While ATI and NVIDIA keep trading punches in the never ending battle for the high-end throne, we chose to take a look at the more sensible side of things and test another mainstream card. We are as looking as some kind of special version of the Radeon HD 4850 with a custom cooling and improved settings to get to a higher level of gaming experience and as such greater performance. The Radeon HD 4850 is currently the best mid-range card that money can buy, and Club3D's overclocked version can be found for as low as $189, while the lowest priced reference Radeon HD 4850 card can be found for just under $164, so let's see if it's worth the additional $25 or so, for what you get as extra? - FudZilla

Club3D Radeon HD 4850 OC ZEROtherm Card Review

ATI's RV770 core packs an impressive 965 million transistors and we already said that both Radeon HD 4870 and HD 4850 cards feature the same GPU at different clocks. While the Radeon HD 4870 runs at 750MHz core, the reference Radeon HD 4850 is clocked at 625MHz. As far as memory is concerned, these have a 256-bit memory bus, but in order to stay in the big league and fight with NVIDIA's latest offerings, ATI opted for GDDR5 memory. The Club3D Radeon HD 4850 OC graphics card is a bit different as Club3D decided to go for the factory overclock, so this card works at 665MHz clock speed for the core.

The new GPU is built in 55nm process and brings 800 shader processors on both Radeon HD 4800 cards. The Club3D Radeon HD 4850 OC edition is a bit different than the reference designed Radeon HD 4850. In addition to the different cooler and higher GPU clock, there are also some minor changes to the PCB design as well, the power connector is pushed a bit higher near the edge of the card, and unlike the reference card the voltage regular heatsink is separated from the main heatsink. As for the power consumption, the Radeon HD 4850 is also different from its big brother and as such has a maximum consumption of 110W.

The cooler on the Club3D Radeon HD 4850 OC edition is a dual slot design from ZEROtherm. It is the same cooler that PowerColor likes to use on its PCS series graphics cards, but it also isn't new to Club3D either, as they used it on some previous graphics cards. The reference single slot cooler gets quite hot, and the temperature can climb up to 87°C, which is normal operation temperature for this card. The single slot cooler does a good job at cooling the Radeon HD 4850 card, and its not that loud, which led us to conclusion that ZEROtherm's cooler can only do better and be more silent, at least that's what it should do.

The factory overclock on the Club3D Radeon HD 4850 graphics card doesn't bring any impressive performance gains when compared to the reference board. The main question here is if this card is worth the additional $25 or so? We think it is, as you get a better cooling solution which will keep the board at a more reasonable 63°C under load. The performance is practically the same as with a reference Radeon HD 4850 which can probably also overclock to 680MHz, but with the temperature at 87°C it can influence other components in the case. As such the lower the temperature the better for the overall system performance.

The price is just right as this video card sells for $189 and thus we can only recommend it, as Club3D did a good job with ZEROtherm cooling. And if it's too pricey for you and you're looking for a $125 card, you can go for the Radeon HD 4830 or the Radeon HD 4670 but at sub-$150 this card hits the sweet spot.