Powercolor Radeon HD 4850 PCS+

How we tested

Over the last few months, we've used figures from our giant summer graphics round-up to compare graphics cards, but with the Powercolor HD 4850 PCS+ we felt it was time for a refresh. Both ATI and Nvidia have since released updated driver packages offering improved performance and driver profiles, so we decided to re-test our selection nine graphics cards below using the latest drivers, patches and have added another game into the fray as well.

As always, we did our best to deliver a clean set of benchmarks, with each test repeated three times and an average of those results is what we’re reporting here. In the rare case where performance was inconsistent, we continued repeating the test until we got three results that were consistent.

The tests performed are a mixture of custom in-game timedemos and manually played sections with FRAPS to record the average and minimum frame rates. We strive to not only record real-world performance you will actually see, but also present the results in a manner that is easy to digest.

ATI Test System

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 (operating at 3.00GHz – 9x333MHz); Asus Maximus Formula motherboard (Intel X38 Express with two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots); 2x 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400C5 (operating in dual channel at DDR2-800 5-5-5-12-1T); Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 200GB SATA hard drive; Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000W PSU; Windows Vista Ultimate x86-64 (with Service Pack 1); Intel inf 8.3.0 WHQL.

Graphics cards

• Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4850 PCS+ 512MB - operating at 665/1,986MHz using Catalyst 8.8 WHQL
  
• AMD ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB - operating at 750/3,600MHz using Catalyst 8.8 WHQL
  
• AMD ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB - operating at 750/3,600MHz using Catalyst 8.8 WHQL
  
• AMD ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB - operating at 625/2,000MHz using Catalyst 8.8 WHQL
  
• AMD ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB - operating at 825/1,800MHz using Catalyst 8.8 WHQL

Nvidia Test System

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 (operating at 3.00GHz – 9x333MHz); XFX nForce 780i SLI motherboard (with two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots); 2x 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400C5 (operating in dual channel at DDR2-800 5-5-5-12-1T); Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 200GB SATA hard drive; Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000W PSU; Windows Vista Ultimate x86-64 (with Service Pack 1); Nvidia 15.17 nForce drivers.

Graphics cards

• Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB - operating at 602/1,296/2,214MHz using Forceware 177.92 beta
  
• Zotac Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 AMP! 896MB - operating at 650/1,400/2,100MHz using Forceware 177.92 beta
  
• Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2 1GB - operating at 600/1,500/2,000MHz using Forceware 177.92 beta
  
• Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB - operating at 738/1,836/2,200MHz using Forceware 177.92 beta
  
• Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB - operating at 675/1,688/2,200MHz using Forceware 177.92 beta
  
• Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB - operating at 600/1,500/2,000MHz using Forceware 177.92 beta

Games Tested

• Crysis, version 1.21 (64-bit) with DirectX 10 and DirectX 9.0
  
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, version 1.6 with DirectX 9.0
  
• World in Conflict, version 1.007 with DirectX 10
  
• Devil May Cry 4, version 1.0 with DirectX 10
  
• Half-Life 2: Episode Two, with DirectX 9.0
  
• Race Driver: GRID, version 1.2 with DirectX 9