AMD reckons the maximum power consumption of the 4800 Series is 160 watts while the GTX 280 sucks up an enormous 236 watts.įurther highlights of the 4800 series include the introduction of a new graphics memory type for the 4870 model. So, not only is the 4800 smaller and cheaper to make. But the GeForce GTX 280 requires no less than 1.4 billion transistors in return for 0.933TFlops of processing power. Now, that might sound like a lot of transistors.
The fastest of the new Radeon HD 4800 boards, the 4870 (see below for full specifications), is capable of a colossal 1.2TFlops of raw compute power courtesy of 956 million transistors. It's also rather revealing to compare the 4800's raw computer power with that of NVIDIA's new mega-GPU, the GeForce GTX 280. Despite the 150 per cent increase in shader and texture units, the 4800 Series has just 44% more transistors. To appreciate just how compact it is, try this for size. The result, is an extremely compact and cost-effective graphics chip. But what AMD has done is so much more sophisticated than create an oversized 3800 core.Įvery aspect of the chip has been overhauled and redesigned with an eye to both efficiency and performance. It's even based on precisely the same 55nm silicon production technology. This new pixel pounder may offer much the same DirectX 10.1 3D feature set as ye olde Radeon HD 3800. Factor in core clockspeeds that are approximately on a par with the 3800 Series and the result is monumental boost in raw processing power.īut don't get the idea that AMD has merely blown a massive transistor budget to simply cut 'n' paste more functionals units into the GPU core. Now that we have a basic understanding of the specifications, let’s take a closer look at the card itself.The 4800's texture-processing capabilities have also ballooned from 16 to 40 units. The Radeon HD 4830 is set for the $100-$150 price point, which makes it direct competition to the GeForce 9800 GT graphics card from NVIDIA. The Radeon HD 4830, 48 all have 956 Million transistors and are built on the 55nm process.ĪMD has a very nice product stack in the market now with mainstream gaming graphics cards from the $79 price point all the way up to the $300 mark for those looking to spend a little more for performance. The clock rate on the Radeon HD 4830 is 575MHz with the memory clock being 900MHz. Notice that the max board power remains the same on the Radeon HD 4830, so power consumption and temperatures should be close to what is seen on the Radeon HD 4850 graphics card. When you compare the specifications on the three single GPU Radeon HD 4800 series cards you can see how they stack up across the board. With less features comes a lower price tag and at $129 the Radeon HD 4830 can still offer great performance for the price being paid. What is the difference then? The Radeon HD 4830 has lower clock speeds across the board in conjunction with 160 fewer stream processors and eight fewer texture units than the Radeon HD 4850. It would be easy to confuse the two cards as they use similar printed circuit boards and both use 512MB of GDDR3 for the frame buffer. Today AMD is announcing the ATI Radeon HD 4830 graphics card, which looks like the Radeon HD 4850 at first glance. Read this article to see what the right BIOS does for performance!ĪMD has been pretty aggressive in the video card market lately and with the success of the Radeon HD 4800 series who could blame them. The BIOS that shipped on the Radeon HD 4830 had one too many of the SIMDS disabled and that the Radeon HD 4830 had just 560 stream processors enabled instead of the 640 stream processors that it should have been running.
Update: Shortly after Legit Reviews published our Radeon HD 4830 articles we were notified by AMD that every reference card they sent out to reviews came with an incorrect BIOS. AMD Introduces a $129 Radeon HD 4830 Graphics Card