PowerColor Radeon HD 4830 512 MB

[W1zzard]

PowerColor's new HD 4830 features the same 640 shader pipes as the AMD reference design, but comes with a big dual-slot cooler. Also new is a native HDMI output which supports HDCP and 7.1 channel audio. Thanks to a PowerColor designed PCB the card will retail about $10 cheaper than the reference design from AMD.

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[Frick]

Woop woop! To bad they're so close to the HD4850's pricing though.. They're basicly the same over here.

 

[v-zero]

Great performance, but they'll have to hit £75 to be worth it over the 4850...

 

[WarEagleAU]

Very nice, especially with the HDMI port. Love the core overclock, that in itself is spectacular

 

[jbunch07]

Wow that thing is not bad! Thanks for the review W1zz, I never noticed the Fold@home table, is that new or have I just been missing it?

 

[DarkMatter]

When RV770 launched I remember reading somewhere that originally it was going to have 8 SIMD clusters (640 SPs), but because the resulting chip met so well their performance-per-mm2 goal they decided to increase it to 10 (800 SPs). Looking at this review I have to say, that was a really BAD decision on AMD's part.

HD4830 is:

1- 10% slower than HD4850 (625 Mhz) running @ 575 Mhz. The difference in clock is 9%. It's almost as fast clock for clock.

2- The temperatures are much lower even when overclocked than those of RV770 on stock clocks.

3- 30% OC when RV770 barely does 12%.

All this happens with a card that is made from defective RV770 cores. Imagine what would have happened if it was natively a 640 SP core...

EDIT: Also take a look at the one from AMD. With 80 SP less (%15 less) is only 3% slower. Obviously RV770 has way too much SP power, much more than what it can handle.

 

[mdm-adph]

That core overclock is just amazing. Any way we can see a performance chart featuring the 4830 overclocked?

 

[newtekie1]

Wow, nice review, and a great card to boot. They definitely achieved their goal of matching the 9800GT, now they just need to get the price in line and I'll consider an HD4830.

Another note, this is an example of how much drivers play a role in performance. If you look at the review of the HD4670, with the HD4670 on the newer 8.10 drivers, and the HD3850 on the older drivers. The two seem equal, but now that you have benched them all on the new drivers, the HD3850 comes out a decent bit ahead.

 

[ste2425]

thats a great review, and a great card if the price falls ill be deffinitally considering it over the HD4850 the performance is like only 8-10% different and it seems to be able to handle the higher resolutions really well. Great card in my opinion, if you get the one with the full shaders that is, it was shaders there having a problem with right?

 

[rpsgc]

No overclocked benchmark makes me sad

 

[ste2425]

how long will it be, do you think, before i we start seeing the powercooler version on the web? ive tried a search on Ebuyer and Ebay and now luck, theres the AMD and Saphire versions but not Powercooler and id like to see how much cheaper the Powercooler versions really are

 

[suraswami]

As usual excellent review W1z.

One request - If time permits could you also review these new cards' HD/BD playing capabilities, High definition audio decoding capabilities like Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD MA (both 5.1 or 7.1 ch) for media center geeks like me?

Thanks

 

[W1zzard]

As usual excellent review W1z.

One request - If time permits could you also review these new cards' HD/BD playing capabilities, High definition audio decoding capabilities like Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD MA (both 5.1 or 7.1 ch) for media center geeks like me?

Thanks

tell me how?
afaik a hd 3450 can easily decode a bluray HD stream, so all faster cards should be able to as well?

 

[suraswami]

tell me how?
afaik a hd 3450 can easily decode a bluray HD stream, so all faster cards should be able to as well?

I am stuck with audio issues. I know most new generation cards do fine with Video. 3450 can only do 2 ch DD TrueHD.

Ok this is the problem I have,

Most of the new BD titles comes with only HD options in Audio like Dolby TrueHD and DD-HD and not adding regular DD and DTS. sicne I don't have a sound card that will do this neither an receiver that will do this I am stuck with 2 ch sound on great movies like Iron Man. I heard the 4xxx series cards does this HD decoding with full 7.1 support. I just wanted to know how far it is true. I am using PowerDVD Ultra 7.3. I heard PowerDVD 8 ultra does the software decoding if no hardware is present and downstream and send to spdif.

 

[Assimilator1]

Well here in the UK anyway HD 4830s are down to £90-£95 (my Power Colour HD4830 was £90) & the HD 4850s are upto about £120-£130! .

I don't know what the reviewer is on about when he says this card is noisey , mine isn't anyway, I can just hear it over my quiet 120mm case fans so it's quite reasonable, and that's under load running F@H. THGs review of it also thought it was reasonabley quiet, maybe Power Color updated the bios & altered the fan speeds??

Re F@H chart, what's the point of entering the dual GPU cards when you're not using the 2nd GPU? Gives a false negative impression if people haven't read the text properly, better off leaving them out or better still running 2 GPU clients .

Interesting review anyway & nice to see F@H in too .

 

[EviLZeD]

Ebuyer was selling the 1GB ddr3 version for only £105 i couldnt resist hopefully it'll oc as high

 

[Assimilator1]

1GB can't be used fully on a card of this spec, unless you can o/c the GPU lots.