Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic - bit-tech.net Forums

Tim S · 14th Oct 2008, 13:24

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...d-4850-sonic/1

Palit took the AMD ATI Radeon HD 4850 reference design and threw it out of the window before it started working on the Radeon HD 4850 Sonic. We check out Palit's completely redesigned card to see if it can stand up against the fierce competition on the market.

Denis_iii · 14th Oct 2008, 14:19

"HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX that is still unavailable and hasn't dropped in price despite hearing rumblings of a slight tweak happening"

???????????any info on the tweak

Tim S · 14th Oct 2008, 14:20

Price tweak... in the UK at least.

mrb_no1 · 14th Oct 2008, 14:47

nice article, it just gets harder and harder to distinguish between the flurry of ati cards that dominante the mid range market. Its aweome!

~~possible typo in 1st para of final thoughts, 3rd line and something about oc'ing memory a "big further", obviously should be bit.~~ - thanks, fixed.

peace

fatman

phuzz · 14th Oct 2008, 14:52

Hmm, I picked up a Palit 8800GT about 6 months ago that came with a non reference cooler that was just RUBBISH (very loud, constantly on, no PWM), I replaced it with a nice zalman one in the end.
Anyway, it left kind of a bad taste in my mouth as far as Palit are concerned, nice to see their ATI side is looking good.

Tim S · 14th Oct 2008, 15:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by phuzz

Hmm, I picked up a Palit 8800GT about 6 months ago that came with a non reference cooler that was just RUBBISH (very loud, constantly on, no PWM), I replaced it with a nice zalman one in the end.
Anyway, it left kind of a bad taste in my mouth as far as Palit are concerned, nice to see their ATI side is looking good.

Was it one similar to this one on the 9600 GT Sonic we used in our £400 gaming PC? Linky: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...00-gaming-pc/2

mrb_no1 · 14th Oct 2008, 17:02

hey you mean admins, someone put a line through what i said, so i figured the typo was fixed. it isnt, the typo just has an extra letter now, sorry to be a pain over something so small

peace

Tim S · 14th Oct 2008, 17:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrb_no1

hey you mean admins, someone put a line through what i said, so i figured the typo was fixed. it isnt, the typo just has an extra letter now, sorry to be a pain over something so small

peace

Haha, sorry, it should be fixed properly now. :\

bjrcboy · 14th Oct 2008, 21:43

Any chance you can let me know how loud the card was?

Tim S · 14th Oct 2008, 22:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by bjrcboy

Any chance you can let me know how loud the card was?

Quote:

The heatsink design is not a familiar one, but it combines a 70mm variable speed fan with an array of aluminium fins that are connected to a copper base via two nickel plated heatpipes. It's a dual slot design and for the most part the fan remains quiet, spinning slowly even under extended 3D load in games like Crysis.

I don't think it's as quiet as the HIS/Powercolor at idle, but at load it's easily quieter than the HIS and probably a dead heat with the Powercolor.

sganimefan · 15th Oct 2008, 00:46

Hm... Is the reference design 4-phase or 2-phase? From the pictures of it it seems like it's a 4-phase design but there are a couple of websites which says the reference is a 2-phase design?

Tim S · 15th Oct 2008, 07:07

I am fairly sure that it is four phases with two 'fets per phase, but I will ask for confirmation again...

Horizon · 15th Oct 2008, 07:15

On the chart, Crysis 1920x1200 0xAA 8xAF, DX10, High Detail.

the Radeon HD 4870 1GB is listed as the 512MB

Xir · 15th Oct 2008, 07:45

So...no "normal - analogue" TV out?
Svideo or Component?

Frido · 15th Oct 2008, 08:54

My guess is S-video, since Tim stated that there was no dongle with this card. (Just correct me if I'm wrong)

Tim S · 15th Oct 2008, 09:12

you can connect S-video directly to the card, but there's no Component (because of the lack of the dongle), but you can use one that you got with a previous purchase if you have one.

Xtrafresh · 15th Oct 2008, 09:27

Ok, that's covered, now roll on the 4870's with good cooling.

Brainless · 15th Oct 2008, 11:49

Reference card have 2-phase power supply for GPU not four. It's uses uP6201 - Dual-Phase Synchronous-Rectified Buck Controller.
It's have two chokes per phase in parallel.
SONIC is with much better power supply (3-phase).

Tim S · 15th Oct 2008, 14:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brainless

Reference card have 2-phase power supply for GPU not four. It's uses uP6201 - Dual-Phase Synchronous-Rectified Buck Controller.
It's have two chokes per phase in parallel.
SONIC is with much better power supply (3-phase).

Thanks for signing up to post this information. I've also had confirmation back from AMD and the reference design is indeed two chokes per phase - I've updated the review to reflect this fact.

14th Oct 2008, 13:24	#1
Tim S Pewlius Caesar bit-tech Staff Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Ascot, Berks Posts: 18,021	Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...d-4850-sonic/1 Palit took the AMD ATI Radeon HD 4850 reference design and threw it out of the window before it started working on the Radeon HD 4850 Sonic. We check out Palit's completely redesigned card to see if it can stand up against the fierce competition on the market. __________________ Tim on Twitter \| Tim's Blog \| Tim's Flickr The bit-tech Blog \| bit-tech on Twitter \| Join the bit-tech & Custom PC folding team (#35947)

14th Oct 2008, 14:20	#3
Tim S Pewlius Caesar bit-tech Staff Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Ascot, Berks Posts: 18,021	Price tweak... in the UK at least. __________________ Tim on Twitter \| Tim's Blog \| Tim's Flickr The bit-tech Blog \| bit-tech on Twitter \| Join the bit-tech & Custom PC folding team (#35947)

14th Oct 2008, 14:47	#4
mrb_no1 Pie Eater Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Pyrford, England Posts: 365	nice article, it just gets harder and harder to distinguish between the flurry of ati cards that dominante the mid range market. Its aweome! ~~possible typo in 1st para of final thoughts, 3rd line and something about oc'ing memory a "big further", obviously should be bit.~~ - thanks, fixed. peace fatman __________________ Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3600Mhz ¦ Asus Maximus II Formula ¦ ATI Radeon 4890 (1000Mhz Core + 1200Mhz Mem OC) ¦ 2x2G Corsair Dom. PC 8500 @ 1080Mhz ¦ Aquacomputer WC ¦ Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty ¦ 150G Raptor, 2x1500 + 1x750 + 2x500 Seagate (SATA2) ¦ Pioneer DVD burner ¦ Lian Li - PC 73SL Aluminium Silent Server Case ¦ Dell 2007WFP 20" Widescreen ¦ Logitech Z-5500 5.1 Speakers ¦ Sennheiser HD270

14th Oct 2008, 17:02	#7
mrb_no1 Pie Eater Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Pyrford, England Posts: 365	hey you mean admins, someone put a line through what i said, so i figured the typo was fixed. it isnt, the typo just has an extra letter now, sorry to be a pain over something so small peace __________________ Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3600Mhz ¦ Asus Maximus II Formula ¦ ATI Radeon 4890 (1000Mhz Core + 1200Mhz Mem OC) ¦ 2x2G Corsair Dom. PC 8500 @ 1080Mhz ¦ Aquacomputer WC ¦ Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty ¦ 150G Raptor, 2x1500 + 1x750 + 2x500 Seagate (SATA2) ¦ Pioneer DVD burner ¦ Lian Li - PC 73SL Aluminium Silent Server Case ¦ Dell 2007WFP 20" Widescreen ¦ Logitech Z-5500 5.1 Speakers ¦ Sennheiser HD270

15th Oct 2008, 07:07	#12
Tim S Pewlius Caesar bit-tech Staff Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Ascot, Berks Posts: 18,021	I am fairly sure that it is four phases with two 'fets per phase, but I will ask for confirmation again... __________________ Tim on Twitter \| Tim's Blog \| Tim's Flickr The bit-tech Blog \| bit-tech on Twitter \| Join the bit-tech & Custom PC folding team (#35947)

14th Oct 2008, 14:19	#2
Denis_iii Hypermodder Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 874	"HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX that is still unavailable and hasn't dropped in price despite hearing rumblings of a slight tweak happening" ???????????any info on the tweak

14th Oct 2008, 14:52	#5
phuzz Hypermodder Join Date: May 2004 Location: Bristol, UK Posts: 955	Hmm, I picked up a Palit 8800GT about 6 months ago that came with a non reference cooler that was just RUBBISH (very loud, constantly on, no PWM), I replaced it with a nice zalman one in the end. Anyway, it left kind of a bad taste in my mouth as far as Palit are concerned, nice to see their ATI side is looking good.

14th Oct 2008, 21:43	#9
bjrcboy Minimodder Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 38	Any chance you can let me know how loud the card was?

15th Oct 2008, 00:46	#11
sganimefan What's a Dremel? Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Singapore Posts: 17	Hm... Is the reference design 4-phase or 2-phase? From the pictures of it it seems like it's a 4-phase design but there are a couple of websites which says the reference is a 2-phase design?

15th Oct 2008, 07:15	#13
Horizon Dremel Worthy Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 498	On the chart, Crysis 1920x1200 0xAA 8xAF, DX10, High Detail. the Radeon HD 4870 1GB is listed as the 512MB __________________ Vote for Freeman '09 Vote Now & Oct 8-15

15th Oct 2008, 07:45	#14
Xir Supermodder Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Germany Posts: 531	So...no "normal - analogue" TV out? Svideo or Component? __________________ SN25P A64 3700+ (San Diego) 2 GB DDR400 OCZ Platinum EL 2-3-2-5 1T X1800XT 512mb Sapphire 200GB Samsung SP2004C

15th Oct 2008, 08:54	#15
Frido Multimodder Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Taastrup, Denmark Posts: 108	My guess is S-video, since Tim stated that there was no dongle with this card. (Just correct me if I'm wrong) __________________ ¤&%(#%&"% vapochill case! Gonna mod it!!!

15th Oct 2008, 09:12	#16
Tim S Pewlius Caesar bit-tech Staff Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Ascot, Berks Posts: 18,021	you can connect S-video directly to the card, but there's no Component (because of the lack of the dongle), but you can use one that you got with a previous purchase if you have one. __________________ Tim on Twitter \| Tim's Blog \| Tim's Flickr The bit-tech Blog \| bit-tech on Twitter \| Join the bit-tech & Custom PC folding team (#35947)

15th Oct 2008, 09:27	#17
Xtrafresh Blame it on the Boogie Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Nijmegen, Holland Posts: 1,915	Ok, that's covered, now roll on the 4870's with good cooling. __________________ AXGS Blog: A fresh look at P55. Fresh Fusion: Unfinished \| FFF: Name change and text update 19-11

15th Oct 2008, 11:49	#18
Brainless What's a Dremel? Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 1	Reference card have 2-phase power supply for GPU not four. It's uses uP6201 - Dual-Phase Synchronous-Rectified Buck Controller. It's have two chokes per phase in parallel. SONIC is with much better power supply (3-phase).