What a year 2008 has been for video cards. Some real monsters came out, like the GeForce 9800 GX2, and some real fast, inexpensive cards came out as well such as today's ATI Radeon HD 4830. This Radeon HD 4830 has been put together by MSI, overclocked and improved from the reference design, for just over a $100, the MSI Radeon HD 4830 has a great deal of bang for buck potential. The Radeon HD 4830 was the late comer to the party that was the launch of ATI's Radeon HD 4800 series. The Radeon HD 4850 and HD 4870 were the first to come out, virtually at the same time and have proven to be wildly successful, easily getting into any list of ATI's all-time greatest hits. - NeoSeeker

MSI Radeon HD 4830 Gaming Series Graphics Review

Many sources put the number of Radeon HD 4800 series sold on the happy side of two million units. The power balance between NVIDIA and ATI has been really shook up, ever since the Radeon HD 4800 came on the scene. But where things are right now is a bit of different story. With NVIDIA's release of some excellent big bang drivers squeezing extra frames out of a bunch of games, and the aggressive price cuts on the shader boosted GeForce GTX 260 card, NVIDIA is working hard on regaining their unarguably dominant position in the discrete graphics market in the last handful of years and as such sustain the heat.

While the new big-gun video cards, the GeForce GTX 285 and GTX 295, seem to be peeking their heads out of the corners of CES reports, it does not look like neither red or green will be releasing significant products between the $100-200 mark until at least February. And there is a good reason for this as right now there is just a glut of cards available, for a fair prices, lower than $200. Almost daily we read PC gamers complain that gaming is too expensive. Well, take this MSI Radeon HD 4830 to be even less ambiguous. What do you expect a $140 and sometimes even less expensive video card might be capable of?

The Radeon HD 4830 has a lot going for it. By all indications, MSI set out to built a very solid and capable Radeon HD 4830 graphics card. Recently we tested a standard Radeon HD 4830 against a GeForce 9800 GT. Though it was a tough call, in that contest the slight edge went to the GeForce 9800 GT. However in this case, this is no standard Radeon HD 4830, and if we had to put the Radeon HD 4830 OC edition in the ring against the GeForce 9800 GT, the glory would have to go to this Radeon HD 4830. The most puzzling thing about the Radeon HD 4830 is that it is nicely built, yet the factory overclock is incredibly slight.

If MSI sold this card just with an extra 100MHz on the core, and another 100MHz to the memory clock, it would have no problems sustaining these speeds and it would be an incredible purchase for those unknowingly, or unwanting to do any of their own overclocking. For those that aren't squeamish when it just comes to overclocking however, the Radeon HD 4830 is resounding, stand-out sensation. It can sustain performance levels over that of a Radeon HD 4850 card, for a very reasonable price. Of course it does come in at a slightly higher price tag than just any standard Radeon HD 4830, but that would be just normal.

If you are on a tight budget and want to spend the very requisite amount to get top-end performance, and not a penny more, we can wholly recommend picking up the Radeon HD 4830 OverClock version and getting to work. For overclockers, this card is a stellar deal. For non overclockers, the Radeon HD 4830 is still a good purchase. Put together nicely, with a competent cooler that gets the job done and is not that loud, the MSI Radeon HD 4830 has what it takes to suceed in the incredibly jammed pack world of video cards selling between $100 and $150. And with such a price tag it is surely a very attractive deal.

However, if it all comes down to price, and you don't want to overclock, you might be able to get a better deal with a GeForce 9800 GT. And since prices change so fast around this time a year, you'll have to keep your eyes peeled for deals, and things could change quick. If you are not an overclocker the Radeon HD 4830 card from MSI can also be recommended, because of the high level of workmanship that MSI has shown putting together this fine product.