I'm looking to game at 1680*1050 Is the extra 60quid to get a 4870 worth it when gaming at that res? From benchmarks I've scene the 4850 looks to be about 5% slower on average then the 4870 at that resolution. Wouldn't it be better to get the 4850, invest in a Zalman GPU cooler and overclock making a cooler running quieter card with similiar performance to 4870 at 1680*1050 factoring out high AA settings but for less cash? Another thing, anyone ever tried to bargain with Scan.co.uk for a cheaper price? If I can get then to throw in a copy of Vista Ultimate 64 for free with 700quid PC build I'd be sorted. Thanks from gamer on a budget currently struggling along with 7900GTX equipped laptop for 2years.
I'd go for a Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Toxic which is overclocked AND fitted with a Zalman cooler, you can pick one of these up for £135 or less.
I have the 4850 and I have an aftermarket cooler and I've overclocked. Not sure about the Zalmans, but I've got an Accelero AC1 and it's brilliant, very cold. With voltmodding I managed to get to 820/1160 stable. Without voltmodding I got 700/1160 stable-ish. I got it from Scan too, I very much doubt you'll get it any cheaper, are you taking advantage of the free delivery?
Well, you can leave it passive (it doesn't come with a fan) so it's completely silent. That gives temperatures just a small bit under the stock cooler. I've zip tied a 120mm fan to it, and it is very very quiet, it would easily be quieter than a Zalman cooler.
Interesting, I'd like a quiet set-up this time around having spent the past 6 and-a-half years listening to my CPU cooler, every little bit should help.
Just a warning, the AC1 isn't designed for the 4850. The cooler itself fits and so do the RAM sinks, but the heatsink for the voltage regulators does not. What I did is hacksaw the heatsink from the stock cooler, it works a treat. I can take a picture of my setup if you'd like.
Not the best pics, but I've got some. Whole setup Fan closeup Voltage regulator sink Side on view Hope that helps a little. The pictures make it look a small bit bigger than it really is, it has no problems fitting in any case, but if you add a fan it'll take up a few slots.
The way I see it a generic HD4870 is about 50% more expensive than a generic HD4850, yet as far as I can tell you don't get 50% more performance. Right now all you can (easily) get are the generic models. My advice (and I'm taking it myself ) is to go with the HD4850 and replace it with something better down the line. I'd also follow Ramble's advice on getting an after-market cooler like the Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 rev.2. Personally I'm looking at the Accelero TWIN TURBO myself, since I'm not sure a completely passive setup will really work out well.
Accelero TWIN TURBO looks kewl, I've got my eyes set on the toxic, get OC'd and good cooling for less then it would cost to get refernce 4870 and then cooler, quite abit less and no fuss ...though its not at scan anymore and gigabyte is 115quid....hmmmmmmm
Just noticed that Force3D are doing an HD4870 with the Accelero Twin Turbo. They also have a lot of other non-generic HD4800-series cards lined up. Looks pretty interesting.
IceQ cooling is Arctic Cooling's original attempt at silent effective cooling. They call it Silencer instead. I actually lost a Radeon 9800 Pro to it some years back. The damned thing was so silent, that I never noticed the power plug for the fan having become unconnected to the graphics card, and the 9800 Pro was one of the last chips not to come with a thermal diode. One day, from one minute to the next, the screen went dark and the graphics card was no more...
crysis running smooth at 1680x1050 is my aim on budget pc, can the 4850 toxic do this pre or post overclock? Or should I drop q6600 for 2,5ghz wolfdale oc'd to 3ghz and put savings toward getting 4870? quiet running pc is also key to me.
I still can't see the advantage of quad cores at this moment myself. There's just not enough software around to take advantage of quad cores. Also, especially given the results of the HF4850 Toxic review here at Bit-Tech I don't think you'd be able to overclock that card much more.
