PC Perspective - AMD Radeon HD 4830 512MB - Do we need another sub-$150 GPU?

	AMD Radeon HD 4830 512MB - Do we need another sub-$150 GPU?
	Author: Ryan Shrout Date: Oct 23, 2008 Subject: Graphics Card Manufacturer: AMD

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Summary

The following is a summary of the more detailed analysis of the AMD Radeon HD 4830 512MB graphics card. For all the in-depth analysis and testing you'd expect from us, be sure to click this link to get all the details!

Click this link to get the full article

I find it is becoming increasingly difficult to write interesting and witty introductions for mid-range graphics card reviews - we just seem to have had so many of them in recent months that data bank that is my writing ability needs some replenishment. Suffice it to say that today we have YET ANOTHER mid-range graphics card on the table for review and for your approval. The new Radeon HD 4830 512MB card falls into a price gap that AMD has yet to address with a new RV770-based product and as you might expect, shares a lot in common with the rest of the HD 4800-series of cards.

The quick and dirty of the new HD 4830 is as seen above: 512MB of GDDR3 memory, a single slot cooler design, 110 watt TDP that requires a single PCIe 6-pin power connection.

The Radeon HD 4830 512MB is really nothing special to look at - it looks just like other recent single-slot graphics cards from the red team.

AMD is unique in that they chose to offer their entire suite of features on ALL of their products: the HD 4830 supports CrossFire configurations with two, three and four GPUs while NVIDIA limits their top-end 3-Way SLI to only a few GPUs.

Let's see the benchmarks:

The HD 4830 512MB is obviously a strong contender in this area and puts the GeForce 9800 GT on notice becoming the best card you can get for less than $130. In our gaming tests I saw the HD 4830 clearly outpace the GeForce 9800 GT in both Call of Duty 4 and Crysis, two games that are usually quite favorable to NVIDIA's GPUs and drivers. Bioshock also performed well on the HD 4830 but the tests at 2048x1536 indicate to me that the cards are about equal in this title.

Pricing and Availability

Getting completely accurate pricing on cards that are available online today is hard enough - with all the rebates, overnight price changes and more, keeping tabs on it all can be a full time job on its own. Luckily we have already found a handful of HD 4830 cards for sale tonight so the job is a little bit easier (nailing down prices on unreleased parts is nearly impossible).

At Newegg there were three HD 4830 512MB cards for sale as of this writing and the lowest priced model was from Powercolor and is going for $114 after a mail-in rebate. A quick look at our pricing engine shows the lowest priced GeForce 9800 GT cards are going for $119. So, in effect, this puts both cards on equal ground and again my assertion that the Radeon HD 4830 is the better of the two stands firm.

Final Thoughts

AMD's latest entry into the graphics card market is a great addition to the mid-range market offering up tremendous gaming performance for less than $130 and putting NVIDIA's G92-based GeForce 9800 GT in a tight spot for the first time since its introduction. Both card offerings will most likely provide a good gaming experience, and I do have to mention the CUDA and PhysX support of the NVIDIA GPUs, but in the end I still side with raw performance and think the HD 4830 512MB card will be the better option.

Okay guys, that's enough on the low end. How about some new, impressive high end parts?

Be sure to use our pricing engine to find the best prices on NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards and anything else you might need:

Click here for the Detailed Review