Palit HD 4850 Sonic: almost Radeon HD 4870, priced as HD 4850
Author:
Date: 15.10.2008 |
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The Tests
We'll be running the tests on a platform of the following configuration:
| Test configuration |
|
| CPU |
Intel Core 2 Quad X6850 3.0 @ 3.67 GHz |
| Motherboard |
ASUS P5E3 (Intel X38) |
| RAM |
Corsair Dominator DDR3 2 x 2 GB 1333 MHz 6-6-6-18 1T |
| Operating system |
Windows Vista |
| Power supply unit |
HIPER 880 W |
In our tests, we'll be deducing results for the following video cards:
- Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic with the nominal clock speeds 685/2000 MHz;
- Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic, overclocked to 780/2200 MHz;
- reference Radeon HD 4850, with the results taken from the previous review;
- reference Radeon HD 4870, with the results also taken from the previous review;
- reference GeForce 9800GTX, with the results also taken from the previous review;
We used the following drivers for the tests:
- for Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic - Catalyst 8.9;
- for regular Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon HD 4870 - Catalyst 8.8.
We found no substantial difference in performances between the drivers Catalyst 8.8 and Catalyst 8.9, except that in the latest version there was fixed the bug which resulted in vanishing the image at Crysis in Radeon HD 4870 set to the resolution 1920х1200. So we complemented the the available results with those produced using Catalyst 8.9 drivers.
Following the tradition, we are examining the test results with 3DMark test suites.
At 3DMark 06, the overclocked Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic was a little bit behind Radeon HD 4870, but due to overclocking it was anyway able taking the second place thus leaving the rivals well behind.
At 3DMark Vantage, Performance, the overclocked Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic was very close to Radeon HD 4870. To all appearances, the faster GDDR-5 video memory in the latter makes itself felt.
At 3DMark Vantage, High, the overclocked Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic again took the second place, again very close to Radeon HD 4870.
But in the Extreme mode of 3DMark Vantage the first was overclocked Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic. The thing is that the Extreme mode requires more video memory than the previous two modes. To all appearances, the available 512 MB is definitely not enough. In the end, part of the RAM starts being taken up for the needs of the video card, which invalidates the advantages of GDDR-5 in Radeon HD 4870 as compared to GDDR-3 in Radeon HD 4850. Since the clock speed of the overclocked GPU in Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic is 30 MHz higher than that for Radeon HD 4870, it proved to be the leader. We also note that at all the three tests of 3DMark Vantage the GeForce 9800GTX took the last place.
At Call of Duty 4, Radeon HD 4870 proved to be the undisputable leader. The overclocked Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic was the second, but its gap between the rivals was not so impressive.
At Need for Speed Pro Street Racing, the overclocked Palit Radeon HD 4850 lagged behind Radeon HD 4870 by about 5%, which is much less than in the previous game. BY the way, that is one of the few games at which the GeForce 9800GTX shows results close to Radeon HD 4850.
At Call of Juarez, the overclocked Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic again took the second place. However, it again suffered from using the slower GDDR-3 video memory which prevented it to take the first place despite the superiority at GPU clock speeds. GeForce 9800GTX suffered from the insufficient video memory optimization, so at higher resolutions it showed worse results than those for Radeon video cards.
For Crysis, the video memory speed proved to be not as critical, due to that the overclocked Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic was just a little bit well behind Radeon HD 4870. The GeForce 9800GTX suffered from the insufficient video memory optimization in this game as well.
At Race Driver: GRID, the overclocked Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic was not far behind Radeon HD 4870. Certainly, overclocking did help the new product by Palit, but the installed GDDR-3 video memory is no longer able to compete against GDDR-5 installed on Radeon HD 4870.
Final Words
Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic has demonstrated a superb cooling efficiency, a good overclocking capability, and impressive performance. At the same time, it cost just a little bit more than the regular Radeon HD 4850, as can be seen from the below table.
Approximate prices for video cards in Moscow's retail:
| Video card |
Price, rubles (1$ ~ 24 rubles) |
| Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic |
5300 |
| Radeon HD 4850 |
4800 |
| Radeon HD 4870 |
7900 |
| GeForce 9800GTX |
5800 |
Needless to say, the work done by engineers at Palit at creating Radeon HD 4850 of proprietary design deserves the highest mark. So, Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic has been awarded with the "Editor's Choice" title.
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