Palit Microsystems, leading graphics card manufacturer, follows up the release of HD 4850 Sonic by introducing the astonishing HD 4850 1GB Sonic equipped with 1024MB king size memory along with pre-overclocked 2000MHz memory speed and 685MHz core speed combining Palit's own design innovative cooling system and power management technology offering another amazing choice to performance hunters.

Palit HD 4850 1GB Sonic edition, as the 1GB Sonic naming implies, has 1024MB king size memory along with pre-overclocked 2000MHz memory speed and 685MHz core speed. This card is able to provide stunning graphics performance while offering extra memory buffer, allowing users to enjoy extreme performance improvements while playing the latest DX10 PC games under HD large screen and high quality image (such as 8xAA.).

Pre-release 3DMark tests show that two Radeon HD 4670 graphics cards in Crossfire multi-GPU mode outperforms a single Radeon HD 4850 card. The HD 4670 cards score just a little above the HD 4850 in three tests that include 3DMark06 in Shader Model 2.0 mode, the same benchmark in SM 3.0 mode and 3DMark Vantage.

The cards scored 54xx 3DMarks in SM2.0 and 65xx 3DMarks in SM3.0 tests, a 4850 on the same test-bed produced 49xx and 57xx respectively. With 3DMark Vantage, the Crossfire setup churned out 7300, with the single HD 4850 just 100 points behind at 7200. These scores can be attributed to the raw texturing power the HD 4670 cards have despite memory bandwidth advantage staying with the single HD 4850. Indications are that the HD 4650 won't scale as well since (at least reference models) lack hardware Crossfire.

Gigabyte might well be the first AIB partner for ATI to release the first passively cooled Radeon HD 4850 accelerator, and a 1 GB one at that. The Gigabyte GV-R485MC-1GH sports the RV770 graphics processor clocked at 625 MHz and 1 GB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1.00 GHz. Gigabyte is to use its "Multi-Core" passive cooler that consists of two arrays of aluminum fins, with two copper heatpipes each conveying heat from the core to the fin arrays. The card will feature Ultra Durable 2 high-grade electrical circuitry with what vaguely looks like a 4 + 2 phase power design. The GV-R485MC-1GH will be available soon. Word is that PowerColor would follow Gigabyte with their passively cooled Radeon HD 4850 model.

Info-Tek GECUBE, the renowned Taiwanese graphics card maker, released the HD4850 Overlocking series with a Zalman fan onboard in July. This proved a great success on the market thanks to its spectacular gaming and video playback performance. To capitalize on its popularity among enthusiasts and consumers, The GECUBE team has now developed a more advanced offering in the form of the HD4850 1.0GB Overclocking series. The new HD4850 1.0GB Overclocking series includes an exclusive ceramic fan that delivers not only an ultra-quiet working environment, but also extreme performance. The new card also comes with the RV770PRO 2nd generation 55nm chipset, the PCI-Express 2.0 interface, full support for DirectX10.1/SM4.1 and ATI CrossFireX technologies but also built-in HDCP, HDMI, Blu-Ray and HDVD decoder support.

HIS has finally brought out its IceQ 4 series HD 4800 series graphics accelerator, this one uses the ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics processor and uses the fourth generation IceQ 4 dual-chamber cooling technology and continues to maintain a premium look and feel while offering higher levels of cooling performance and the usual UV-sensitive cooler. The card uses reference ATI GPU and memory clock speeds. Expreview reports that this card is already listed by Japanese sales partner Akihabara and priced at US $ 210 there.

Update:
HIS has two more models added to the IceQ 4 series: Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 Turbo (H485QT512P) comes with the core clocked at 650 MHz with 2.00 GHz and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. Also on offer is a 1 GB variant (H485QS1GP). It uses reference ATI clock speeds. For more details, please visit the HIS IceQ series micro-site here.

The guys over at Hexus.net have got hold of a photo showing a passively cooled PowerColor Radeon HD 4850.

The card...utilizes 54 aluminium fins, an all-copper base and four heatpipes to help keep it cool. The high-rise design, however, rules out users with low-profile HTPC chassis.

Considering the temperatures the actively cooled HD 4850 reaches, I cannot imagine a passive cooler is wise. However, this cooler is considerably larger than the reference cooler and it will be interesting to see how it performs, if and when it is released.

Gainward, announced it's own design graphics card of HD4850 chipset, the Gainward HD4850 graphics cards to the market. From performance point of view, the GAINWARD HD4850 Golden Sample brings a 700MHz core clock and 1100MHz memory clock, designed with higher efficiency heatpipe and special cover for better protection and air flow. Designed with 512MB, DDR3 memory and 256bit memory bandwidth, supports PCI-express 2.0 interface and 800 units of stream processors. Gainward HD4850 Golden Sample can completely run with the high resolution DX10.1 games in perfect smoothness and deliver the highest quality gaming experience, upscale the resolution to a 1920*1200 Full HD level and rest assured to still get smooth gaming experience on most of games.

For the mainstream segment, GAINWARD HD4850 normal version use 512MB DDR3 memory with 256bit memory bandwidth and supports PCI-express 2.0 with 625 MHz core clock, 1986MHz memory clock and 800 units of stream processors. Gainward HD4850 512MB comes with better performance fan sink design, it can deliver the most reliable & incredible gaming experience with lower temperature and noise.