Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 review

AMD strikes back, and your wallet will appreciate it

Radeon HD 4850
In the 4850, AMD finally has a competitive card

TechRadar Verdict

Outperforms everything else at that price-point – decisively the top card for just over £100 in 2008

Pros

  • +

    Bargain price

  • +

    Good AA performance

  • +

    Holds its own at mid-res

Cons

  • -

    Runs incredibly hot

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

My head's all in a whirl, the graphics market is changing afore my very eyes.

In the final days of the big DX9 cards, all the competition between the red and green camps was about the high-end.

It was assumed that if a company bags the high-performance crown, then that would have a trickle-down effect on the rest of its range, urging punters to hurl their cash behind the top team in the low and mid-range sectors too. Now, with NVIDIA having the top end sewn up that's it, right?

Well no actually. AMD has conceded the top end to its green rivals, but is now concentrating
its might on getting things right in the budget-range, arguably where the most GPUs are shipped.

NVIDIA's gone for the typical monolithic approach, creating a massive, massively powerful chip that eventually, after undergoing more efficient (hence cheaper) manufacturing revisions will filter down to the lower tiers after time.

AMD though has changed tack, and thrown its lot behind the scalable approach of smaller, more efficient chips from the off with the eventual notion of bolting them together to create their own multi-GPU high-end boards.

You can get an awful lot for your money these days, but AMD's new card quite happily walks over them all.

Competitive performer

While it may not have the punch of NVIDIA's reasonably priced GTX260, even in Crossfire, it's still not lagging that far behind until you hit the 30" panel resolutions.

It does though manage to hold its own comfortably against the 9800GTX, a card that NVIDIA has thrown up against the HD4850 in terms of price by slashing nearly £100 from the original RRP.

Soon we'll see the 9800GTX+, the green team's first 55nm GPU, coming slap-bang in between the 4850 and 4870 price-wise.

The HD4850 also outperforms the last budget wünder-kard, the 8800GT, especially in the anti-aliasing department. At 2560x1600 it actually just beat the 9800GX2 in World in Conflict's highest graphics mode with 4x AA.

AMD hit the big time

So, now AMD finally has a competitive card:, it may be at the lower end of the market, but it's also the fatter end.

At the very top, money-no-object sphere, it's all about the GTX280; at the high-performance mid-sector there's the GTX260; and ruling the roost on the budget, price/performance side may we introduce to you the HD4850. It's about time, AMD.

TOPICS
Latest in GPU
An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti
Nvidia could unleash RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti GPUs on PC gamers tomorrow, but there’s no sign of rumored RTX 5050 yet
An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 on a table with its retail packaging
Nvidia RTX 5060 GPU spotted in Acer gaming PC, suggesting rumors of imminent launch are correct – and that it’ll run with only 8GB of video RAM
An AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT made by Sapphire on a table with its retail packaging
Want to buy an RX 9070 or 9070 XT but fed up of the GPUs being out of stock? AMD promises that “more supply is coming ASAP”
AMD RX 9070 GPU models
Modders do what AMD can't (or won't) by adding FSR 4 support to more games
Nvidia geforce rtx 3050
RTX 5050 rumors detail full spec of desktop graphics card, suggesting Nvidia may use slower video RAM – but I wouldn’t panic yet
Nvidia logo on a dark background
Nvidia's GeForce graphics driver woes continue for some users, despite 572.75 hotfix's overclock and black screen promises
Latest in Reviews
MacBook Air 15-inch with M4 chip on a creative's desk with screen open
I've reviewed the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) - and it remains the best 15-inch laptop I'd recommend for most people
Samsung Music Frame on a table beside some books and a vase
I spent six weeks listening to the Samsung Music Frame and it kept missing the beat
GlocalMe KeyTracker
When I tested this global tracker, it trounced the Apple AirTag in so many ways
An AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D on its retail packaging
I've reviewed three generations of 3D V-cache processors, and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is the best there is
Mac Studio on a desk
Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra): the ultimate creative workstation
Apple iPad Air 11-inch M3 (2025) Review
I tested the 11-inch iPad Air with M3 for five days, and it stretches the value even further with more power for the same price