The state of graphics hardware is often predictable. A new generation of chipset is made, it’s faster, it subsequently is improved, and more variation comes out of it. Older hardware is pushed aside, sometimes unnecessarily, but gains appeal through price drops. Saying that the last year or so of developments hasn’t been entertaining is wrong, but it’s not taking a new turn. It’s just happening ridiculously fast.
This year’s video card harvest was massive. Lots of new cards, lots of old cards with a fresh sticker, but most impressively, the bang-for-buck has basically tripled. It’s that everything’s a great deal–although the HD 4830 may be a little greater than the rest.
The ‘30 is, deceptively, a broken card. It’s got the same 4800 core we’ve come to all love, maybe a little too much, but with some flaw preventing all 800 stream processors to work. Cooler heads prevailing, ATI designed the chip to allow for some chunk of the core to be disabled, leaving the remaining 640 kicking hard.
- Introduction, The Card & Bundle
- Specifications and Setup
- DirectX 10 Titles
- DX9, OpenGL, and Synthetics
- Video, Power, and Overclocking
- Conclusion
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