You may have gathered over the last couple of weeks that we really like the ATI Radeon HD 4870 card. It isn't quite the fastest graphics card you can buy but it performs very well and comes in at a quite phenomenal price. Like its more expensive sibling, the ATI Radeon HD 4850 is based on ATI's new RV770 chip. In fact, unlike the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260, which uses the same chip as the GeForce GTX 280 but with a few sections disabled, the Radeon HD 4850 uses the full extent of the RV770 chipset. The differences are confined to clock speeds and memory configuration, and that is as far as it really goes but will make a change on the gaming performance and experience. - TrustedReviews

ATI Radeon HD 4850 (RV770) Gaming Version Review

ASUS and PowerColor were the first board partners to get cards to us for review. PowerColor's card is running stock clocks while ASUS' is from its TOP range, which means it comes overclocked to 680MHz core and 2100MHz memory clock speed straight out of the box. This understandably means the ASUS card will cost a little more but the choice is there if you want a tad more performance. Both cards come with the exact same bundle that includes a CrossFireX connector. Neither include any free games or other software but considering the approximate $239 asking price this is hardly surprising.

As a result of the cut down clock and memory speeds the cards consume less power and consequently kick out less heat than Radeon HD 4870. This means ATI has been able to use a single slot cooler for its reference design, which both cards we're looking at today have utilised. While this seems to make sense, after an extended gaming session because these cards get somehow hot. Not that we experienced any stability problems, at least with PowerColor's card. However, the ASUS card, which was fine for most of our testing, didn't fare so well. And ASUS informed us that retail TOP versions will use their Glaciator cooler instead.

Being as the Radeon HD 4850 uses the same chip as the Radeon HD 4870, you'd expect it to have roughly the same power consumption figures. However, the change in clock speeds and memory type obviously makes quite a difference as this is the most power efficient card on test when idle and only draws more power than the significantly slower NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT under load. So, if you want a relatively small single slot, power efficient, yet fast graphics card the Radeon HD 4850 would certainly seem to fit the bill perfectly. If you want extra performance boost, going for an overclocked card certainly seems to pay as well.

One final problem for the Radeon HD 4850 is actually the Radeon HD 4870. With both NVIDIA and ATI fighting a fierce price war around the $399 mark, the Radeon HD 4850 has been left behind a bit and is now only $99 cheaper than the Radeon HD 4870. While that's still a fair chunk of change, if your motivation for buying the Radeon HD 4850 is purely financial then saving for a few more weeks for the Radeon HD 4870 would be a sensible bet because the boost in performance is significant. The ATI Radeon HD 4850 card is still a very attractive option for those that simply can't push there budget further.