Gigabyte Radeon HD 4850 1GB Passive Review
April 17, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
We all know the HD 4850 as the little brother of the faster HD 4870 and the distant sibling of the new HD 4890 but while ATI’s lineup has been expanding, the runt of the RV770 litter has been maturing. While reference-based versions of the HD 4850 still exist and remain quite popular, ATI has been pushing their board partners to come up with new and innovative ways of marketing the HD 4850. Some companies left well enough alone and continue to sell a lone HD 4850 512MB SKU but many others have given the design a frontal lobotomy. We now have HD 4850 cards which are pre-overclocked or sport non-reference cooling designs or even incorporate a custom PCB for up to 1GB worth of memory. Some even incorporate a little of everything and really push the limits. It is one of these more extreme cards we will be looking at today.
They say variety is the spice of life and companies like Gigabyte with their HD 4850 1GB have taken that saying to heart. While releasing stock cards is fine and dandy, in order to get people talking about your product you need to find something for them to talk about, something that stands out. In the past Gigabyte rested on their laurels, seemingly content to ply their trade in the mom and pop shops with rebadged reference cards but lately, things have really changed. Not only does the GV-R485MC-1GI sport slightly increased clocks and a 1GB framebuffer but it is also equipped with a passive cooling system. As you will see as the review goes on, the boys over at Gigabyte have really stepped up to the plate with their take on the HD 4850 and have produced a card to be proud of.
If there is one thing we would like to mention from the getgo it is the fact that there is precious little information available about this particular graphics card. While pricing seems to be well within our expectations (between $10 to $20 USD more than the reference versions), trying to find accurate specifications for it is a lesson in futility. Unfortunately, Gigabyte’s site has every bit of information you could possibly need…except the clock speeds the vast majority of us will be looking for when choosing whether or not to buy this card. While we will go into a little more detail about actual speeds within the review, their omission from Gigabyte’s site is puzzling.
Where these custom cards are usually granted limited edition status, it seems that the GV-R485MC-1GI is widely available from Canadian retailers for about $210CAD. That price should definitely cause quite a few silent PC enthusiasts to sit up and take notice. On the other hand, Gigabyte’s 3 warranty is pretty much in line with other ATI partners but pales in comparison to XFX’s Lifetime Warranty even if 3 years is longer than the majority of you will keep this card.
From the outside looking in, Gigabyte’s HD 4850 1GB seems to offer quite a bit in a relatively inexpensive package. Can it deliver? Let’s find out.
GeCube readies passive cooled Radeon HD 4550
March 23, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
Taiwan-based GeCube has just revealed the GC-HD4550LP3-E3, a low profile, passively-cooled Radeon HD 4550 aimed at HTPCs. Seen below, the card has a copper heatsink, a 64-bit memory interface, a 55nm-built RV710 GPU with 80 Stream Processors. and D-Sub, DVI and HDMI connectors.
The DirectX 10.1-ready Radeon features 512MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 800 MHz and a GPU set to 600 MHz. Once released, the GeCube Radeon HD 4550 should be priced somewhere under 50 Euro.
Source: techconnect
Sphere: Related ContentAsus EN9400GT Silent Edition Review
March 16, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
Modern integrated graphics platforms have evolved to the point where they possess all of the features of their low-end discrete counterparts with poorer 3D performance being their only failing. However, any informed user seeking good 3D performance for gaming would not consider either option, so that advantage of the budget discrete video card is all but negligible. Budget graphics cards still have some value however, for example, as a cheap upgrade for older systems incapable of decoding HD video or to support additional displays in a multi-monitor environment. There are also enthusiasts with no interest in gaming, who build PCs using ATX motherboards without integrated video. Even if they don’t play games, they still need graphics.
For such scenarios, even a bottom of the rung GPU would be acceptable. One candidate is the Asus EN9400GT Silent, a passively cooled card based on nVidia’s GeForce 9400 processor. If GeForce 9 was an office hierarchy, the 9400 would be its star mail-boy. To differentiate itself, it really only has to be silent (taken care of already) and power efficient.
Sapphire HD 4670 Ultimate 512MB Passive Video Card Review
February 26, 2009 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
After the mad dash over the latter part of last year by both ATI and Nvidia to release a swarm of new products, the graphics card industry was due for a breather. Both companies have staked their territory for the most part and that is why the last month and the next few months will be relatively quiet save for a few renaming antics of course. This gives us the perfect opportunity to take a closer look at some of the more interesting graphics cards on the market that tend to get passed by in the hustle and bustle of new GPU releases. These may not be the marquee cards which will get your blood pumping, or cut through framerates like no one’s business; they are products which will appeal to a certain niche market but could be equally well suited for those of you just looking for something different.
With so many consumers now having their PCs running double duty as home theatre devices, passively cooled cards are gaining ground rather quickly against their (sometimes loud) actively-cooled brethren. Passively cooling a graphics card is very much a double edged sword where all fan noise normally associated with a graphics card is eliminated but heat buildup can quickly become an issue. There is also a constant balancing act between wanting to provide optimal cooling but also trying to keep the size of the heatsink within acceptable limits. Heck, you could passively cool a GTX 295 but the resulting heatsink would be take up abhorrent amounts of space and cost a fortune to produce. This is why lower-end cards are usually the only ones that used to be passively cooled. The result was a glut of cards which were perfectly suitable for high definition video decoding but fell flat on their butts when it came to gaming. Luckily, that is all about to change with the current and future generations of GPUs.
The Sapphire HD 4670 Ultimate we are looking at today takes advantage of a cool-running 55nm RV730 core in order to offer passive cooling to a card that allows for more than acceptable gaming performance in addition to its HD decoding muscle. Indeed, Sapphire has a massive selection of HD 4670 cards ranging from reference models to GDDR4 equipped performance versions and even 1GB bruisers. Couple that with widespread availability at retailers across the country and you have a pretty good chance of finding exactly the right HD 4670 for you in Sapphire’s current lineup. You all just have to remember that Sapphire only offers a 2-year warranty on their cards which may have been fine a few months ago but it now looks paltry in comparison to XFX’s offerings. Just remember that 2 years is probably longer than most of you will keep this card in your systems.
Judging from the information we have seen, Sapphire is targeting the HD 4670 Ultimate directly at HTPC users with the inclusion of the aforementioned passive heatsink as well as a native HDMI connector instead of the usual dongle. I could go on and on about the features of this card but its real selling point remains the passive cooling. However, how will this cooling solution stand up to our torture test in a compact ATX case with virtually no airflow? And more importantly, how will this thing perform in games? Let’s find out.
