Powercolor 4850 2GB review

[Sylvanas]

Review

Wow 2GB, what next? . But as you can see, at 2560x1600 4xAA the extra framebuffer results in a pretty dramatic increase in performance, Guru3d states it was on par with a GTX200 series at this resolution and this is a 4850! The rest of the games showed marginal benefits at most with some showing lesser performance compared to the 512mb version due to this 2GB model running slower memory clocks. Nice cooling aswell- not really worth it but interesting card nonetheless.

 

[octopus41092]

Well, from the benchmarks its not that impressive at all. In fact in some, if not most it runs worse at most resolutions. Now, sure you get a few more fps in the higher resolutions but at those resolutions its barely playable anyways. Now, at $250 that's almost $100 more than what you can find a 512MB version at. I really don't think this is worth it, but I'd be interested in seeing some Crossfire benchmarks.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

a 1GB version might be useful for CF application when considering higher resolutions, but 2GB is pure overkill - Radeon HD4850 Chump Edition.

 

[dennilfloss]

I'd buy a 4870 2GB for Oblivion.

 

[nemesismk2]

2GB WOW

 

[Bateluer]

2GB on a high end card would be more enticing methinks.

 

[God Mode]

I want ram slots on these enormous videocards so I could use my own ddr3 on it. A socket for upgrading gpus would be nice too. These monsters are basically half the size of motherboards these days so why not?

 

[Nafets]

Comparing the 2GB HD4850 (with slower memory clocks) to a 512MB HD4850 (with regular memory clocks) is a poor comparison.

Although you do see the benefit of having more memory at very high resolutions with high levels of AA/AF, you don't get to see what the full benefit of the 2GB of memory might be if the memory clocks on both cards were equal.

Guru3D should run some tests again with the 512MB HD4850 @ the memory speeds of the 2GB HD4850, which would show more comparable results.

Regardless, I'd say the sweet spot for the HD4850 would be a 1GB version with the same memory clocks (or faster), as the 512MB HD4850...

 

[SSChevy2001]

2GB with slower memory clocks, just what I always wanted. Really though what was powercolor thinking?

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Nafets
Comparing the 2GB HD4850 (with slower memory clocks) to a 512MB HD4850 (with regular memory clocks) is a poor comparison.

Although you do see the benefit of having more memory at very high resolutions with high levels of AA/AF, you don't get to see what the full benefit of the 2GB of memory might be if the memory clocks on both cards were equal.

Guru3D should run some tests again with the 512MB HD4850 @ the memory speeds of the 2GB HD4850, which would show more comparable results.

Regardless, I'd say the sweet spot for the HD4850 would be a 1GB version with the same memory clocks (or faster), as the 512MB HD4850...

Exactly.......I'd say the reason they don't is because Guru3D has been very guilty lately of running with archived results. That coupled with the fact they run some really low resolutions/settings with a slow CPU makes their CPU bottlenecked results not worth reading right now. I really don't need to see 5 different solutions running within 1-2 FPS of each other at 1280 to 2560.