Testbed:

Motherboard:
EVGA 680i SLI (Provided by EVGA)

Processor:
Intel Core 2 Duo 6800 Extreme edition (Provided by Intel)

Memory:
OCZ FlexXLC PC2 9200 5-5-5-18  (Provided by OCZ)
        during testing CL5-5-5-15-CR2T 1066MHz at 2.2V

PSU:
OCZ Silencer 750 Quad Black (Provided by OCZ)

Hard disk:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB SATA (Provided by Seagate)

CPU-Cooler:
Freezer 7 Pro (Provided by Artic Cooling)

Case Fans:
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 12 PWM
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 8 PWM

Vista 32 SP1

Futuremarks





3DMark vantage shows a greater difference between results than the older Mark06. XFX 670M XXX beats Gainward’s reference card by 6% and does the same to HD 4870 by 28%. Mark 06 says that there’s only a 4% performance difference between the fastest GTX 280 and Sapphire HD 4870.

In Mark06, Diamond 4850 loses to Geforce 9800 GTX by 7%, but outperforms it by 4% in Vantage. HD4870 was better than this single slot card by 17% in Vantage and 12% in 3DMark06.

EVGA did great with their GTX 260 FTW card running at 666MHz. In 3DMark06 it beats GTX 280, but Vantage turned the tables and we see it lose by 6%. It beat the reference GTX 260 by 10%, and 10% more is approximately the result we’ll see in all the games. The showdown between reference GTX 260 and Sapphire HD 4870 is tough and inconclusive.

Diamond HD 4850 outperformed 9800 GTX in almost all the tests.



Gaming




Company of Heroes sees ATI failing to beat Nvidia GTX 260. We ran the tests in Vista 32, but Radeon HD 4870 tested under Windows XP outran the GTX 260. The fastest card in this game was XFX with their overclocked GTX 280, and at 1280x1024 4xAA i 8xAF it beat HD 4870 by almost 100%. Gainward managed to outperform Radeon HD 4870 by 90% with its reference GTX 280.

With their overclocked GTX 260, EVGA closely followed GTX 280 and it beat the reference GTX 260 by about 10%. 2048x1536 with 4xAA and 8xAF shows that EVGA’s overclocked card is capable of much more and it beats the reference GTX 260 by 20%. At the same resolution Radeon HD 4870 ran slower by 30%.

Diamond HD 4850, just like its big brother Radeon HD 3870, loses to reference GTX 260 cards, but bear in mind that for the price of around €135 – this is one hell of a score. At higher resolutions with Antialiasing on, it loses to HD 4870 by 30%.



In Call of Juarez, Radeon HD 4870 and HD 4850 did well versus the reference GT280 and GT260. Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 even manages to beat GTX 280 by 12%, but it ran on par with XFX 670M. XFX 670M is up to 11% better than reference GTX 280.

ATI simply excels in this game so not even the overclocked EVGA GTX 260 FTW could steal HD 4870’s wind. EVGA closely follows Gainward GTX 280 card. Referent Gainward GTX 260 ran on par with Diamond HD 4850. EVGA FTW ran faster than reference GTX 260 so we see some 11% better score.

At reference speeds, Diamond did well and was on par with GTX 260 but lost to HD 4870 with GDDR5 by 29%.



Crysis put all the games through their paces, so at 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF we see enough frames for gaming, but barely anything to brag about. XFX 670M XXX ran the fastest and scored 35fps. It outperformed HD 4870 by 29%, and EVGA GTX 260 FTW by 20%. At the same resolution, EVGA scored a playable framerate whereas we couldn’t say the same for the reference GTX 260. EVGA again outperformed the reference GTX 260 by 11% and HD 4870 by 7%.

Diamond HD 4850 once again shows its teeth and beats 9800 GTX by 16%. It loses to HD 4870 by 23% and 28% at higher resolution.



The higher we set the resolution in F.E.A.R., the more HD 4870 and 8800 GTX lost their breath, so Gainward GTX 280 emerged a winner with a 24% better result than HD 4870. XFX tops that and we see no less than 108 fps at 2048x1536 4xAA 8xAF, which is 38% better than HD 4870.

At first two resolutions, EVGA beats GTX 280, but although it’s slower, at other resolutions it lost to GTX 280 by only 4%. It outperformed the reference GTX 260 by 10%-14%, and the HD 4870 by up to 19%.

Diamond HD 4850 packs enough punch to beat Geforce 9800 GTX and bring over 50fps at all the tested resolutions. At higher resolutions and Anisotropic filter on, Diamond again loses to Radeon HD 4870 by about 30%.



Much like the previous game, the highest tested resolution sees GTX 280 winning the test. This time Gainward beats Radeon HD 4870 by about 23%, whereas XFX topped that and beat it by about 29%. Like many times before, XFX GTX 280 670M XXX shows that overclocking brings significant performance increase, and this time it beats reference Gainward GTX 280 by 5%.

Overclocking did well for GTX 260 too, and EVGA decided to overclock it to 666MHz. All the test show 10% better performance compared to reference GTX 260 card running at 576MHz. 8800 GTX is no longer a feared adversary, but it still scores nicely.

ATI HD 4850 managed to score evenly with Geforce 9800 GTX, but at the highest tested resolution it loses to HD 4870 by 30%, and at 1600x1200, 4xAA and 8xAF by 16%.



In Unreal Tournament 3, 1600x1200 with AA and AF, GTX 280 beats HD 4870 by 24%, but performance difference sank to 13% at 2048x1536. Following in that example, the battle result between HD 4850 and GTX 260 also sinks from 48% to 33% in the same scenario. At the highest tested resolution, XFX GTX 280 670M scores 12% better than Gainward and almost 27% better than Radeon HD 4870.

In this game, Diamond HD 4850 suffered the worst defeat from HD 4870, and at the highest tested resolution it loses by 44%. Still, with antialiasing on it scored 36fps and beat Geforce 9800 GTX by 9%.



ATI HD 4850 clearly shows that low-cost doesn’t always mean slow, so in World in Conflict it manages to beat Geforce 9800 GTX by 35%. It, of course, loses to Sapphire HD 4870, but we’ve already learned that performance difference is usually around 30%.

 

 

Conclusion

Radeon HD 4000 brings great performance and the best bang for buck we’ve seen so far in the mainstream segment. Today, we’ve seen Diamond HD 4850 running at reference speeds, but after seeing the results, it still managed to impress us. At a price of around €135, you simply can’t find a better graphics card. Still, reference cooling is not something we liked this time, and we burned our fingers quite a few times. Still, the cooler is not too loud and keeps GPU core temperatures at maximum 85 degrees Celsius.

Radeon HD 4850 runs at 625MHz and has a 512MB frame buffer running at 993MHz (effectively 1986MHz). It’s about 30% slower than its big brother HD 4870, but both cards feature 800 shader processors, which is 2.5 times more than the previous generation had. FSAA unit is finally running like it should so RV770 will treat you to this graphics feature as well. The muscle in Diamond HD 4850 is so good that you simply can’t miss an opportunity to buy a €135 card that lets you play all the popular games.