For a ATi branding Palit HD4850 Sonic, with a 512MB GDDR3 memory, going to lower bandwidth memory, but enough for the usual gamer to use the Palit ATI version of the HD4850 is a better alternative to the OEM GPU fan and heat-sink combo. With the louder and hotter (not that hot the other!) fans going in the trash and opting a better one with a plastic cover and a central fan spreading the hot air in both directions (front and back) can in turn heat both the hard-drive if it is near enough, but HDD fans may obscure it, the fans can keep the heat out by the temp reading of 64degrees in load and 46 degrees in idle mode.
For a better improvement for Palit for the cooling room, the problem with the cooler is that the heat spreader don’t touch the memory chips at all, you can’t see it in the aluminium heat sink they never touch the metal fins, for the waist of raw metal into the GPU, we can say the fan can do some good in some of the heat produced in the memory chips. Palit’s Packaging for this year has been dominated with images of the “FroBot” dressed up and ready for battle. This package is no different. Well, it’s a little different. The front panel states a few of the features, CrossfireX, Vista compatibility and the basic specifications of the Sonic edition. The rear panel contains another basic listing of the features but in several different languages. Since Palit is one of the leading suppliers of video cards globally, this is a necessity to reach more people with just one package.
For the gaming district, Call of Duty 4 is getting a good 40 mark on the frames per second and Crysis in a mid-to-high resolution can go to the same 40fsp in high detail (with some exceptions like the AAF and anti aliasing turned off). With a good headroom for some overclocking potential into a very hot GPU, but with the help of the aftermarket cooling, to keep the temps in check, with their bundle with a few cables with eight pin power connectors to make the card more stable when planning a hefty overclock, not the usual six pins that most distributors give in the bundle. The other bundle doesn’t include a goo free game with it, with other manufacturers sometimes limiting themselves with bundled games for free (but a higher price in the graphics) or the same problem that they have the game already! Who know?
For a solid graphics with a better cooling solution than the normal cooler and with quiet cooling for a double slot form factor, will leave you no trouble in placing another one of these for crossfire. With a price that looks reasonable, with an over-clocked GPU with stable frames and card. Why not buy it when the price is right.
