bit-tech News: HIS ATI Radeon HD 4830 512MB graphics card

[news 28]

Hi all,

 

We have just published a review of the *HIS ATI Radeon HD 4830 512MB

graphics card*. If you could post a link on your site that would be very

much appreciated.

 

*Link:*

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/10/30/his-ati-radeon-hd-4830-512mb/1

 

 

*Picture:*

http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2008/10/his-ati-radeon-hd-4830-512mb/fp_img.jpg

 

 

*Quote:

*/When you look at the Radeon HD 4830 in isolation, only comparing it to

what Nvidia has on the market at the moment, it's a pretty good buy if

you only care about frame rates in games, but unfortunately the world

doesn't work that way. There's a certain card called the Radeon HD 4850,

which is not only at least 15 percent faster (and more often than not

the margin is greater than 20 percent) in games, but is also available

for just over £100 including VAT, making it only £10 more expensive.

 

Of course, the card we've just linked doesn't have the best cooler on it

in the world, but then neither does the HIS Radeon HD 4830 we've looked

at here (when it comes to build quality). What's more, HIS has

essentially cannibalised the reference design PCB by pulling components

off while keeping the card functional in order to cut costs down.

Cannibalising is probably a little strong because the card works fine in

all but World in Conflict (where it black-screened when loading save

points and starting a new game) and it overclocked beyond specification

as well, although not as far as we'd hoped. Some would argue that it's a

clever optimisation of the AMD reference design designed to keep costs down.

 

That's exactly what HIS has done here though, because its Radeon HD 4830

is at least £10 cheaper than any other 4830 in the UK at the moment. And

at under £90 including VAT, that's quite a significant difference.

Unfortunately, the underlying problem with the HIS Radeon HD 4830 (and

the 4830 in general) is that, at least for the time being, there are

Radeon HD 4850s that are more attractively priced considering the

performance increase you'll net.

 

On the Nvidia front, there is of course the benefit of a more robust GPU

computing infrastructure and significantly better performance in

Folding ( -at -) Home (if that's something you care about). There's also the new

Release 180 driver just around the corner too, and they're promising

some massive performance improvements - we'll be looking at that shortly

in a couple of games. The drivers could change the picture a little and

make the GeForce 9800 GT (or 8800 GT, for that matter) a much more

viable option for the gamer but we'll have to wait and see how they

impact the landscape.

 

When AMD first talked to us about the Radeon HD 4830, we were expecting

the card to cannibalise Radeon HD 4850 sales because it'd perform so

close to the card of choice amongst many gamers today. Sadly, that

hasn't turned out to be the case and instead we see the well-priced

Radeon HD 4850s out there eating away at the juicy pie AMD had baked for

the Radeon HD 4830's entry into the market.

 

Overall then, the HIS Radeon HD 4830 isn't a bad card, but we'd

recommend spending just that little bit more to buy a card like the

Radeon HD 4850 as it has a more potent future ahead of it in our opinion./

*

 

*Cheers guys!

 

Tim Smalley

www.bit-tech.net