OC3D Review: Gigabyte 4850 1gb

[Luigi]

With a price of ~£150, can the Gigabyte 4850 play with the big boys or is it best left on the shelves?

Find out in our latest review here

 

[zak4994]

I hate the look of bare graphics cards as they just look untidy.

Though for the person who likes his money, this would be cool.

 

[Rastalovich]

I hate the look of bare graphics cards as they just look untidy.

Though for the person who likes his money, this would be cool.

Weirdly enough I agree. Ever since the slick look of the 8800GT's crap cooler, I've preferred that look.

However. I really like the fin arrangement Gigabyte have on that sink.

However2. Blowing down on a card and letting the hot air go where it wants is not the best idea.

£143 looks good. I'd still opt for a £100 9800gtxyzabc+++ after the afternoon I just had with ATI's drivers. Thank u very much.

Great review.

 

[°TheMadDutchDude°]

Nice review, Tom!

One thing though, for an extra £20 odd you can have a Sapphire 4870, so why spend £143 on a 4850? Anyways, nice review. Keep 'em coming!

 

[Luigi]

Nice review, Tom!

One thing though, for an extra £20 odd you can have a Sapphire 4870, so why spend £143 on a 4850? Anyways, nice review. Keep 'em coming!

Is the 4870 512mb or normal? We did have a 4870 in the tests, which didn't do so well on the CPF.

 

[DeMoB]

I recommended a friend to buy one of these for his build, but it turns out that it doesn't come with an onboard fan controller, and the fan was running at 100% all the time (No amount of driver hacks, rivatuner, BIOS mods would do anything to change that). He had to fight to get a refund (as it wasn't faulty per-say, apparently it's default behaviour from gigabyte), but fortunately they took it back in the end.

Although the zalman cooler used on this is quieter than the stock cooler would have been (which is what drew me to this card in the first place), it's still to noisy to run at 100% all the time.

So if noise bothers you, avoid this card!

Dan

 

[monkey7]

Or buy an aftermarket air cooler

I have a sapphire hd4850 512 which had a noisy little bugger on it. After having replaced it with a scythe musashi (€32) it was dead quiet. If you have an additional PCI slot to sacrifice the arctic cooling accellero s1 with a 120mm fan tiewrapped onto it is about €25.