Graphics Card Review Roundup – Chaintech, HIS, MSI & More

• 3dGameMan: HIS HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 Video Card:
  
  

  “The Radeon HD 4800 series video cards are currently available in three flavors; the 4850, 4870 and 4870 X2. The single GPU HIS HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 Video Card is based on the RV770 core which is built on the 55 nanometer manufacturing process and has 956 million transistors. The core speed on this product is 750MHz and the 512MB of GDDR5 256 bit memory is 3.6GHz DDR. It comes with 800 stream processing units for vertex, pixel and geometry data, 40 texture units and 16 raster operators. The pixel fill rate is 27 GPixels/sec and the memory bandwidth is 115.2GB/s. If you've been waiting to purchase a high-end Video Card, it's arrived! This is the best performance vs. price video cards currently on the market, hands down.”

  
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• Benchmark Reviews: Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Video Card:
  
  

  “In conclusion, my final recommendation on the Sapphire 100242L Radeon HD 4850 is very high but not extremely enthusiastic. The 4850 comes close to the GeForce 9800 GTX in gaming performance, but never completely outperforms it. Taken into consideration, you have to look at price and sub-feature offerings. It's no surprise that CrossFire and CrossFireX are available on just about every single motherboard that fits an Intel or AMD process; the same is hardly true for the SLI. So then it's down to price. Since NVIDIA submitted to ATI's price point, both products are now offered at the same cost. At the end of this point, there's really no decisive victory to be handed out. The drivers I tested with were Catalyst 8.6, and couldn't remain stable without an unmentioned Radeon HD 4800 Series Hotfix, but then again Forceware drivers are certainly not without their own problems. The Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 is an outstanding product, and just as good as the alternative, so the decision is going to come down to personal preference.”

  
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• Benchmark Reviews: ZOTAC GeForce GTX 280 AMP! Edition Video Card:
  
  

  “With games like Crysis and World in Conflict being replaced later this year, the newest titles are beginning to revolve around features like PhysX and higher post-processing effects. Expect the GTX 280 to shine in upcoming titles like FarCry 2 which uses the Dunia game engine and will place real demand on the 1 GB video frame buffer; even Shadow Harvest and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky should make this product worth while. The future of gaming might let you play the game with an older graphics solution, but it doesn't make any promises on enjoyment. So if you're a competitive hardcore gamer on with an appetite (and disposable income) for the absolute best, ZOTAC's GTX 280 AMP! Edition in the undisputed champion of graphic cards. If you're not so extreme, than the ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GX2 still performs just as well.”

  
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• Bigbruin: Sapphire 1024MB Radeon HD3850 Graphics Card Review:
  
  

  “The bottom line is that a typical ATI Radeon HD3850 can not compete with Sapphire's 1024MB Radeon HD3850 graphics card. The only problem is that the price of this card has it competing with stronger performers like the HD3870 and HD4850, and those are match ups it just can't win.”

  
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• CPU3D: MSI R4850-T2D512 (Radeon HD4850):
  
  

  “All-in-all, the MSI R4850-T2D512 is a very good performer. Whether you get a MSI version or any other brand ... if it uses ATI's reference design, then its performance is as good as any HD4850 based graphics card. What this card has shown, is that AMD/ATI have produced a very good performing GPU/graphics card at a very affordable and attractive price. We'll be seeing a lot more HD4800 based cards from other maufacturers over the coming months.”

  
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• CPU3D: Palit Geforce 9800 GTX (GDDR3):
  

  “The performance of the PALiT 9800GTX was excellent compared to the rest of the midrange GPU pack it was pitted against. The new price point of the 9800GTX places it at $199.99 USD, an excellent value at that price point. True faster, newer NVIDIA flavors exist, but not in that price range. Keep in mind the newer cards in NVIDIA’s repertoire consist mainly of more refreshes of the G92 GPU, and don’t really offer much in technical advancements. This makes the 9800GTX a very viable upgrade option to someone using on the older GPU’s listed in the comparison charts.”

  
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• Guru3D: Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 CrossfireX test:
  
  

  “So admittedly, I'm really becoming more enthusiastic about Crossfire solutions. I do stand by my opinion that after using 2 GPUs (whether that's NVIDIA or ATI does not matter), things often get really tricky due to drivers and actual game support. I'll take it even a step further, I'm really a single-GPU man myself, I like to be monogamous that way :) See, often we see issues. We had it with 3-way SLI, we had it with 3-way mixing and matching among 4800 surely didn't work as the slower card seems to slow down the other two as well. Driver issues, very likely. So if you go SLI or Crossfire, my recommendation really is two GPUs should be the maximum at this point in time for the best experience.”

  
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• X-bit Labs: Chaintech Apogee GeForce 9800 GTX Review:
  
  

  “Getting back to the main problem of this review which was voiced at the beginning, the conclusion about the positioning of the GeForce 9800 GTX in Nvidia’s single-chip solution line-up is obvious after we have seen the test results. And this conclusion is not in favor of the card. Compared with the performance, price, power consumption and even dimensions of the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB, the GeForce 9800 GTX makes little sense. There is a negligible difference between the two cards in terms of performance, often within the benchmark’s measurement error range (1-1.5%). And the GeForce 8800 GTS/512 is even faster occasionally due to its more aggressive memory timings.”

  
  Click here to read the full review.