ATI Radeon HD 4850: Features, Features and Feedback

A worthy alternative to the graphics accelerators GeForce 8800GTS and GeGorce 9800GTX from NVidia from the legendary Canadian manufacturer in 2008 was ATI Radeon HD 4850. This video adapter on technical specifications almost did not differ from its direct competitors, and the cost was much less. As a result, Nvidia was forced to revise its pricing policy and make products more affordable. As a result, customers have the opportunity to buy a powerful video card at a more affordable price from both ATI and NVidia.

Background of the product

After the release of graphics cards series Radeon HD 3000 Canadian company ATI almost a year and a half did not represent the updated products. Such a pause was brought about by the economic crisis of 2007, and as a result, the demand for efficient graphics solutions fell significantly. Ultimately, the old owners were forced to sell the second-largest developer and manufacturer of video chips, and AMD was the buyer. It was on this wave that the sales of ATI Radeon HD 4850 and the more productive version of this solution started - this is the HD4870. Cost against the background of direct competitors from the "green" camp they had lower, and the level of performance in most applications - almost identical.

The ATI Radeon HD 4850 logo was also written on the video accelerator chip. The "Catalyst" driver also originally had a logo of the Canadian manufacturer. But then, as the software was updated, it was already replaced with AMD. As a result, in the future this product has already become known as AMD Radeon HD 4850.

Niche solutions

ATI Radeon HD 4850 was built on the basis of one of the most productive semiconductor videochips in 2008. Accordingly, technical specifications allowed him at that time to solve almost any problem. As a result, it was aimed at using the most productive gaming computers of that time or graphic stations. It could also theoretically be used in workstations or multimedia PCs, but in this case its capabilities were not fully used, and such an approach from the economic point of view became not entirely justified. For such systems, less productive products with lower cost were introduced.

Equipment

The bundle of this product was as follows:

• The video card itself with the installed cooling system.

• The instruction manual, supplemented by a warranty coupon.

• CD-ROM with distributions, drivers and other special software.

Some manufacturers for additional stimulation of sales of this product replaced the usual cardboard box on a metal case. This indicated his premium. This practice has not received much dissemination, but the fact itself still needs to be noted.

Modes of operation

The basic mode of operation of this product is a single video card in the PC. But this solution also supported the proprietary technology ATI, which was called "Crossfire". Its essence lies in the fact that several PCI Express 16X slots install several graphics accelerators (usually in this case 2 or 3). They additionally connect each other with special adapters. As a result, the processing of graphic information was divided between several video accelerators, and this allowed a significant increase in performance.

Graphics Accelerator Parameters

The code name of the silicon chip underlying the ATI Radeon HD 4850 is the RV770 with the PRO index. It was manufactured by the process of 55 nm, which at that time was advanced. On this semiconductor crystal, 956 million transistor elements were applied. The heat packet in this case was equal to 110 W. The number of processors in comparison with the previous two generations of video cards has increased more than 2 times: from 320 to 800 pieces. It was this engineering solution that allowed to significantly increase the speed of this chip. Also, the architecture of these processors has been redesigned.

The second point is the increase in the number of texturing blocks from 16 to 40. But the number of ROP (rasterization) blocks has not changed and remains equal to 16. The memory bandwidth was 64 Gb / s in this case. The adapter itself was optimized for working with the PCI Express bus in mode 2.0. You can use it in 1.0 mode, but this will slow down the performance. Well, in motherboards with 3.0 support, the "bottleneck" will be exactly the graphics accelerator. Therefore, the graphic accelerator works in combination with a motherboard that works strictly in the PCI Express mode v. 2.0.

Memory

Under the use of GDDR3 memory chips, ATI Radeon HD 4850 was sharpened. 512Mb - this is the number of RAMs that could be found most often in combination with this silicon chip. Significantly less common and more advanced modifications of this solution, which were already equipped with 1 GB of RAM. The size of the memory bus in this case was solid even by today's standards of 256 bits.

Almost identical parameters were in the older video card of this line - HD 4870. But only the type of memory in this case was already GDDR5. This made it possible to obtain higher clock speeds and a speed level. For comparison: in the HD 4850 this value was only 2000 MHz, and for the HD 4870 it was 3600 MHz.

Drivers

The difficult situation at the start of sales was precisely with the drivers. Apparently, the Canadian programmers did not manage to bring them to the ideal state, and as a result, there were various mistakes when launching demanding toys on PCs equipped with ATI Radeon HD 4850. The driver was further developed, and all the flaws identified were eliminated. At the same time, the ATI logo in the software was replaced with AMD. It is these modifications, according to users, provided the most stable operation of such graphics adapters. And on all the major versions of the operating system "Windows" at the time - XP, Vista and "7". Well, the bit depth of the system software, too, did not play a key role in this case, and it could be installed on 32-bit OS modifications or even 64-bit ones.

The situation with overclocking

The overclocking potential of this semiconductor crystal was quite good. But to perform such an operation it was necessary to equip the PC with a powerful power supply (at least 750 W). Also, the graphics accelerator itself should be equipped with an advanced cooling system. Therefore, boards with a passive heatsink and a basic cooling system were not recommended for overclocking. And only products with a proprietary set of coolers can be subjected to this procedure. As a result, using the ATI Overdrive utility, it was possible to get a combination of 625 MHz (for a graphics chip) and 2000 MHz (for RAM), a combination of 685 MHz and 2150 MHz, respectively. This is an additional 8-9 percent of the speed. It was impossible to further improve such an accelerator. Essentially, if we overcome the 700 MHz limit, then this accelerator has already become a direct competitor to the older model HD 4870. From the point of view of marketing, this situation is simply unacceptable.

Competing products at the time of release

ATI Radeon HD 4850 video card at the time of its release, as was noted earlier, was a direct competitor of two NVidia products. This is GeForce 8800GTS and GeForce 9800GTX. In the first case, the parity between the products was both in price and in performance. And the speed of performance is even more preferable was the product from ATI. But this is in the normal mode. In the case of overclocking, NVidia's solution compensated for the backlog and often even broke out in front of. But the GeForce 9800GTX, taking into account its technical specifications, was a more productive video accelerator and, as a result, was more expensive. The difference in speed was 7-10 percent, which even overclocking did not allow to compensate.

The situation in synthetic tests

In the regular mode HD 4850 in the synthetic test, the PC MARK 2006 issues 12200 points. If it is overclocked to frequencies of 685 MHz and 2150 MHz, then an additional one thousand points can be obtained. As a result, its performance in this case will be estimated at 13200 points. In turn, GeForce 880GTS in this case even in the base mode gives out already 13500 points. Well, if you still overclock it to 820MHz / 1890MHz, then we will get 15000 points. As a result, in the synthetic test, the solution from the "green" producer looks preferable. But to real productivity these virtual points often have no relation. Such values only show a high degree of software optimization. In this case, the driver on the ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card is simply not "grounded" for this test.

Features in gaming applications of the time

A fundamentally different situation with gaming applications in terms of performance for any product of the ATI Radeon HD 4850 Series. Drivers in this case already play not so important role.

Let's start with Enemy Territory Quake War. In this performance game, the hero of our review overtakes even 9800GTX. In HD 4850, the number of pictures displayed per second is 86. In turn, the 9800GTX has this value equal to 81, and 8800GTS has 71 in general. The figures are valid for the 1680 X 1050 mode. If the resolution is increased to 1920 X 1200, the trend is preserved and the indicators will be Are already 72, 66 and 58, respectively.

A similar situation with the "Life Life 2". For the first mode, the values will be 111, 103 and 89, and for the second mode, the values are 88, 82 and 71. The situation in Perseus Mandate slightly changes. Here the 9800GTX solution with indicators of 184 (for 1680 X 1050) and 149 (for 1920 X 1200) is already the leader. HD 4850 values are 162 and 127, respectively. Well, the 8800GTS is almost equal - 157 and 129.

Almost the same in Call of Duty 4. In this case, the 9800GTX values are equal to 82 and 72, for HD 4850 - 79 and 67, and for 8800GTS - 72 and 62. The difference between the first and second places in this case is insignificant in terms of performance , But the cost they differed significantly.

In Unreal Tournament 3, the situation changes dramatically again. The leader again becomes HD 4850 with the indicators 121 (for 1680 X 1050) and 97 (for 1920 X 1200). On the second place - 9800GTX with indicators 117 and 92. At the last - 8800GTS with 102 and 80 respectively.

This trend was maintained in most gaming applications. Most often, the HD 4850 outperformed, albeit slightly, its direct competitor in the face of 9800GTX. And this arrangement is valid for 70 percent of software. Well, in the remaining 30%, the leader was already 9800GTX. But it should be noted that the difference was not so significant. At the same time, the 9800GTX chip was manufactured according to the obsolete technical process (65 nm) and had a higher heat dissipation (156 W). So it turns out that the more preferable purchase at that time was precisely HD 4850.

Special execution of this video card

Engineers at that time still a Canadian manufacturer on the achieved result decided not to stop. They released a more advanced modification of this accelerator - ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2. The prefix X2 indicated that this is a two-chip video card. Accordingly, it was equipped with an improved cooling system, and its technical specifications even now allow solving most problems. Also, on such products, 1 GB of RAM was mandatory. The cost of such an accelerator is much more expensive. The only negative that he had the first time after the start of sales - a bad software optimization. Not all toys "wanted" to run on it. But the further updating of software already by engineers from AMD solved this question.

Cost

The ATI Radeon HD 4850 is very, very high-quality. Its characteristics are really impressive, and the test results indicate high performance. As a result, such a product can not be cheap and affordable. But even in a very difficult economic situation, ATI managed to maintain a balance of price and performance and offer this accelerator at a democratic cost of $ 199. But this basic modification was so appreciated. Later, there were more advanced versions, the cost of which could reach even 320 dollars. But in this case, the user received an improved solution with high-quality heatsink and increased frequencies. Also, at the same time, there was the possibility, albeit insignificant, of accelerating the graphics accelerator.

Reviews

The key drawback of all solutions of the ATI Radeon HD 4850 Series was the weak software. Quite often, the drivers of this product led to the fact that some gaming applications did not function normally on such hardware. This was the "emissions" from the game, and "hang", and the appearance of a "black" screen, although the PC itself worked fine. This was indicated by the feedback of the owners of such an accelerator. But then, as the software was updated, all problems were solved, and in the future, no problems arose with the ATI Radeon HD 4850.

The Windows 7 driver developed in a similar way. Immediately was presented a "raw" assembly with certain flaws, which was then brought already by AMD engineers to perfection. The main advantage of this product was the "price / performance" ratio. At a cost of 199 dollars, this product could compete on an equal footing with expensive GeForce 8800GTS or even with GeForce 9800GTX.

Results

ATI Radeon HD 4850 did not introduce any revolutionary changes in the niche of graphics accelerators And his older brother in the face of HD 4870. This is an evolutionary change in the products of the previous generation, albeit with a serious revision of the technical parameters of the solution. But the emergence of these solutions in the premium segment "shook" the direct competitor of ATI - NVidia. As a result, the latter revised its pricing policy and significantly reduced the cost of graphics accelerators of this segment. From this, only the end user won, which has the opportunity to get a more productive solution at a reduced price. And you could even choose a graphics card from either the "red" camp (ie ATI / AMD), or from the "green" (NVidia).