Pros: High quality design. Overclocks like no other card I've used. Runs very cool. Very Fast!
Cons: No bundle to speak of. Longer than most cards so make sure it fits!
The Bottom Line: If you can afford the HD4870 or HD4850 then this may not be for you but if you are in the market for a mid-range card this is the one.
mdbrown's Full Review: MSI RADEON HD 4830, (512 MB) PCI Express Video Car...
The new MSI R4830 card represents possibly the best mid-range video card currently on the market. The bundle is typical stuff, and perhaps a bit less as it does not include the crossfire bridge. The card itself is longer than a normal HD4830 or even the typical HD4850. The primary reason for this is the outstanding 4 1 power supply which is not only better designed from the beginning but utilizes superior components as well. The 4 stage power supply cuts the amount of current through each component in half versus a conventional design as most cards use. Therefore the components run cooler and last longer. The parts themselves are superior solid state capacitors and chokes as opposed to the more common air chokes and electrolytic capacitors. Between these two features, the custom cooler and the high quality ram this card overclocks like no ones business. Stock speeds for this card are 575Mhz core, 1800 Mhz memory. I am currently running at 700Mhz core and 2100Mhz memory and still the card runs cooler than the HD3850 it replaced!
Note that this card is approximately 1.5" longer than even an HD4850, in my largish mid-tower ATX case it effectively removes one HD bay from use. This card does require a 6-pin connection and does NOT come with an adapter so you'll need a newer power supply. Do not attempt to use this card with less than a QUALITY 500 watt power supply, I'm running a 600 watt Rosewill p/s.
This is a mid-range card and therefore has a cut-down feature set, aside from the lower stock frequencies this card features 640 stream processors as opposed to the 800 found in the HD4850 and HD4870. At stock speeds this card is approx. 20% slower than the HD4850 which is to be expected. The bonus comes from overclocking, at the speeds mine overclocked to, this card is approx. 10% faster than the more expensive HD4850! In futuremark 3dmark Vantage this card on my machine scores 5012 stock and 5114 overclocked in overall score and 5121 stock and 5233 overclocked in GPU. I do not have an HD4850 to compare with. For comparison here is my system: ECS A780GM-A v.10 motherboard, 4Gb OCZ Fatality 1066 RAM, AMD Athlon x2 7750 Black Edition @ 3.2Ghz, 250Gb WD Caviar SE16 Drive. My previous card (HIS HD3850 stock) 3283 GPU score. Subjectively every game is faster and more fluid with this card.
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