Radeon HD 4850 2 GB GDDR3 review - 1 - A Tully Introduction

It is always real fun to see that whenever a product becomes successful, manufacturers will do anything to create as much diversity as possible; obviously to catch attention and create products for any budget available. Sometimes however, a manufacturer can go so far that you have to scratch behind your ears, once maybe even twice and think "hmm, that's not gonna work I think".

Today we have such a product in the house. The graphics card we will test today is based on the immensely popular Radeon HD 4850. Probably the best value card one can buy. These cards at default come with 512 MB gDDR3 memory. Now, I can see a manufacturer double up that memory to 1 GB. The effect would be small but measurable when you play games in very high resolutions. Then, there is an incremental step to that as well, and that's what we'll test today. PowerColor released a Radeon HD 4850 graphics card with, get this ... 2 GB of memory.

That certainly brings a smile to my face, as if anything, I like innovation. But even yours truly is going .. "Hmmm, that's not gonna work, is it?". See, a good amount of framebuffer is important. Current games however are produced with 256MB & 512MB memory configurations in mind. Anything higher will one make a difference in very extreme image quality games, and once you increase AA levels. However, with ATI's new edge enhancing AA filters ... it's not as big as a problem as in the past either.

But hey, perhaps we'll see wonders. Will the step between 512MB and 2 GB differ very much in overall performance? Let's find out!

Alright, have a good look guys ... custom cooling & design, and likely as much memory as your entire PC has.