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  Palit HD 4850

  Roydon Cerejo, Jul 04, 2008 1641 hrs IST

  ATI is back with a bang, and its about time.

  Superb performance, slim profile, Value for money

  Heats up a lot, poor overclocker

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Page 1 - Specification Page 2 - Bundle Page 3 - The Card Page 4 - Test setup and 3D Mark, Vantage Page 5 - FEAR Page 6 - Half-Life 2 Page 7 - Quake 4 Page 8 - CRYSIS Page 9 - Call of Juarez Page 10 - Overclocking and Conclusion

Overclocking and Performance Analysis
Having thoroughly enjoyed the insane performance squeezed out of the Palit HD 4850 now it's on to overclocking. This card is clocked at 623MHz on the core and 1986MHz for the memory. We used ATI overdrive and let the Auto-tune do its thing. After a few minutes it showed us a max core of 690MHz and memory of 2306MHz. Unfortunately 3D Mark 06 didn't make it all the way and crashed. After a couple of trials we managed to get a stable overclock of 660MHz for the core and 2100MHz for the memory. At this speed we got a nice boost of around 5% in both 3Mark 06 and Vantage. I still think there's a lot more headroom left once you strap on a good 3rd party cooler.

Another important issue is the heat generated. This thing gets hot as hell and at one point the fan was literally pumping out the hot air in brief puffs. Please make sure you have a good ventilated cabinet.

Conclusion

Where do I start, this card simply blew me away with its performance. I was holding back my 8800GT upgrade for a while now, but after seeing this card perform I have no choice to but to switch teams. The Palit HD 4850 is priced at a sweet Rs.11,500 (plus taxes as applicable) and comes with a 3-year warranty. At this price, I don't think I need to tell you that this is an awesome deal. Currently the 8800GT sells for around 11K but expect a price cut soon. For once, there is a sanely priced ATI card in our market and on time too.

NVIDIA will soon launch a 9800GTX+ variant, which has higher clocks and will be NVIDIA's first 55nm card. From the initial previews flooding the net, this card is shaping up well and will fit into the 15K to 20K price bracket. Next we also have the ATI HD 4870 that comes with GDDR5 memory and gives the GTX 2xx a run for its money. If you thought the HD 4870 is a beast, ATI is working on a new OEM only product codenamed "Super RV770". This card will have an unlocked BIOS so you can push the core to a whopping 950MHz. And with proper water cooling even 1GHz is a possibility.

We will leave all these beasts for later. For now the bottom line is, if you need to retire that aging 7600GT or you are on a quest for a kickass midrange card, this is 'the' card to get.

Page 1 - Specification Page 2 - Bundle Page 3 - The Card Page 4 - Test setup and 3D Mark, Vantage Page 5 - FEAR Page 6 - Half-Life 2 Page 7 - Quake 4 Page 8 - CRYSIS Page 9 - Call of Juarez Page 10 - Overclocking and Conclusion

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