MSI R4850-T2D512 @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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MSI R4850-T2D512 - The ATI Radeon HD 4800 series has been making waves this past month and for good reason. Today we take a look at the budget-minded side of the 4800 series with the MSI R4850-T2D512. We see how it measures up in Crysis, Age of Conan, and Call of Duty 4 on a widescreen display. Has it any AA magic of its own?

With the R4850-T2D512, MSI has delivered an inexpensive Radeon HD 4850 at only $160 after mail-in-rebate . It is a video card for those with a budget. It is not builder overclocked, it does not have an extravagant heatsink, or any other bells and whistles. It is just an inexpensive video card, which is rock solid, and performs amazingly well.
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Boy yall got a weak clocker! Wonder if it is one of the cards put out with a lower vcore like the visiontek. Mine clocked about like that when I got stuck in 2d that uses the low vcore.
 
I wonder, at lower res, like 1280x1024, would the AA scaling be a lot better, and more along the lines of the 4870 when it used AA at higher res. What I am getting at here, is the 4850's AA scaling roughly at low resolutions = the AA scaling of the 4870 at higher resolutions. Just a thought here.
 
In the waterfall shot, the MSI screenshot on the left clearly has higher resolution textures and the caption say there's no difference.
 
I would love to see how a pair of 4850 would stack up as far as AA. Do you think that they would be on par with the 4870X2 in the free 8XAA? For that matter what about three 4850? As the shader power seems to be more important then the memory it might make for sense for me to just Xfire three 4850 for the same price as two 4870, scaling not withstanding. I would love to turn up the eyecandy and the 8800GTX is not cutting it.
 
I'm sure you guys hear this a lot, but I would really have liked to see some apples-to-apples comparing the performance at 1280x1024 and/or 1440x900. At ~$165 these cards are perfect for users wanting to play the next generation of games on their older/smaller LCDs. I have a feeling you'd see slightly different results on AA scaling at those resolutions. Any reason why the nvidia cards were left out of the AA scaling comparison?
 
^ Definitely agree with poster above, for 1280x1024, this card would be best suited for, especially crysis on all high. If the only major diff between this and the 4870 is ddr5, which seems to rock at high res, then, with the same logic, at lower resolutions, the 4850 should perform similarly.
 
Youn said:
In the waterfall shot, the MSI screenshot on the left clearly has higher resolution textures and the caption say there's no difference.
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Agreed. The nvidia cards look like they were still caching the textures. 4850 ftw.
 
Youn said:
In the waterfall shot, the MSI screenshot on the left clearly has higher resolution textures and the caption say there's no difference.
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Was thinking the same myself, [H] says there's no difference but you can clearly see a big difference if you look at the rocks on either side of the waterfall, a lot higher detail with the ATI card.
 
Good review, and definetly proves that higher memory bandwidth is back in action as far as improved performance goes, wonder how choked (if any) the 4870's are at stock compared to OC"s, would be interesting to see the new TOP cards coming out with 1200mhz GDDR4!
 
Wolfkin said:
Was thinking the same myself, [H] says there's no difference but you can clearly see a big difference if you look at the rocks on either side of the waterfall, a lot higher detail with the ATI card.
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I'm sorry that was my mistake. I was brain dead after my finals last week. I included that picture in there to show that but then when I got to writing the article I forget all about it.
 
I concur with [H] review. I got the same exact card. Great card that will play today's games nicely.
 
So, for the same price, would yu take a 4850 over an 9800GTX? Or are we really splitting hairs here?
 
SpeedyVV said:
So, for the same price, would yu take a 4850 over an 9800GTX? Or are we really splitting hairs here?
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Might as well take the 4850; DX 10.1, 7.1 24/192 audio over HDMI, and single slot cooler couldn't hurt.
 
Thanks for the review, [H].

This is a great budget card that will fit in well with the low to medium range systems I currently offer.
 
Matthew_Krysiak said:
Downside though is it is one hot little card.
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Meh, so it runs a little hotter. I really don't think that's an issue though. One could also merely adjust the fan controls too (or if for some reason it's a big deal, buy a 3rd party cooler).
 
Yeah, so it seems like the extra memory bandwidth on the HD 4870 really does give it a significant boost. 3600 MHz memory really is pretty slick

Here are the rumored specifications for the upcoming RV870. 40nm, non-linear shrink of the RV770. Looks good. Just might crack 2Tflops too.
 
Moofasa~ said:
Meh, so it runs a little hotter. I really don't think that's an issue though. One could also merely adjust the fan controls too (or if for some reason it's a big deal, buy a 3rd party cooler).
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I was wondering when that would be brought up. They simply need to make it easy to adjust the fan speed on ALL models coming out. The fan is only set for like 14% and it doesn't start becoming noticeably loud until you get past 50% so there is no reason for it to be SET so low. I originally flashed my Visiontek card to be an Asus so I could use their fan speed software SmartDoctor. When I moved to Vista 64 SmartDoctor quit working so I ended up having to create and edit a CCC profile setting my fan speed at 75% A little loud but I Fold 24/7 so I need that cooling. Under full load it never gets past 65 degrees with the fans set that high. Also the chips design CAN handle more heat anyway so no big deal unless you want to volt mod and heavily overclock it THEN go for an aftermarket cooler.
 
Another excellent comparison delivered with just the right amount of Scepticision. If I wasn't Confused before, I am even more so now. Since I have an Excellent Mobo/Processor Combo that can CrossFire, I've been waiting for something along the Lines of the 4850 that might scale well enough in Crossfire when these new Games come out to Justify Purchasing a 24" Monitor to Play Crossfire with. I made the Jump Yesterday and Ordered a Pair of Gigabyte HD4850's at the Zip, and just received a Shipping Notice that they're on their way, and I should have them by the Weekend.
This should make a Great upgrade from the 9600GT that's currently in this Setup. Will Post Impressions when I've Played Crysis on my New Cards.
 
Moofasa~ said:
Meh, so it runs a little hotter. I really don't think that's an issue though. One could also merely adjust the fan controls too (or if for some reason it's a big deal, buy a 3rd party cooler).
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Or for a little less money, add a 120mm Fan across it, should move enough air to keep it cool and might get ya a couple extra Mhz OC. hmmm!
 
Is it just me or did the Gold Award get smaller? Maybe I'm still not over the giant "FAIL" logo, hehe.
 
Jaguar Jim1 said:
Another excellent comparison delivered with just the right amount of Scepticision. If I wasn't Confused before, I am even more so now. Since I have an Excellent Mobo/Processor Combo that can CrossFire, I've been waiting for something along the Lines of the 4850 that might scale well enough in Crossfire when these new Games come out to Justify Purchasing a 24" Monitor to Play Crossfire with. I made the Jump Yesterday and Ordered a Pair of Gigabyte HD4850's at the Zip, and just received a Shipping Notice that they're on their way, and I should have them by the Weekend.
This should make a Great upgrade from the 9600GT that's currently in this Setup. Will Post Impressions when I've Played Crysis on my New Cards.
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If you're planning to make your initial impression of CF based on Crysis, I would highly recommend installing the 8.8 beta drivers that are floating around.
 
Ok, I'm a little late on my post...
I have one doubt, in this article MSI R4850-T2D512 Video Card you were able to push the 4850 to 1600x1050 with no AA and no AF, but in this article AMD Radeon HD 4800 Series you were able to push the 4850 to 1600x1200 with no AA and 16x AF, giving an edge over the 9800GTX that was not able to play Crysis using physics quality set to high, and giving an even higher edge over the 8800GT.

I noticed that the test setup is different, but in my opinion the performance difference from one article to another is quite expressive.

Could anyone explain to me why?
 
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