# MSI R4850 Radeon HD 4850 512 MB



## W1zzard (Jun 19, 2008)

After some confusion, AMD has lifted the NDA for their brand-new Radeon HD 4850 Series today. The RV770 on these boards comes with 800 shaders and boasts 956 million transistors. Together with a new AA architecture the card takes the $200 segment in a storm offering leading performance/dollar and performance/watt.

*Show full review*


----------



## oli_ramsay (Jun 19, 2008)

Great review


----------



## W1zzard (Jun 19, 2008)

read the first sentence on the first page. the benchmark scores arent done yet. poor benchy pc is running as fast as it can


----------



## DaMulta (Jun 19, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> read the first sentence on the first page. the benchmark scores arent done yet. poor benchy pc is running as fast as it can



It needs a 5Ghz Quad update


----------



## candle_86 (Jun 19, 2008)

hmm ill help off load some work, if ya would mail it ill save ya time and bench one myself


----------



## newtekie1 (Jun 19, 2008)

Since you have two of these are we going to see Crossfire numbers too? Please please please!!!


----------



## WhoCares (Jun 19, 2008)

W1zzard Catalyst 8.6 Final is used for HD4850's testing ?


----------



## W1zzard (Jun 19, 2008)

no i was joking when i wrote "8.6" in the test setup box


----------



## H82LUZ73 (Jun 19, 2008)

WhoCares said:


> W1zzard Catalyst 8.6 Final is used for HD4850's testing ?



ATI: Catalyst 8.5, 4850 8.6

SHOOT HE POSTED BEFORE I DID ...OH WELL AT LEAST WE KNOW NOW.

ps cap locked sorry not mad.......


----------



## newtekie1 (Jun 19, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> no i was joking when i wrote "8.6" in the test setup box



I think he was asking if you used the Beta or the Final version more so than what version number.


----------



## W1zzard (Jun 19, 2008)

there is no 8.6 beta. people mistakenly call it that. there is either 8.6 or something that uses a build number only. to answer the question, i used 8.6 "final" downloaded from ati.com this morning. catalyst 8.6 is also the driver recommended by amd for all 4850 testing


----------



## newtekie1 (Jun 19, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> there is no 8.6 beta. people mistakenly call it that. there is either 8.6 or something that uses a build number only. to answer the question, i used 8.6 "final" downloaded from ati.com this morning. catalyst 8.6 is also the driver recommended by amd for all 4850 testing



Thanks for clearing that up.  Now, what about Crossfire benches.


----------



## tkpenalty (Jun 19, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> Thanks for clearing that up.  Now, what about Crossfire benches.



I was just about to ask that too 

I'd rip that stock cooler off and put an AcceleroS1 + two sets of RAMsinks (one for the ram itself, a few sinks for the MOSFETs), as well as turbo modules. Naturally I'd expect powercolor to make that.


----------



## WarEagleAU (Jun 19, 2008)

Awesome review W1zz and that card speaks volumes. Im with Newtekie1 on this in asking that hopefully you would do a couple of XFIRE tests for us


----------



## W1zzard (Jun 19, 2008)

quake 4 scores in this review are correct, i benched 3 times to verify


----------



## newtekie1 (Jun 19, 2008)

I also wonder if temps are affecting the overclock numbers.  I know binning probably has something to do with it, but 90C doesn't help either I would think.

Personally 90C is too hot for me, even with a quiet fan.  I would rather see 80C and a slightly louder fan.  I can live with 80C.  Though I guess with all the software methods to control the fan speed, it is really up to the user these days to decide if they want hot and quiet or loud and cool.


----------



## HTC (Jun 19, 2008)

tkpenalty said:


> I was just about to ask that too
> 
> *I'd rip that stock cooler off and put an AcceleroS1* + two sets of RAMsinks (one for the ram itself, a few sinks for the MOSFETs), as well as turbo modules. Naturally I'd expect powercolor to make that.



That VGA cooler is compatible with the 48x0 cards? Really? That's GREAT!!!!!



WarEagleAU said:


> Awesome review W1zz and that card speaks volumes. *Im with Newtekie1 on this in asking that hopefully you would do a couple of XFIRE tests for us *



If possible, that would be AWESOME!


----------



## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Jun 19, 2008)

Doesnt seem to be all that much better than my 8800GT then. If anything, it just gets about 20 more FPS which isnt even noticeable when you get 40+ FPS anyway.


----------



## cdawall (Jun 19, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> I also wonder if temps are affecting the overclock numbers.  I know binning probably has something to do with it, but 90C doesn't help either I would think.
> 
> Personally 90C is too hot for me, even with a quiet fan.  I would rather see 80C and a slightly louder fan.  I can live with 80C.  Though I guess with all the software methods to control the fan speed, it is really up to the user these days to decide if they want hot and quiet or loud and cool.



if its anything like the cooler on mine crank it up to ~80% and the card runs alot cooler stock fan numbers suck and i hit about 90C before i decided to lock it in 3D mode to a much higher fan speed, but w1z can't do that until rivatuner supports the 4xxx series


----------



## HTC (Jun 19, 2008)

CrAsHnBuRnXp said:


> Doesnt seem to be all that much better than my 8800GT then. If anything, it just gets about 20 more FPS which isnt even noticeable when you get 40+ FPS anyway.



That would depend on the resolution and the detail level.

Look @ this (post #39).


----------



## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Jun 19, 2008)

I game at 1680x1050 so I went by the 1600x1200 ones. Your post and the one a few post above yours, the benchmarks are ~20 FPS more than what my GT gets.


----------



## W1zzard (Jun 19, 2008)

cdawall said:


> if its anything like the cooler on mine crank it up to ~80% and the card runs alot cooler stock fan numbers suck and i hit about 90C before i decided to lock it in 3D mode to a much higher fan speed, but w1z can't do that until rivatuner supports the 4xxx series



oh i can change fan speeds, but nobody else can. so it's not useful for this review


----------



## Caze (Jun 19, 2008)

W1zzard, did Catalyst 8.6 work for you right out of the box? When I'm trying to use them with my Asus EAH4850, 3dMark + games thinks it a X1800 series card (with the performance of HD4850). Vista and CCC reports it correctly though.


----------



## W1zzard (Jun 19, 2008)

no problems i noticed


----------



## Caze (Jun 19, 2008)

Hmm, strange. I wonder what makes them think it's a X1800 series card? I did have a X1800XT before but I uninstalled the drivers and ran Driver Cleaner before upgrading. The drivers that came with card work normally.


----------



## cdawall (Jun 19, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> oh i can change fan speeds, but nobody else can. so it's not useful for this review



lol well i guess i should rephrase that w1z is jut letting us sweat causes he has all the cool new software!


----------



## JRMBelgium (Jun 19, 2008)

CrAsHnBuRnXp said:


> Doesnt seem to be all that much better than my 8800GT then. If anything, it just gets about 20 more FPS which isnt even noticeable when you get 40+ FPS anyway.



It's true, a voltmodded 8800GT can beat the HD4850 but it consumes more power, it's hotter and defenitly more noisy. That doesn't take a way that fact that you can buy a product that is faster then the 9800GTX for less money. 

TPU showed that the 4850 has the same performance/dollar value, so it's all good in my book.


----------



## burtram (Jun 19, 2008)

i cant wait to see what the 4870 and the X2 will do after seeing this review.


----------



## pentastar111 (Jun 19, 2008)

burtram said:


> i cant wait to see what the 4870 and the X2 will do after seeing this review.


 Me too!


----------



## JRMBelgium (Jun 19, 2008)

Pretty sure i'm gonna buy the HD4870.


----------



## holy_ (Jun 19, 2008)

Nice review here!
Why the 4850 score not 10.0? =)


----------



## pentastar111 (Jun 19, 2008)

Jelle Mees said:


> Pretty sure i'm gonna buy the HD4870.


 I definitely am going to be buying a set of 4870's..  Just by looking at the performance comparisons of the 4850's compared to the almost double if not triple in price offerrings from nVidia (I'm not bashing nVidia, I am running a pair of the ORIGINAL 8800 GTS's...love 'em they are great cards) the 4850 cards rock!...$400 to put these in Xfire and keep up if not surpass the other guy's "high' end offering....SWEET! I guess the down side is that the money you save will probably go for watercooling these reactors...


----------



## candle_86 (Jun 19, 2008)

like i said in another post though, Nvidia doesnt have all there eggs in on basket that 600 dollar price tag might be justified depending how well CUDA gets implemented


----------



## wolf (Jun 20, 2008)

it would seem that the small advantages the 4850 has over a 9800GTX in some games is nullified or reversed when moving to the 177.XX drivers, and there are a specific set coming out for the 9800GTX soon.


----------



## tkpenalty (Jun 20, 2008)

This card is asking to get purchased


----------



## Megasty (Jun 20, 2008)

tkpenalty said:


> This card is asking to get purchased



Done, even though I personally hate MSI :shadedshu $170 is way too hard to pass up


----------



## tkpenalty (Jun 20, 2008)

Megasty said:


> Done, even though I personally hate MSI :shadedshu $170 is way too hard to pass up



MSI/Powercolor... they are both reference designs and are virtually identical except for the bundle and sticker.


----------



## Necrofire (Jun 20, 2008)

I just wanted to point something out that maybe you already knew:
The cooler is not copper. There is a copper "core" chunk above the gpu, it attaches to the single heatpipe (not sure if it is copper). The rest of the cooler, especially the end that cools the VRMs, is made of aluminum.

You can verify by scratching the cooler with something metal, you will see the copper color scratch away.

I'm liking those benchmarks, can't wait to get my hands on one of these, or two.


----------



## Windego (Jun 23, 2008)

You ever plan to post minimum frame rates for your reviews?  It's sorta pertinent information you know.


----------



## trt740 (Jun 23, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> no problems i noticed



Hey wizard is there anyway we could see a comparison of the newer generation cards against say a 3870x2 using cat 3.6 with both cards overclocked maxed in cat control center. I kinda wonder for instance how well a 3870x2 would do overclocked against a 4850 overclocked. For that matter against a 9800gx2 in other reviews.


----------



## omega1alpha (Jun 24, 2008)

I purchased two of these for crossfire on my P35 chipset. I was curious, but never intended to keep them long-term and will be returning them in the next couple of days to a local retailer. Crossfire performance is horrible on my Asus P5K DLX with a 3.8 ghz quad core. Don't even bother on that board. Single card performance at 1600x1200 was was a tad faster than a 9800 GTX in most games except Crysis. Crysis ran like 10+ fps slower. Must be a driver thing on my Vista X64 rig. These cards run damn hot. I have great air flow and they reached over 90* on load. Overclocking was horrible because of poor cooling. Adjusting the fan speed isn't possible currently with known software. I'm curious how this thing would do with a good aftermarket cooler. Here's my advice go for the cheapest available card at this performance level. Either the 4850, 8800 GTS G92, or 9800 GTX at stock speeds. If you overclock, the GTS or GTX will perform better because they overclock like champs. I'm not a Nvidia fan, but I would go for the GTS or GTX if cheaper. The 4850 heat is a major concern for me at the moment.


----------



## pentastar111 (Jun 24, 2008)

omega1alpha said:


> I purchased two of these for crossfire on my P35 chipset. I was curious, but never intended to keep them long-term and will be returning them in the next couple of days to a local retailer. Crossfire performance is horrible on my Asus P5K DLX with a 3.8 ghz quad core. Don't even bother on that board. Single card performance at 1600x1200 was was a tad faster than a 9800 GTX in most games except Crysis. Crysis ran like 10+ fps slower. Must be a driver thing on my Vista X64 rig. These cards run damn hot. I have great air flow and they reached over 90* on load. Overclocking was horrible because of poor cooling. Adjusting the fan speed isn't possible currently with known software. I'm curious how this thing would do with a good aftermarket cooler. Here's my advice go for the cheapest available card at this performance level. Either the 4850, 8800 GTS G92, or 9800 GTX at stock speeds. If you overclock, the GTS or GTX will perform better because they overclock like champs. I'm not a Nvidia fan, but I would go for the GTS or GTX if cheaper. The 4850 heat is a major concern for me at the moment.


 Riva Tuner probably will come out with an update pretty soon.


----------



## Tlaltiplac (Aug 3, 2008)

You can increase the fan speed but it needs a bit of patience.What you need to do is the following:-

Make sure you have ATI Overdrive Unlocked by clicking on the padlock.

Create a profile in CCC. You can do this by going to profile manager, Type a name for it in the name box and a description. Then the save button will be activated. Save it, then click on the Activation tab below. Put a tick on the Desktop shortcut then Activate and close.

Next you need to find the profil file. Using XP it is in the following location :-
C:\Documents and Settings\<Your Logon Name>\Local Settings\Application Data\ATI\ACE

Notice it is in Local Settings. Make sure you have "Show Hidden Files" on in the view files.

There you will se an XML file with your profile name you made earlier or it will be in a folder called Profiles. Here you can open this file with Notepad.

Notice that 2 things need to be adjusted :-

1.   Property name="FanSpeedAlgorithm" value="Manual" /. This would say automatic when you 1st look at it.

2.   Feature name="FanSpeedPercentTarget_0"
          Property name="Want" value="50" /


Notice the Value has been changed to 50. This will increase your fan speed to 50%

Save the file (Not Save As). then go back to CCC - click on Profiles - Activate profile and the profile name you made.

For the fan speed to run at start up - you just click on the profile on your desktop (that you saved earlier) and drag it into the start up in the Start menu

I hope this helps you.


----------



## danbfree (Aug 15, 2008)

Yes, fan speed adjustments are CRUCIAL with this card (any reference 4850). It's really easy once you have created the profile in CCC, simply create a shortcut to it on your desktop and right click and edit to change your fan speeds manually. Personally I just run mine at 80% since I am either folding,which doesn't take advantage of all the new shaders yet so it doesn't run super hot, or gaming playing a lot of GRID now which will BOIL your card. It was a hot day and my machine kept crashing so I learned to keep the fan at 80%


----------



## canfinallygame (Nov 11, 2008)

i got MSI's v151 version of r4850 which has a different cooler msi call it quad pipe i think
neway it does a good job .. 
at the moment the GPU load is at 100%.. fan at 60% acceptable noise.. with the temp at a stable 60C.. 
just to see how quiet it could be it put it at 20% fan speed.. not putting any load on it and temp was about 50C


----------



## canfinallygame (Nov 12, 2008)

dam i just did 3dmark06 benchmark and got 7867 3DMarks.. compared to the test 11479 techpowerup got in the 1280 x1024 0xaa 0xaf.. which i think mine was done in - whatever the free 3dmark06 lets you do it in... 
now my cpu (amd 3800+@2010mhz) is old compared to the system used in this review's but i didn't think it would make such a huge difference..  about 3400 points.. im new the benchmarking but my guess this is pretty big lol

is it really the case that my cpu is holding back the score?

other system specs
ram 4080mb 
os xp x64 pro


----------



## DonInKansas (Nov 12, 2008)

Yeah most likely.


----------

