- 55 nanometer
- 956 million transistors
- RV770 chip
- 625MHz core clock
- 1986MHz memory clock
- GDDR3 Memory
- 256-bit memory interface
- 63.6GB/second memory bandwidth
- 16 ROPS
- 800 Stream Processors
- 32 Texture units
- DirectX 10.1
- Pixel Shader 4.1
- Vertex Shader 4.1
- Unified Video Decoder
- AVIVO
- Quad Heatpipe cooling solution
|
|
| Brand Name |
Gigabyte |
| Part Number |
R4850 512M |
| Graphics Chip |
RV 770 Pro |
| Core clock |
625MHz |
| Shader Clock |
625MHz |
| SPs |
800 |
| Fabrication Process |
55 nm |
| Transistors |
956 Million |
| Memory cloick |
1.986GHz effective |
| Memory Interface |
256-bit |
| Memory bandwidth |
63.6GB/second |
| Memory Size |
512MB |
| ROPs |
16 |
| Texture Filtering Units |
32 |
| Texture Filtering Rate |
20 Gigatexels/second |
| HDCP Support |
Yes |
| HDMI Support |
Yes (via adapter) |
| Connectors |
2x Dual-Link DVI, TV-Out |
| RAMDACs |
400MHz |
| Bus |
PCI Express 2.0 |
| Form Factor |
Dual Slot |
| Power Connectors |
1x 6-pin |
The MSI Radeon 4850 card is based upon ATI’s RV770 Pro chip which is built on 55 nanometer process from TSMC and has 956 million transistors. The chip is the same as the RV770XT chip found on the HD 4870 cards with the exception of having a slower clock speed, 625MHz compared to the 750MHz on the HD 4870 cards and the use of GDDR3 memory instead of GDDR5 on the HD 4870 card.
The RV770 Pro chip has 160 execution units each of which is capable of running a 5D operation in a single clock. This leads to ATI’s claims of 800 Stream Processors on the HD 4850 card and the card is capable of 1 TeraFLOP of computing performance. The HD 4850 has 32 texture units and 32 ROPs (Outputted Pixels) meaning that it has a pixel fill rate of 10 Gigapixels a second and a texel fill rate of 20 Gigatexels a second.
Microsoft has begun talking about the next iteration of their graphics API (Application Programming Interface), DirectX 11 at Siggraph and nVision, NVIDIA’s marketing term for their graphics related conference. The current state-of-the art is DirectX 10.1 which ATI was the first graphics card company to support with the HD 3870 launch last year. The HD 4850 and 4870 both support this API which adds support for Global Illumination and more features to the Anti-aliasing modes of video cards.
The 4850 has a 256-bit memory interface with GDDR3 memory clocked at 1986MHz. This gives an effective memory bandwidth of 63.6GB/second. The use of GDDR5 memory on the bigger brother 4870 card is gives that card 115.2GB/second memory bandwidth. One thing that the card has going for it that the earlier video cards of this generation is the lack of a ring bus that was present on the HD 3xxx series. This card is targeted to the under $200 video card market and that market is using the 256-bit memory bus.
Features
MSI has given their version of the HD 4850 a special cooling system. Modern video cards like the HD 4850 require active cooling of the graphics chip in order to keep them cool under load as even 55 nanometer graphics chips can get warmer than 60C under load sometimes exceeding that by a large factor up to 70 degrees Celsius or even more while running tests. The other 4850 cards I’ve tested showed no problems with stability even at high running temperatures.
card
Heatsink
Fan
Heatsink 2
MSI decided to go with a 2-slot cooling solution on their HD 4850 card. While it is sometimes preferable to go with single slot solutions a 2-slot solution is the norm for high performance video cards. MSI uses a dual slot aluminum heatsink with four copper heatpipes leading out of the graphics chip to the heatsink exterior. This keeps the card 10C cooler under load than the standard ATI cooler on the other card. A 9-fin fan blows air through the entire cooling assembly to keep the card cool.
R4850 logo
Capacitors
Top of card
Memory heatsink
The rest of the design of this card is identical in appearance and form to ATI’s reference design for the HD 4850. The memory chips are laid out identically to the reference board and the circuitry and capacitors are laid out exactly the same as ATI’s reference design. MSI chose to focus on cooling the graphics chip rather than fool around with the layout, which is a good thing. The rear of the card has the Serial Number and Part number stickers which allow the user to identify the card when needing RMA service.
Rear of card
Power connector
PCI Express
IO
The card is a CrossFireX capable video card. Crossfire allows up to four video cards to be used on the same motherboard if the motherboard supports it and has the requisite number of available slots. There are two Crossfire bridges on the top of the card to allow daisy-chaining of cards from one to another. ATI claims that using more than one card is very efficient and you can get over 3x performance over a single card.
Rear on view
Head on view
Caps off IO
Rear card view
The input and output area of the video card is important in determining what monitors can be used by the video card and system. The MSI HD 4850 comes with the standard Dual Link DVI-I ports on the IO, and an S-Video out port for connecting to a television. This allows the use of up to two 2560x1600 monitors at the same time. The video card has a 6-pin power connector for the extra power it needs beyond the 75W provided by the PCI Express 2.0 slot.
Bundle
- MSI Radeon 4850 video card
- DVI to HDMI Dongle
- DVI to Analog dongle
- S-Video
- RCA Cable converter
- Quick User’s Guide
- Manual
- Driver CD
Video card manufacturers tend to include a standard set of peripherals with their video card. MSI chose not to include a game, figuring that the costs associated with the printing of game discs and license fees are better served to be used on keeping the card at as low a price as possible. I’m of the opposite opinion; I’d rather have a new copy of a game to show off the new graphics card.
Box
Rear Box shot
Card in box
Bundle
The DVI to HDMI Dongle allows the HD 4850 to be used by a either a DVI or a HDMI monitor. You can also attach a HDMI HDTV to the card with this dongle. The DVI to Analog dongle allows the connection of an analog CRT monitor. The Driver CD contains the drivers for the card and MSI’s software including MSI Live Update, Goodmen, and Lockbox WMInfor, MSI VIVID, MSI Live, E-Color, MediaRing, ShowShift, ThinSoft Be Twin, Adobe Acrobat Reader and Microsoft DirectX 9.0C.
Every month, ATI releases a new driver. Today they are on Catalyst 8.8, which is the latest version of their drivers. Monthly driver releases have the advantage of being able to fix an issue relatively quickly. Catalyst drivers are updated with new performance enhancements and fixes to games. ATI’s driver guru, Terry Makedon turned their driver team around from the early days when issues were pretty big on the ATI drivers.
Gaming
The HD 4850 was unable to play Crysis with 4x AA and 16x AF at higher than 1280x1024. Crysis as you know is a graphics card killer app that taxes even the most powerful setup except for the 4870X2 which is two of the 4870s on one card. The 4850 got frame rates in the mid teens on the game. No visual artifacts or problems with the game were observed.
Euro Trucker Simulator is a new game using big rig trucks as the vehicles of choice. The game demo was just released and is fun if you’re into that kind of thing. The HD 4850 card played the demo without issue and the full gamut of resolutions was available up to 1920x1200 without problems. The nice thing about the HD 4850 is that it runs middle of the run games without issue and you can turn on the settings to maximum without sacrificing a high framerate game experience. Legend Hand of God is the latest RPG game from THQ the makers of such hits as Company of Heroes Motocross Madness and many others. This game was reviewed by Vlad a month or so ago. He didn’t like it very much but liked the graphics especially the trees and grass. The game played flawlessly on the HD 4850 card with no issues as to the visual fidelity of the graphics.
Game screenshots
Test Setup & Performance
The MSI card is clocked exactly the same as the ATI reference card we used in the last review of the HD 4850 card so performance should be similar across the board. One note, the Catalyst 8.8 drivers were used in the review while the Catalyst 8.6 were used in the previous review. The performance of the card in Bioshock is a bit interesting in that the ATI cards are faster than the GTX280in this application, but otherwise the performance is as to be expected for this series of card.
Test System
- Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 running at 3.2GHz
- 2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3-2000MHz memory running at 2000MHz
- 2 74 GB WD Raptor SATA HDDs running in RAID 0 mode
- MSI Radeon HD 4850 video card running Catalyst 8.8
- EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard running 18.11 Forceware drivers
- Rosewill 950W PSU
- Windows Vista 32-bit Business with SP1
Tests
DirectX 9.0
- Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare 1280x1024, 1920x1200 4x AA 16x AF Custom FRAPS walkthrough
- Enemy Territory QuakeWars Patch 1.5 1280x1024, 1920x1200 4x AA 16x AF Custom FRAPS walkthrough
- Unreal Tournament 3 Patch 1.2 1280x1024, 1920x1200 4x AA 16x AF Custom FRAPS walkthrough
- STALKER 1280x1024, 1920x1200 4x AA 16x AF Custom FRAPS Walkthrough
- 3DMark05/06 version 1.3/ 1280x1024, 1920x1200 default run
- Aquamark 3 standard test
- SpecViewPerf 10
- PCMark05/Vantage
DirectX 10.0
- 3DMark Vantage 1.01 1280x1024, 1920x1200 standard test run
- Crysis Patch 1.2 1280x1024, 1680x1050 4x AA 16x AF Custom FRAPS walkthrough
- Lost Planet DX10 Performance demo 1280x1024, 1920x1200 4x AA 16x AF
- Bioshock DX10 1280x1024, 1920x1200 4x AA 16x AF Custom FRAPS Walkthrough
DirectX 9
DirectX 10
3D Mark
SpechviewPerf 10
Conclusion
The 4850 is a great mid-range card at under $200 MSRP and is gaining momentum as a well priced gaming solution. Newegg has the MSI card for under $195, only $5 more than the standard MSI 4850 without the special cooling. MSI’s card has the distinction of being the coolest running HD 4850 I have yet to test with temperatures 10 degrees less than the standard reference card under load.
The HD 4850 supports all of the features of DirectX 10.1 meaning that if a game requires it the card supports it. As the little brother of the HD 4870, the HD 4850 from MSI is a great choice for all but the most hardcore enthusiast who would want the more expensive 4870 or HD 4870 X2 cards in any event. At the end of the day the MSI R4850 512M video card is worth the extra $5 as it runs much cooler than the standard 4850 card and sacrifices nothing for it in terms of performance or features. This is a Hot Product at the moment as it has all the features of any other 4850 card, with the addition of an excellent cooling solution.
Views: 1951 
