HEXUS.bang4buck, temperatures, power-draw, overclocking
HEXUS.bang4buck
In a rough-and-ready assessment of the cards' bang per buck, we've aggregated the 1,280x1,024 framerates for the four games, normalised them* and taken account of the cards' prices.
But there are more provisos than we'd care to shake a stick at. We could have chosen four different games, the cards' prices could have been derived from other sources and pricing tends to fluctuate daily.
Consequently, the table and graph below highlight a metric that should only be used as a yardstick for evaluating comparative performance with price factored in. Other architectural benefits are not covered, obviously.
| Graphics cards | AMD Radeon HD 4830 512MB | AMD Radeon HD 4670 512MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 512MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 512MB | Inno3D GeForce 9800 GT 512MB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actual aggregate marks at 1,280x1,024 | 292.71 | 201.15 |
239.17 |
339.23 | 279.8 |
| Aggregate marks, normalised*, at 1,2800x1,024 | 266.36 | 179.11 |
225.4 | 289.61 | 259.9 |
| Current pricing, including VAT | £90 | £59 | £79 | £115 | £90 |
| HEXUS.bang4buck score at 1,280x1,024 | 2.96 |
3.03 |
2.85 |
2.52 |
2.89 |
| Acceptable frame rate (av. 60fps) at 1,280x1,024 | Yes | No (CoH, CoD, GRID) |
No (CoD, GRID) |
Yes |
Yes |
* the normalisation refers to taking playable frame rate into account. Should a card benchmark at over 60 frames per second in any one game, the extra fps count as half. Similarly, should a card benchmark lower, say at 40fps, we deduct half the difference from its average frame rate and the desired 60fps, giving it a HEXUS.bang4buck score of 30 marks. The minimum allowable frame rate is 20fps but that scores zero.
Here's the HEXUS.bang4buck graph at 1,280x1,024. The graph divides the normalised score by the price.
| HEXUS.bang4buck (22/10/08) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 512MB | ATI Radeon HD 4830 512MB | Inno3D 9800 GT 512MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 512MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 512MB |
| 2.52 | 2.96 | 2.89 | 3.03 | 2.85 |
What's clear here is that there are no stinkers in this line-up. Priced at around £90, including VAT, the Radeon HD 4830 is more than competitive against any other GPU.
Temperatures
| Graphics cards | AMD Radeon HD 4830 512MB | AMD Radeon HD 4670 512MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 512MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 512MB | Inno3D GeForce 9800 GT 512MB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ambient temperature | 22°C | 19°C | 22°C | 21.5°C | 22°C |
| Idle temperature | 54°C | 44.5°C | 59°C | 71°C | 50°C |
| Load temperature | 83.5°C | 81°C | 91°C | 86°C | 66°C |
| Ambient-to-load delta | 61.5°C | 62°C | 69°C | 65°C | 44°C |
Whilst toasty compared to the GeForce 9800 GT, the HD 4830's fan is whisper-quiet. We wait for partners to ship designs with their own heatsinks, perhaps even passively-cooled models.
Power-draw
| Graphics cards | AMD Radeon HD 4830 512MB | ATI Radeon HD 4670 512MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 512MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 512MB | Inno3D GeForce 9800 GT 512MB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| System power-draw idle (watts) | 79 | 64 | 76 | 98 | 91 |
| System power-draw load (watts) | 145 | 110 | 167 | 172 | 150 |
And it takes up some 30W less than a Radeon HD 4850 when placed under full load, which consists of running 3DMark06 Canyon Test at 1,920x1,200.
Idle power is also worth noting because saving 20W equates to a reduction in your energy bill of some £6 per year if the card is used for an average 40-hour working week. Not much if you have one PC but it soon adds up if there are several.
Overclocking
A quick burst on the overclocking banjo and we managed to hit core and memory frequencies of 708MHz and 2,130MHz, respectively, which represent decent increases over the 575MHz/1,800MHz shipping numbers.
Re-running ET: Quake Wars at 1,680x1,050 4xAA 16xAF yielded an average framerate of 78.07fps, up from 71.8fps, and close to the 80.47fps recorded by the stock-clocked Radeon HD 4850.
