Those of you who thought NVIDIA was sinking the final nails into ATI's coffin, think again. ATI's next generation, the Radeon HD 4800 series has scored a direct hit with pixel pushing power and a price point so low that NVIDIA had to drop prices significantly to compete. Some of you old fools like us will remember shelling out the big bucks for two Voodoo2 daughter cards at $200 a hit to give you cutting edge game play. That same $400 today wouldn't touch the ultra high-end graphics. Consider for example NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 costing upwards of $650. ATI with their Radeon HD 4800 series looks at putting performance oriented cards out for the masses with a nice price tag. - Overclocker Cafe

Force3D Radeon HD 4850 512MB Video Board Review

Today, we have a sample of ATI's new wares in the form of a Force3D Radeon HD 4850. Force3D is a new name in the field. Force3D manufacturers products for the OEM market but as we can clearly see from their Radeon HD 4850 packaging, they are looking at taking a bite at the retail segment. While they are a new name for the time being, we can expect to see an increasing presence from both their products and their market share as time goes on. Force3D is all business from the first opening up of its package. The average Radeon HD 4850 card is retailing at $200 with it being far from uncommon to find rebates.

The Radeon HD 4850 is a sizable video card but not monstrous. The card is also a single slot graphics solution that appears to be spot on with the ATI reference design. This design being an encased acrylic shroud covering a multi-fin copper convection apparatus. A turbine bladed 60mm fan provides the fresh air intake for the acrylic shroud with a copper pin grid heatsink. This is a disadvantage of single slot cards since to properly expel warm air out of a case you have to have an open vented slot in which to do it with. Looking at the exhaust you can see the copper fins that appear to offer a good deal of surface area for cooling.

The ATI reference design calls for 625MHz on the core and 1986MHz on the GDDR3 memory clock. Using the Catalyst Overdrive panel we played around until we found the stable ceiling of our test card. The auto tune overclocking button worked well but gave us frequencies higher than the card could truly handle for a longer period. So it was back to the hit and miss of finding the sweet spot we all love so much. We found a maximum overclock of 675MHz and 2240MHz on the core and memory respectively. The Radeon HD 4850 is a refreshing breath of fresh air. Heaven knows ATI was due for one too.

Force3D has come in at the right time with the right GPU to make a nice splash. A low $200 card that goes head to head with some of the most powerful cards we've ever had in the shop. The Radeon HD 4850 represents the best bang for the buck on the market today. Aside from raw gaming frames per second, you find nice image quality, Blu-ray support and a card that is CrossFireX ready. It's the last that gives me goose bumps. Two of these $200 screamers would be something to see, something perhaps only surpassed by two Radeon HD 4870's. Anyway you slice it, the Radeon HD 4850 is a novel and worthwhile card.

Force3D's manufacturer leaves nothing to be desired. We expect them to come into the retail market with this card priced under the $200 competition just from the look at the bundle. It wasn't that they skimped but rather that you could see it was cost cutting because what you got was right. If you have a card older than a GeForce 8800 GT, now is the time to upgrade and that upgrade should be the Radeon HD 4850 graphics version.