setting

Each benchmark was tested at the following settings and resolution:

• 1024 x 768, No Anti-aliasing, No anisotropic filtering. This is a standard resolution without demanding display settings.
• 1280 x 1024, 2x Anti-aliasing, 8x anisotropic filtering. Common resolution for most gamer flatscreens today. A bit of eye candy turned on in the drivers.
• 1600 x 1200, 4x Anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filter. Highest non-widescreen resolution available to a wide range of users. Very good looking driver graphics settings.
• 2048 x 1536, 4x Anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filter. Highest non-widescreen resolution available to any consumer video card. Very good looking driver graphics settings.

Call of Duty 4

Call of Duty 4 is a first-person shooter that is built on the award winning Call of Duty Series. It is the first version to play in modern times. In a near-future conflict between the United States, Europe and Russia you get to play as a United States Marine and a British SAS operative. The engine is Infinity Ward's own creation and has true dynamic lighting, depth of field, dynamic shadows and HDR. Even though the game plot is scripted you will find yourself in intense battles, often working together with computer controlled team mates.

Company Of Heroes

The real-time strategy game Company of Heroes is set during World War II where you take two American companies through several fights all over France to liberate the country from German occupation. Company of Heroes is the first game to use Relic's next-generation engine "Essence Engine" which includes support for HDR lighting, Shader Model 3.0, normal mapping, dynamic lighting and shadows. You are able to zoom in from the tactical view of the battle field to see the individual units fighting. Often you catch yourself admiring the detailed animations of the soldiers while the fight around you is raging. We tested the DX9 version of the game at maximum details.

Crysis

After the tremendous success of Far Cry, the German game studio Crytek released their latest shooter Crysis in 2007. The game was by far the most hyped and anticipated game in 2007, the forums were full of "Can my system run Crysis?" threads because of the high hardware requirements of this game. Just like in Far Cry the plot evolves on a small island with a thick and richly detailed jungle world. A lot of attention has been given to small details like correct physics. For example when you fire on a tree trunk, it will shatter and the tree will fall over leaving a stump behind. Enemies in a car can be stopped by shooting the tire of the car. The game graphics are by far the best ever seen in a PC game so far, yet the game still runs well on most computers. We tested the DX9 version with graphics set to "High", which is the highest non-DX10 setting in the game.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

The first-person shooter Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is set in the science-fiction universe of Quake and requires several classes to work together to achieve certain goals on a map. In the campaign mode you gain experience which you can use to buy upgrades for your class. The player gets to pick from five classes of either the Global Defense Force or the Strogg faction. As underlying game engine, the successful id Software Doom 3 engine has been licensed, but several features like MegaTextures have been added, giving the outdoor world a much more detailed appearance. We tested the DX9 version of the game at maximum details.

Far Cry

Far Cry was released in early 2004 by the new development studio Crytek. It quickly became a massive success because it was one of the first titles to take you in a beautiful 3D outdoor world. Far Cry was one of the most demanding games at its time. Even with today's video cards you can still see big differences in frame rates, especially at the higher resolutions.

FEAR

The first person shooter F.E.A.R, developed by Monolith Game Studios, was released in Fall 2005 and has a great 3D engine that uses a large number of shading and shadow effects to accurately model the game world. In addition to that it features a realistic physics engine that lets you interact with many objects in the game world. The game was voted game of the year by several publications.

Prey

Prey is based on a highly modified 3D engine made by id Software. This first person shooter brought a completely new way of gaming to the genre. In many levels you find yourself walking upside down or on the walls. This adds a completely new aspect to the gaming experience in this genre.

Quake 4

The Quake titles are among the most successful first person games. Developed by id Software, the famous game studio that brought you DOOM, you find yourself in a scifi world that is full of aliens and shocking effects. The main focus of the game is the single player story line. Quake 4 puts you on the home planet of the Strogg. In a number of missions you and your fellow marines will encounter all sorts of enemies, including some really huge aliens.

Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory

The Splinter Cell Series is endorsed by popular book author Tom Clancy. In the 2005 title Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory you play the NSA agent Sam Fisher who has to use stealth and finesse to make his way through a number of levels mainly set in eastern Asia. The game is based on a modified Unreal 2 engine with support for HDR, normal mapping, parallax mapping and soft shadows. A patch added Shader Model 2.0 support for ATI in addition to the Shader Model 3.0 support which was already part of the original shipping game.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Before its release in 2007, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl was one of the most hyped games of the last years. This RPG/FPS hybrid game is set a few years in the future, after a nuclear disaster occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The release of radiation causes strange things like mutations in the nearby area. You take the role of a Stalker who seeks fame and riches in the contaminated area around Chernobyl. The game engine features all the latest buzzwords like HDR, bullet physics, skeletal animation, soft shadows and weather effects. Stalker's vast outside world is richly modeled, you can interact with a large number of objects in the game thanks to the physics engine.

Supreme Commander

If you hear people talk about a real-time strategy game with "massive numbers of units fighting" you can be sure they are talking about Supreme Commander. The unofficial successor to the Total Annihilation Series completely redefined some aspects of the RTS genre. In Supreme Commander you can zoom out so far that you can see the whole map on your screen and units are just little blips. This is much needed in fights when several hundred units go at each other. Supreme Commander is also one of the most demanding RTS games with support for up to four CPU cores - a dual-core system with high-end graphics is recommended for optimum game play.

Unreal Tournament 3

The fourth game in Epic's highly successful Unreal Tournament Series is simply called Unreal Tournament 3. It is based on the all-new Unreal 3 engine which is a major step forward from the previous engine. The game principle is centered about an arena style gameplay where several contestants try to reach a certain kill count or capture a flag for example. As you would expect from a new 2007 title, the graphics are top notch, with large and detailed textures. One major drawback of the way the engine is designed is that there is no support for Anti-Aliasing. While video card vendors like ATI have found ways to force this in their drivers we did all our testing with AA disabled in DX9 at maximum settings.

3DMark03

Futuremark Corporation is the number one player in the world of synthetic benchmarking. The 3DMark series is the most popular test suite for video card testing and is used by gamers, overclockers and manufacturers alike to determine how fast their hardware is. Even though it is a few years old, 3DMark03 can easily stress today's video cards.

3DMark05

Another benchmark from Futuremark is 3DMark05 which comes with four completely new game tests that make massive use of shaders and lighting effects. 3DMark05 is a great test for modern video card architectures - in some tests you are often close to the 30 fps mark, below which your games will feel sluggish.

3DMark06

Even though it's based on Futuremark's 3DMark05, the new 3DMark06 adds new tests for Shader Model 3.0 and HDR rendering. It is also the first 3DMark to incorporate a CPU score into the final 3DMark score. All tests have received an overhaul, for example in the Canyon Flight test you can now see beautiful sun glare effects with the help of High Dynamic Range rendering.

Power Consumption

Cooling modern video cards is becoming more and more difficult, especially when users are asking for quiet cooling solutions. That's why the engineers are now paying much more attention to power consumption of new video card designs.

Test System
CPU:	Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.6 GHz (Wolfdale, 6144 KB Cache)
Motherboard:	Gigabyte P35C-DS3R Intel P35
Memory:	2x 1024MB A.DATA DDR2 1066+ CL4
Harddisk:	WD Raptor 740ADFD 74 GB
Power Supply:	OCZ GameXStream 700W
Software:	Windows XP SP2

In order to characterize a video card's power consumption, the whole system's mains power draw was measured. This means that these numbers include CPU, Memory, HDD, Video card and PSU inefficiency.

The three result values are as following:

• Idle: Windows sitting at the desktop (1024x768 32-bit) all windows closed, drivers installed.
• Average: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Average of all readings (two per second) while the test was rendering (no title screen).
• Peak: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Highest single reading.

In ATI's latest GPU you will further find improvements to their PowerPlay power reduction features. A special microcontroller is integrated into the ASIC now which controls all aspects of power saving. Basically it gets fed a table with clocks, voltages, fan speeds and when to apply them. Just like previous generations the card switches performance levels depending on GPU load, the new features allow better control over it though.

It seems the clock levels are stored in the driver now, because I saw different levels with different drivers. The following are the levels included with Catalyst 8.6.

	Low Power	Medium Power	High Power
Core Clock	500 MHz	500 MHz	625 MHz
Memory Clock	750 MHz	750 MHz	900 MHz
GPU Voltage	1.046 V	1.046 V	1.082 V

The load detection is not dependent on 3D fullscreen, but on actual GPU usage. Some earlier products had the problem that they would run in 2D mode only even when a windowed 3D application was active. This is not the case on the HD 3xxx and HD 4xxx Series.

Even though the idle power consumption is too high to beat the GTX 280, it is quite low. Under load the Radeon 4850 is one of the most power efficient cards considering the performance it offers.

Fan Noise

In the past years users would accept everything just to get more performance. Nowadays this has changed with people being more aware of the fan noise and power consumption of their graphic cards.
In order to properly test the fan noise a card emits we are using a Bruel & Kjaer 2236 sound level meter (~$4,000) which has the measurement range and accuracy we are looking for.


The tested graphics card is installed in a system that is completely passively cooled. That is passive PSU, passive CPU cooler, passive cooling on the motherboard and Solid-State HDD.
This setup allows us to eliminate secondary noise sources and test only the video card. To be more compliant with standards like DIN 45635 (we are not claiming to be fully DIN 45635 certified) the measurement is conducted at 100 cm distance and 160 cm over the floor. The ambient background noise level in the room is well below 20 dbA for all measurements. Please note that the dbA scale is not linear, it is logarithmic. 40 dbA is not twice as loud as 20 dbA. A 3 dbA increase results in double the sound pressure. The human hearing is a bit different and it is generally accepted that a 10 dbA increase doubles the perceived sound level.

Before the launch some people said that this card runs hot and needs a loud cooler, sorry I don't see that. Under idle the HD 4850 is the quietest card I ever tested. Even on the passive test system with every other noise source in the room removed you can barely hear the cooler in idle. The fan speed ramps up slowly with load/temperature and performance levels and reaches a very reasonable peak noise level.

Apparently the cooler of the MSI Radeon HD 4850 is slightly better than the one installed on the Powercolor HD 4850. It delivers a bit lower temperatures which means that the fan can run quieter. Also it is a possibility that another fan is used which produces a tiny bit less noise. Or the thermal paste is just applied better and the heatsinks are perfectly identical in performance. This would also mean a lower GPU temperature, resulting in less fan noise.

Performance Summary

To create this graph we took all performance results of all benchmarks and all resolutions, threw them together and calculated the relative performance of each card, compared to our review sample.

Performance per Watt

This graph was created by taking the relative performance numbers and putting them in contrast to the average power consumption results. To offset power consumption of the rest of the system we subtracted 50W from the average consumption.

Performance per Dollar

If you are looking for the best bang for the buck, then you will love this graph. We looked up the current USD price of each card on the online shop Newegg and used it and the relative performance numbers to calculate the Performance per Dollar Index.

Overclocking

To find the maximum overclock of our card we used a combination of internal AMD OC Software and our benchmarking suite. At this time no public software supports overclocking the HD 4xxx Series, other than CCC which has a limit on how far you can OC.



The final overclocks of our card are 675 MHz core (8 % overclock) and 1000 MHz Memory (1% overclock). Kinda sad overclocks, I guess AMD took all the good cores to be used on the HD 4870 which runs higher clocks.

When changing memory clocks I noticed that the step size (with the software I used) is 25 MHz, so you can only OC to 1000 MHz, 1025 MHz and 1050 MHz - quite a limitation. After 1050 MHz the steps become smaller again.

Temperatures

Under load the HD 4850 gets quite hot, but not too hot. Actually I prefer this over a card with a noisy fan. For our measurements we used the hottest of the three on-die sensors of the GPU. Due to the design of the cooler it is easy to touch a part of the hot cooler baseplate when removing the card. So after using this card wait a minute or two before you burn your fingers.

Value and Conclusion

	The Radeon HD 4850 models are offered at a $199 price point. The 4870 goes for $299.
	Best price/performance in $200 segment Affordable 7.1 Audio via HDMI included now Single slot cooler Very quiet in idle Quiet under load HDMI+HDCP+Audio Excellent performance/watt CrossFireX support PCI-Express 2.0 support
	Can not take the performance crown Limited overclocking potential No HDMI adapter included Tends to run a bit hot
9.7	AMD has certainly engineered a winner with their Radeon HD 4850 series. This card, positioned in the $199 segment, reaches unprecented performance levels thanks to its excellent architectural improvements. In most benchmarks it can beat the GeForce 9800 GTX which is almost $70 more expensive. As we expected, AMD's RV770 GPU can not take on the GeForce GTX 280, but sometimes it comes really close. Due to AMD's new AA design, enabling 4x Anti-Aliasing is basically free now, so there is no reason not to use AA. In my opinion the sweet spot for this card is around 1600x1200 4xAA - never before could you run all games with a $199 VGA card at this res. Even though it offers lots of performance the HD 4850 is quiet, actually it is the quietest card we ever tested in idle. Under load the fan ramps up but noise stays within well acceptable levels. A small tradeoff of these fan control settings is that the GPU almost reaches 100°C under load, not critically high but a few °C less would be better. AMD has also kept the power consumption down, the card offers one of the best performance/watt ratios on the market. Since recent price drops brought the Radeon HD 3850 down to a mere $120, there is no way AMD can beat that card's price/performance. On the other hand that price drop lets AMD have a very nice product stack going from lowest-end up to $199 ($299 with the Radeon HD 4870 which we will test soon). NVIDIA has taken measures and announced their GeForce 9800 GTX+ today which will have higher performance at a lower price. Overall I think the Radeon HD 4850 is the best card on the market right now if you are on a limited budget, yet want to be able to play all the latest and greatest titles out there.