HD4850 Roundup Four cards that break the mold Gainward  Gigabyte Sapphire   Palit

Author: Toni Siik Published: 17.11.2008 Product Group: GFX cards In English Suomeksi

Testing

All the benchmarks were run with the same setup. The processor was overclocked to 4.05GHz just to make sure that the CPU isn't the bottleneck on the benchmarks. All the overclocking on the graphics cards was done with the AMD GPU Clock Tool, as the CCC Overdrive function wouldn't allow to set high enough speeds. One must remember that the results that we achieved cannot be directly compared to other systems and the achieved overclocks depend greatly on the card.

Hardware:

• Processor: Intel Core 2 E8500 (9 x 450 MHz)
• Motherboard: Foxconn Black Ops (Intel X48)
• Memory: Patriot 1800LLK (1800 MHz 7-7-7-20)
• Video: Being tested....
• Sound: Onboard Audio
• Storage: Western Digital 200 GB
• Power Supply: Xigmatek NRP-HC1201
• Chassis: Foxconn Black Ops Testbench
• Cooling: Corsair Nautilus

Software:

• Operating system: Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP1
• Drivers: Catalyst 8.9, GeForce Release 178.4

3DMark06

Just by looking at the specs, it is no big surprise that the Gainward card takes the lead at stock speeds. The Sapphire card took second place with the help of the high memory speeds. The Gigabyte card follows the Sapphire card by around 350 points and the Palit doesn't fall far behind the Gigabyte card. When comparing the HD4850 cards to the older 8800GTX, it's great to see that all of the cards beat it. The HD4850s big brother, the HD4870, on the other hand beats all of the other cards by a large margin.

After overclocking the cards the differences between the cards narrow down, even with the Sapphire card having a lower clocked core. At the overclocked state Sapphire takes the thrown of the HD4850 cards with the rest following closely. All of the cards almost catch up with the HD4870.

3DMark Vantage

3DMark is a computer benchmark suite by Futuremark Corporation designed to determine the DirectX performance of graphics cards. The full range of 3DMark products ranges are 3DMark99, 3Dmark99 MAX, 3DMark2000, 3DMark2001, 3Dmark2001 SE, 3DMark03, 3DMark05, 3DMark06 and 3DMark Vantage. Every new edition of 3DMark uses the latest in 3D technology to deliver objective and forward-looking measurements for real world performance.

Moving on to the newer 3DMark Vantage, we can see the same trend emerging that we saw in 3DMark06. Gainward clearly leads with the stock clocks and the differences really vanish after overclocking the cards. Overclocking the cards get all of them a nice ~500 point improvement on the scores.

The 8800GTX sees a nice boost after PhysX support is enabled from the drivers. It boosts the CPU-scores to a whole different level. Even with PhysX enabled, the 8800GTX is not able to beat the neither Gigabyte nor Sapphire cards even when they are running at stock speeds. After disabling PhysX from the drivers, the 8800GTX scores plummet by 1000 points, leaving it far behind the ATI cards.

The HD4870 is in a league of its own once again. It beats the other contenders even if they were overclocked.

Pages:   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9