About to pull the trigger. HIS 4850

This is a reference card so would suggest you consider flashing to improve the stock fan speed and underclock when idle. If you do quick search you find the procedure for this.
 
no the 4850 cards are great cards. It will run any game I want maxed with AA and AF minus Crysis. The only thing I recommend is getting an after market heatsink. The stock sink is trash. If you want to flash your bios, then you really should get a new sink. I run my 4850@720/1100 24/7 with no issues. Great little card.
 
Are you planning on overclocking? If so, definitely get an aftermarket cooler. If not, the card will work fine without any modifications. It won't blow up or melt.
 
thanks for the prompt replies, folks. i am def. getting this card before the weekend. im just going to read some reviews of HIS and VsionTek as companys and go for it.

i have no plans to OC it or change the fan. and from what i have read/watched a video, it is a snap to increase the fan speed and bring the temp down.

HIS has 1 year warranty w/ free shipping.

VisionTek lifetime and 9$ shipping.

im leaning towards the little extra money for the lifetime warranty. thanks for pointing that out.
 
from what i have read/watched a video, it is a snap to increase the fan speed and bring the temp down.
Click to expand...

It's very easy if you're happy with a fixed fan speed. If you want dynamic fan speed based on temp, a new beta of ATI Tray Tools just came out that allows you to do this. It causes stutters in some games but once the final version, plus the new RivaTuner come out, it will be perfect. I created a new dynamic fan profile which dropped my idle temp from 80C to 62C and the full load temp from 88C to 74C. It's still silent at idle and only a tiny bit louder under full load.
 
t00thless said:
thanks for the prompt replies, folks. i am def. getting this card before the weekend. im just going to read some reviews of HIS and VsionTek as companys and go for it.

i have no plans to OC it or change the fan. and from what i have read/watched a video, it is a snap to increase the fan speed and bring the temp down.

HIS has 1 year warranty w/ free shipping.

VisionTek lifetime and 9$ shipping.

im leaning towards the little extra money for the lifetime warranty. thanks for pointing that out.
Click to expand...

i used to buy cards that didn't have lifetime, and had my 9800xt and 8600 failed this way and had to buy new cards, then i got my hands on a bfg 6800gtoc, it did fail in about year and a half, and bfg replaced it with no issues, since then, i will only buy cards with a lifetime on it

as for the cooling, i am running a duorb on our visiontek 4850, as i am writing this, amd gpu tool is showing 39 degrees, the only thing i didn't like on the duorb is the fact that it glows blue when the rest of the system have no led, the next 4800 i get will probably try the xigmatek vga cooler which has no leds. the noise of the duorb is not audible vs the 140mm blower fan on the antec 300 running on medium
 
JimmiG said:
It's very easy if you're happy with a fixed fan speed. If you want dynamic fan speed based on temp, a new beta of ATI Tray Tools just came out that allows you to do this. It causes stutters in some games but once the final version, plus the new RivaTuner come out, it will be perfect. I created a new dynamic fan profile which dropped my idle temp from 80C to 62C and the full load temp from 88C to 74C. It's still silent at idle and only a tiny bit louder under full load.
Click to expand...

wow, those temps seem kinda high, mine runs at 40-45° normally and never hits 60°, even when gaming, the tradeoff is that while gaming the fan is pretty much in hair dryer mode noise -wise, but it doesn't bother me because the game is turned up high enough that I can't really hear it...
 
wol-va-rine said:
wow, those temps seem kinda high, mine runs at 40-45° normally and never hits 60°, even when gaming, the tradeoff is that while gaming the fan is pretty much in hair dryer mode noise -wise, but it doesn't bother me because the game is turned up high enough that I can't really hear it...
Click to expand...

Well, the 4850 with the stock cooler has the fan speed curve tuned that way. The fan doesn't really start to become audible until the GPU temp exceeds 90C. Usually when gaming with the fan at stock settings, it just makes a silent whining sound that is hardly any louder than the CPU cooler or case fans. Only when running Furmark and other stress tests does the fan ramp up and make itself heard over the background noise of the case. I guess this was the design goal for ATI - a small, single slot cooler that is as silent as possible while still keeping the GPU cool enough to stop it from crashing or taking permanent damage. No marigins for overclocking were included in the design for sure.
 
JimmiG said:
Well, the 4850 with the stock cooler has the fan speed curve tuned that way. The fan doesn't really start to become audible until the GPU temp exceeds 90C. Usually when gaming with the fan at stock settings, it just makes a silent whining sound that is hardly any louder than the CPU cooler or case fans. Only when running Furmark and other stress tests does the fan ramp up and make itself heard over the background noise of the case. I guess this was the design goal for ATI - a small, single slot cooler that is as silent as possible while still keeping the GPU cool enough to stop it from crashing or taking permanent damage. No marigins for overclocking were included in the design for sure.
Click to expand...

I have the stock cooler also, but I went into the bios and adjusted my fan profile...

fanfix.jpg
 
4850 looks tempting, but my crappy power supply of no PCI-E power connectors blocks me.

I had just bought a 8600gt for $90 too. Mainly because it did not need PCI-E power. Great timing on my part.
 
eeeeeeeeeeeeee said:
4850 looks tempting, but my crappy power supply of no PCI-E power connectors blocks me.

I had just bought a 8600gt for $90 too. Mainly because it did not need PCI-E power. Great timing on my part.
Click to expand...

my old antec trupower 550 couldn't power a 4850 unless i didn't power up a few other things in the system, you could try with the older psu, you don't need a pci-e power plug, because the card came with a molex to pci-e adapter
 
Voiceofid said:
my old antec trupower 550 couldn't power a 4850 unless i didn't power up a few other things in the system, you could try with the older psu, you don't need a pci-e power plug, because the card came with a molex to pci-e adapter
Click to expand...

that's strange, I have an Antec Basiq 500w that handles everything fine in my system...

E6600...
Sapphire HD4850...
4 HDDs...
DVD burner...
Card reader...
2 sticks of DDR2 6400...
a 250mm fan...
a 140mm fan...
and two 80mm fans...

if eeeeeeeeeeeeeee has a 450-500w psu I'd think there would be no problem upgrading to a 4850, but I may be wrong...
 
wol-va-rine said:
that's strange, I have an Antec Basiq 500w that handles everything fine in my system...

E6600...
Sapphire HD4850...
4 HDDs...
DVD burner...
Card reader...
2 sticks of DDR2 6400...
a 250mm fan...
a 140mm fan...
and two 80mm fans...

if eeeeeeeeeeeeeee has a 450-500w psu I'd think there would be no problem upgrading to a 4850, but I may be wrong...
Click to expand...

not sure, i only have some what average computer building knowledge. this was a older antec trupower without the pci-e plug, i used to molex adapter from the 4850 and with it, i could not power a second hard drive or my cd rom drive

but once i got the new antec quattro 850, there has been no issues
 
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