Today AMD launches their new Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon HD 4870 series. Both cards are built around the new RV770 graphics processor. The GPU comes with a largely increased number of shaders on the previous generation. Another new feature is support for GDDR5 memory which will be included in the Radeon HD 4870 only. The Radeon HD 4870 has lower memory clocks because it uses the newer GDDR5 memory which offers twice the bandwidth clock to clock when compared to GDDR3 memory. AMD is determined to claim price to performance leadership in the $199 to $299 segment. The upcoming R700 card called Radeon HD 4870 X2 will appear later this year as performance edition. - techPowerUp!

MSI Radeon HD 4850 512MB Graphics Edition Review

The MSI package is quite big and is similar to what MSI uses for their graphics cards. And on the back you have a load of information, some being not totally accurate. Also the back looks a bit crowded to me with all the information being displayed. AMD has successfully engineered these Radeon HD 4850's power budget to be able to work with a single slot cooler. The card has two DVI ports, basically the most common output configuration these days. AMD's cooler is made of copper and cools GPU, memory and voltage regulators. All the Radeon HD 4850 cards support CrossFireX for up to four GPU's working together.

There is just a single 6-pin PCI Express power connector delivering power to the card. The graphics card will only work with the external power connected. The GDDR3 memory chips are made by Qimonda and are rated at 1.0ns which means in essence a full 2000MHz memory speed. You will see the much faster and new GDDR5 memory only on the Radeon HD 4870 which will be announced later this month. Unlike the GT200 chip from NVIDIA, the RV770 GPU is not that big and just like all other ATI GPU's it is made in a 55nm process. AMD has certainly engineered a winner with their Radeon HD 4850 series.

This graphics card, positioned within the $199 segment, reaches unprecented performance levels thanks to its excellent architectural improvements. In most benchmarks it can beat the GeForce 9800 GTX which is almost $70 more expensive. As we expected somehow, AMD's RV770 GPU can not take on the GeForce GTX 280, but sometimes it comes really close. Due to AMD's new anti-aliasing design. Even though it offers lots of performance the Radeon HD 4850 is quiet, actually it is the quietest card we ever seen running in idle. Under load the fan ramps up but noise stays within well acceptable levels.

AMD has also kept the power consumption down, the card offers one of the best performance to watt ratio on the market. Since recent price drops brought the Radeon HD 3850 down to a mere $120, there is no way AMD can beat that card's price to performance. On the other hand that price drop lets AMD have a very nice product stack going from lowest-end up to $199. NVIDIA has taken measures and announced their GeForce 9800 GTX+ today which will have higher performance at a lower price. Overall we think the Radeon HD 4850 is the best card on the market right now if you are on a limited budget.