System setup and notes
| Graphics cards | Sapphire Radeon HD 4730 512MB | HIS Radeon HD 4770 512MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 512MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 512MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 512MB | Palit GeForce 9800 GT 512MB | XFX GeForce 9600 GT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current pricing, including VAT | £58.99 | £80 (hard to find in stock) | £70
(discontinued) |
£80 | £98 | £75 |
£60 |
|
| Shader model | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.0 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.0 | 4.0 | |
| Stream processors | 640 | 640 | 640 | 800 | 800 | 112 | 64 | |
| GPU clock speed (MHz) | 750 | 750 | 575 | 625 | 750 | 600 | 650 | |
| Shader clock speed (MHz) | 750 | 750 | 575 | 625 | 750 | 1,500 | 1,625 | |
| Memory clock speed (MHz) | 3,600 | 3,200 | 1,800 | 1,986 | 3,600 | 1,800 | 1,800 | |
| Memory bus width (bits) | 128 | 128 | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | |
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 LGA775 (3.16GHz, 6MB L2 cache, dual-core) | |||||||
| Motherboard | Foxconn P45A-S | XFX nForce 780i | ||||||
| Motherboard BIOS | P05 | P01 | ||||||
| Mainboard software | Intel Inf 9.1.0.1008 | NVIDIA 15.17 | ||||||
| Memory | 4GB (2 x 2GB) Corsair DOMINATOR DDR2 PC-8500 | |||||||
| Memory timings and speed | 5-5-5-15 2T @ DDR2-1,066 | |||||||
| PSU | Cooler Master Real Power Pro 850W | |||||||
| Monitor | Dell 24in 2405FPW - 1,920x1,200 | |||||||
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 (3Gb/s mode) | |||||||
| Graphics driver | HD 4730 box driver (8.612-090428a-080899C-ATI) | 4770
Press driver (8.60-090316a1-078299C-ATI) |
Catalyst
9.4 |
Catalyst 9.4 | HD 4730 box driver (8.612-090428a-080899C-ATI) | ForceWare 182.50 | ForceWare 181.20 | |
| Operating system | Windows Vista Business SP1, 64-bit | |||||||
Software
| 3D Benchmarks | Call of Duty 4: Modern
Warfare v1.7, HEXUS custom-recorded
benchmark:
DX9 - high quality Company Of Heroes: Opposing Fronts v2.301: DX10 - high quality Enemy Territory: Quake Wars v1.5, HEXUS custom-recorded benchmark. OpenGL - high quality Far Cry 2 v1.02 DX10 - medium quality Race Driver: GRID v1.2, HEXUS custom-recorded benchmark - high quality |
|---|
Notes
We've got a bunch of cards costing between £60 and £100, benchmarked via our mid-range setup. The Radeon HD 4770 512MB is relatively hard to find in stock from a band of etailers, but expect to pay £80 if you do find one to your liking. That's the same outlay as for a better, faster Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and such has been the price-dropping of late, that a Radeon HD 4870 - the card which the HD 4730 is ostensibly based upon - is available for less than £100.In the green corner we have the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB and GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, priced at £75 and £60, respectively. The 'new' GeForce GTS 250 512MB is missing from this line-up and we'll correct that in the very near future.
Benchmarks were conducted at 1,280x1,024 and 1,680x1,050 with decent degrees of image-enhancement thrown in for good measure.
