HD4850 with gddr4

[MarcVenice]

Sounds interesting, I wonder if the HD4850 will benefit from the extra bandwith? Hope it does, because the biggest difference between the HD4850 and HD4870 are clock speeds and memory bandwith? To bad it doesn't come with a HDMI port

Also looks like a nice HSF, with a big heatsink on the vrm's ?

Text

 

[error8]

That is an interesting card, but I really doubt that the GDDR4 will make a big difference over the reference GDDR3 model. Ati gave up rather fast at DDR4. They've used it on the 3870 and on the old X1950XTX. The last, was the fastest single GPU card of its time, but the 3870 didn't impress that much. I guess that DDR4 wasn't a big step forward over DDR3, like DDR5 is.
Still, if this card is priced right, it's a good buy, especially since it has a good cooler on it.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Only a ~200MHz jump over the DDR3 reference speed. Maybe the DDR4 can overclock a good deal better, but it doesn't look like that big of a jump over the reference speed.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: error8

Still, if this card is priced right, it's a good buy, especially since it has a good cooler on it.

definition of a "good cooler" for a 4850 = very good VRM cooling. You can cool the GPU with anything because the VRMs crap out so quick.

At least this was my experience with my MSI 4850, which I thought had a "good cooler" on it, that in fact wasn't all that good because there wasn't enough airflow over the VRM heatsink.

 

[apoppin]

http://www.powercolor.com/Glob...res.asp?ProductID=4738

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Concillian

Originally posted by: error8

Still, if this card is priced right, it's a good buy, especially since it has a good cooler on it.

definition of a "good cooler" for a 4850 = very good VRM cooling. You can cool the GPU with anything because the VRMs crap out so quick.

I thought this was a problem only for 4870 cards. Are you sure that the VRMs were the problem on your card?

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: Concillian

Originally posted by: error8

Still, if this card is priced right, it's a good buy, especially since it has a good cooler on it.

definition of a "good cooler" for a 4850 = very good VRM cooling. You can cool the GPU with anything because the VRMs crap out so quick.

I thought this was a problem only for 4870 cards. Are you sure that the VRMs were the problem on your card?

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=31&threadid=2240451

4850 also, methinks.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: dug777

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: Concillian

Originally posted by: error8

Still, if this card is priced right, it's a good buy, especially since it has a good cooler on it.

definition of a "good cooler" for a 4850 = very good VRM cooling. You can cool the GPU with anything because the VRMs crap out so quick.

I thought this was a problem only for 4870 cards. Are you sure that the VRMs were the problem on your card?

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=31&threadid=2240451

4850 also, methinks.

Oh yeah, totally forgot about your thread. For around 110W as the 4850 consumes, I don't think that those VRM's are getting too hot. My 8800 GT worked fine without any VRM heatsink and it was vmodded to hell and back, sucking more juice then a stock 4850. If somebody experienced crashes when no heatsinks onto the VRMs and after he installed those the crashes went away, then I'll believe that the VRM needs cooling. But until that, I just don't...:laugh:

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: error8


Oh yeah, totally forgot about your thread. For around 110W as the 4850 consumes, I don't think that those VRM's are getting too hot.

Think what you want, but dug and my experiences both support that this is a very important part of 4850 cooling. Core temps were not a problem with the MSI stock cooler. Temps were well below that of the ATi cooler. When I was failing I was barely over 50C on the core, while reviews were showing 70C+ with the ATi cooler. If I turned teh fan down, I could make it crash reliably at stock speeds with <60C on the core because airflow over the VRMs was pitiful compared with the ATi cooler.

You can't monitor VRM temps, so who knows what they were in terms of temperature, but I was failing then, and I'm not now. I'm not convinced that GPU core cooling had anything to do with my success. The MSI cooler was decent at keeping core temps well below the ATi cooler, it just sucked at getting air to the VRM area:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...50-512M%20Video%20Card

I thought it was a "good cooler" by looking at it, but when I got the card installed, I learned differently. It had a bit of a high pitch whine to it, and if I turned it lower than 60% so I couldn't hear the whine, then it would crash out in 3DMark05 or 06, despite still having lower core temps than reviews indicated on ATi heatsink. It had to be inadequate VRM cooling.

I still stand by my statement that the ATi cooler is one of the best for the 4850 unless you do some manual modifications. It has the fan right next to the VRM area and puts airflow directly over them. The 4850 reference design is not limited by GPU core cooling.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Concillian


You can't monitor VRM temps, so who knows what they were in terms of temperature, but I was failing then, and I'm not now.

Well if this is the case, then I believe you. From what I remember in his thread, Dug also had very high GPU temps, so that could have caused his problems. But in your case, with that fancy cooler, the VRMs seem to be the only thing able to cause the card to crash.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Can't u use GPU-Z to monitor the vram temperatures?

 

[vj8usa]

Originally posted by: GaiaHunter
Can't u use GPU-Z to monitor the vram temperatures?

VRM = voltage regulator module. That's different from the VRAM. My old x1900 had a temp sensor on the VRM, but if the 4850 has it, I can't seem to access it (unless one of these temps is mislabeled in RivaTuner - I'm seeing core temp, display IO temp, memory IO temp, and shader core temp).

 

[GaiaHunter]

Originally posted by: vj8usa

Originally posted by: GaiaHunter
Can't u use GPU-Z to monitor the vram temperatures?

VRM = voltage regulator module. That's different from the VRAM. My old x1900 had a temp sensor on the VRM, but if the 4850 has it, I can't seem to access it (unless one of these temps is mislabeled in RivaTuner - I'm seeing core temp, display IO temp, memory IO temp, and shader core temp).

Sorry misread Not to self - Not post while drinking beer and reading in the diagonal