ATI Radeon HD 4830

Graphics Processor: ATI Radeon HD 4830
Core Clock: 575MHz
Graphics Memory: 512MB
Interface: PCIe x16
Onboard Ports: Two DVI, Component/S-Video, CrossFireX
Bundled Adapters: DVI-to-VGA, DVI-to-HDMI
DirectX Support: DirectX 10.1

With the release of the $129 ATI Radeon HD 4830, AMD has closed the one gap in the company’s graphics-card lineup, offering performance good enough to play the latest games at decent resolutions and high detail at a price under $150.  

This single-slot PCI Express (PCIe) x16 card includes 512MB of GDDR3 memory, and runs at a clock speed of 575MHz, compared with 625MHz for the HD 4850. It requires a six-pin connector from the power supply. Our test board included a pair of dual-link DVI connectors, a component/S-Video analog output, and an HDMI adapter.  

In typical operation, the single fan is barely audible and the card idles at 45 degrees Celsius, cooler than its HD 4850 and 4870 big brothers. When the GPU is stressed after prolonged gaming, though, temperatures in our tests reached 84 degrees, which might raise overall temperatures in cases with limited airflow. You can manually crank up the fan using the ATI Catalyst Control Center software to bring temps down, but noise will increase significantly.  

The HD 4830 supports DirectX 10.1 (DX10.1), though virtually all games use only DX10 features. The 3D performance is very good, falling just a few frames per second (fps) behind the more expensive HD 4850 in most of our tests. The DX9 F.E.A.R., for instance, clocked in at a playable 43fps at a massive 2,560x1,600 resolution, compared with 46fps for the HD 4850. The DX10 version of Company of Heroes was a speedy 53.7fps at 1,280x1,024 and a quite playable 32.5fps at 1,920x1,200, only slightly slower than the 54.1fps and 35.6fps results, respectively, for the HD 4850.  

You can drop up to three additional HD 4830 cards into a system that has a CrossFireX-compatible motherboard and available PCIe x16 slots, boosting performance even further.  

Image quality is excellent. In games, the superb 3D anti-aliasing and filtering we’ve come to expect from ATI is present, and the card is fast enough to run the latest games at medium wide-screen resolutions (such as 1,680x1,050) with detail settings set to max. The HD 4830 also does a great job upscaling DVD content to your monitor’s native resolution. ATI’s Avivo HD technology enables hardware decoding of the H.264 and VC-1 compression used by HD-DVD and Blu-ray. The card also has onboard eight-channel audio, supporting surround-sound output when using the HDMI adapter.  

Note that a few hundred HIS-brand HD 4830 cards shipped with the incorrect BIOS software. Our test card was one of those, and updating to the latest BIOS gave us a small but noticeable speed increase over our first round of test results. If you purchased an HIS HD 4830 card, check out the company’s support site for information on how to check and update the BIOS version.  

Given the street-price difference of about $50 between the Radeon HD 4830 and the HD 4850, this card is as much a competitor to ATI’s HD 4850 as it is to Nvidia’s 9800GT. If you’re using a 22-inch or smaller monitor, it delivers everything you need for full-resolution, full-detail gaming and for HD video as well.
Price (at time of review): $129

author : Denny Atkin