One more mid-range contender

Introduction

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. 

Read on to see what the new offering can offer. 

Another Market Shift

Just a few short weeks ago we brought you the AMD Radeon HD 4670 card that offered terrific performance at a sub-$100 price point.  Until today, the next best card was the AMD Radeon HD 4850 that goes for something around $150 and up. 

Just so we have another GPU SKU to keep track of, AMD decided to release a new product in the 4800 family that would compete in the $100-150 price point against one of NVIDIA's key products, the GeForce 9800 GT.  This diagram clearly shows how AMD lineup looks from $80 to $300 and the technology here is actually quite impressive. 

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. 

Clock rates and chip specs show how the HD 4830 will discern itself from the rest of the 4800-series and the 4670 that was just released this month.  With 640 shader processors, the HD 4830 has much more processing power than the HD 4670 that only has 320 SPs.  The clock rate has also come down from the HD 4850/4870 cards to 575 MHz while the memory clock is rated at 900 MHz or 1800 MHz. 

Overall the specs are impressive, but no overly so, as you would expect to see in a sub-$150 graphics card. 

Next Page - The AMD Radeon HD 4830 512MB Card