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Published: Jul 25, 2008 Author: Niko Lupala Editor: Amber Lupala Provider: AMD Share this article:

Introduction

Today we are taking a look at a ATI HD 4850 videocard from Visiontek. This card is a middle class card but I have seen stats that show this card should perform as well as many other high end cards on the market. We are going to put it against the Asus 9800GX2 Top and the Asus 3870 X2 videocard to see what type of performance we can expect from this 4850 from Visiontek.

About Visionetek:
VisionTek is a leading supplier of 3D graphics cards and PC enhancement products to retailers and Consumers. Based out of Inverness, IL, VisionTek brings the most innovative and best performing products to the PC enthusiast consumer market. We are further committed to exemplary customer service and support for all of our products. VisionTek is a "Premium Retail Partner" of ATI for North America and our award winning brand of graphics card solutions continue to set the standard for excellence in the US retail market.

Features:
512MB GDDR3 memory
256-bit memory interface
DirectX® 10.1
24x custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA) and high performance anisotropic filtering
ATI CrossFireX™ multi-GPU support for highly scalable performance (Use up to four discrete cards with an AMD 790FX based motherboard)
PCI Express® 2.0 support
Dynamic geometry acceleration
Game physics processing capability
ATI Avivo™HD video and display technology
Unified Video Decoder 2 (UVD) for Blu-ray™
HD VideoBuilt-in HDMI with 7.1 surround sound support On-chip HDCP
ATI PowerPlay™ technology
Supported Operating Systems

Windows Vista (all versions)
Windows XP
Windows XP Media Center Edition 
 
Box Contents:

ATI Radeon™ HD 4850 graphics card
ATI CrossFireX™ Bridge Interconnect
DVI to HDMI adapter
DVI to VGA adapter
HDTV Component out adapter
Set-up CD
Manuals
System Requirements

PCI Express® based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard
450 Watt or greater power supply with 75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express® power connector recommended (550 Watt and two 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode)
Certified power supplies are recommended.  Refer to http://ati.amd.com/certifiedPSUfor a list of Certified products
1GB of system memory
Installation software requires CD-ROM drive
DVD playback requires DVD drive
Blu-ray™ / HD DVD playback requires Blu-ray / HD DVD drive
For a complete ATI CrossFireX™ system, a second ATI Radeon™ HD 4850 graphics card, an ATI CrossFireX Ready motherboard and one ATI CrossFireX Bridge Interconnect cable per board (included) are required 

The product:

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My first Visiontek card was a Geforce 3 TI 200 that I bought at Black Friday for 99$ or something like that, then they dissapeard and now they seem to be back at full speed again with a great looking website and this box matches the theme from the website itself. There is a big Mass Effect logo printed on the front and as always on the back you can read about the cards features.

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Inside the box itself you will find a small folder that contains the drivers, manual, and software for the card. In a small side compartment of the box you will have all the cables and adapters that you will need to run the card. For example you will get a PCI-E power adapter, S-video to RGB, HDMI to DVI adapter, crossfire bridge, and some smaller adapters for your video viewing.

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The card looks similar to the Sapphire card but I guess there has to be some minor changes to the cards. As we can see there is a 40 mm fan installed to keep this thing cool and at full load they tend to make a bit of noise, but the positive thing is that this card should even fit into a HTPC as the cooler is so small compared to the high end cards.

Some parts of the card are equipped with a heatsink to keep the components cool enough even under heavy load. The power connector is placed in the end of the card and don't forget to connect this or your computer might not boot or the card will not perform as it is supposed to.