Tag Archives: radeon hd 4850

Other Interesting Weekly News In Brief…

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Software:

Misc:

See you next week with the release of GPU Caps Viewer 1.6.0… 😉

HIS Radeon HD 4850 Review

I took the time this morming to publish the test of HIS’s Radeon HD 4850 I started on month ago. I must say that Radeon HD 4850 shows high OpenGL performances and as always, vertex processing is incredibly fast (see surface deformer benchmark). At idle, GPU temperature is around 70°C while under load the temperature reaches 93°C (3-minute test with GPU Caps Viewer burner).

The full test is available here: HIS Radeon HD 4850 Graphics Card Review.

Radeon HD 4850 graphics video card

Other Weekly News In Brief

Graphics Cards:

Other Hardware:

Programming:

Softwares:

Misc:

HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX Review

Hexus has publihed a test of HIS’s Radeon HD 4850 featuring the IceQ4 cooling system. This cooler keeps the temperature to 46°C at idle and around 58°C under load.

Read the complete review here: HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX – the best a man can get?

Related links:

ATI Catalyst 8.10 Beta Graphics Drivers

The upcoming (october 2008 version) Catalyst graphics driver is available in BETA version. You can download the huge archive (~200Mb) here:
– Catalyst 8.10 BETA for Vista
– Catalyst 8.10 BETA for XP

As soon as the WHQL version is available, I will publish the OpenGL extensions because GPU Caps Viewer told me that Cat8.10 has around 115 extensions…

Here are the screenshots of my Radeon HD 4850 and Catalyst 8.10 BETA under XP32:


[source]

Catalyst 8.9: OpenGL Extensions – Radeon HD 4850

Here is the list of OpenGL extensions supported by the Catalyst 8.9 graphics drivers for the Radeon HD 4850 under Windows XP SP2 32-bit.


The release note says Catalyst 8.9 add the phase 1 of OpenGL 3.0 support. But what does it mean? Compared to Catalyst 8.8, Catalyst 8.9 bring only 3 new extensions:

GL_EXT_depth_buffer_float has the same role than NVIDIA GL_NV_depth_buffer_float. GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate is an OpenGL 1.5 extension and GL_AMD_texture_texture4 is not documented. But most of the new OpenGL 3 extensions quoted in the release note are not present in Catalyst 8.9 under Windows XP and Vista. Maybe AMD/ATI have introduced the same principle than NVIDIA, with a kind of OpenGL 3.0 activation somewhere (see here). But here again, no documentation is available. Or more simply, AMD want to show to the community that they do an effort to support the new major version of OpenGL, but any OpenGL 3 extension is currently available to developers. Communication is a tough art at ATI!

Catalyst 8.9, like Catalyst 8.8, still slow down the GPU when FurMark is detected (see here and here for more detail).

Graphics driver information:
– Operating System: Windows XP SP2 32-bit
– Drivers Version: 8.501.0.0 – Catalyst 08.9
– ATI Catalyst Version String: 08.9
– ATI Catalyst Release Version String: 8.53-080820a-068898C-ATI
– OpenGL Renderer: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
– Drivers Renderer: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
– OpenGL Version: 2.1.7976 Release
– GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) Version: 1.20
– ARB Texture Units: 8
– Vertex Shader Texture Units: 16
– Pixel Shader Texture Units: 16
– Geometry Shader Texture Units: 0
– Max Texture Size: 8192×8192
– Max Anisotropic Filtering Value: X16.0
– Max Point Sprite Size: 8192.0
– Max Dynamic Lights: 8
– Max Viewport Size: 8192×8192
– Max Vertex Uniform Components: 512
– Max Fragment Uniform Components: 512
– Max Varying Float: 68
– Max Vertex Bindable Uniforms: 0
– Max Fragment Bindable Uniforms: 0
– Max Geometry Bindable Uniforms: 0
– MSAA: 1X
– MSAA: 2X
– MSAA: 4X
– MSAA: 8X

OpenGL Extensions: 108 extensions

The extensions exposed by the old Catalyst drivers are HERE.
You can use GPU Caps Viewer to retrieve the list of extensions of your graphics card.

Continue reading »

[Geek3D-Test] FurMark, Catalyst 8.8 and HIS Radeon HD 4850: Torture Test PASSED!

Ok now that I have in my hands a HIS’s Radeon HD 4850, I played with this card and of course did the FurMark renaming experience with Catalyst 8.8 (see ATI Optimizes Catalyst 8.8 to be FurMark-Proof!). The difference of score in simply… incredible, better it’s shocking! Here is the score when I launch FurMark.exe: 2234 points


And now, the score when FurMark.exe is renamed in… ati.exe (why not?): 4383 points


This score is almost twice the first one. That explains now the odd result I get with FurMark in this post: ATI Catalyst 8.8 vs 8.7: OpenGL Performance Drop.

I launched in the same time the Catalyst Control Center in the Overdrive panel to check how frequencies vary:


In both tests, the frequencies were the same. ATI Catalyst 8.8 does not downclock the GPU frequency but makes the GPU running slower (what does it means???). Anyway, it seems obvious the Radeon HD 4800 series have some serious thermic problems. Maybe I could add a kind of GPU temperature limitation for Radeon HD 4800 series. If temperature exceeds 90 degrees on Radeon HD 4850 and HD 4870, FurMark will stop the rendering or will render one frame over two or three… But actually I think I’m not going to do that. FurMark is a torture test but it’s most of all a standard OpenGL application. I don’t use low level code or different rendering path for Radeon or GeForce. The same code is injected in both rendering pipeline. And then any OpenGL 2.0 compliant GPU should process this code if the surrounding graphics hardware (I mean memory modules, power MOSFETs properly cooled, etc.) is well designed and implemented by graphics cards makers. The proof, HIS’s Radeon HD 4850 PASSED all FurMark tests I did, with stock clocks as well as with overclocked clocks.

Now dear readers, let’s burn HIS’s Radeon HD 4850.

– Stock clocks: GPU=625MHz and Memory=993MHz

  • 94 degrees after 3 minutes in 640×480 no AA windowed mode: TEST PASSED!
  • 96 degrees after 3 minutes in 1024×768 no AA windowed mode: TEST PASSED!

– Basic Overclocking: GPU=660MHz and Memory=1005MHz

  • 96 degrees after 3 minutes in 1024×768 no AA windowed mode: TEST PASSED!

– Overclocking: GPU=680MHz and Memory=993MHz

  • 96 degrees after 3 minutes in 1024×768 no AA windowed mode: : TEST PASSED!

– Overclocking: GPU=680MHz and Memory=1100MHz

  • 97 degrees in 1024×768 no AA windowed mode. After 140 seconds, VPU Recover:

Yes the latest overclocking was a little bit extreme, but it shows HIS’s Radeon HD 4850 is a very good product and is already FurMark-Proof. No need hidden tweak in Catalyst to run FurMark. I think graphics cards that do not resist to FurMark torture tests are either bad quality products or have some bad cooled parts like the VRM (voltage regulator modules)…

Related Links:

Catalyst 8.8: OpenGL Extensions – Radeon HD 4850

Here is the list of OpenGL extensions supported by the Catalyst 8.8 graphics drivers for the Radeon HD 4850 under Windows XP SP2 32-bit.

Catalyst 8.8 do not bring changes in OpenGL extensions.

Graphics card used: HIS Radeon HD 4850

– Operating System: Windows XP SP2 32-bit
– Drivers Version: 8.512.0.0 – Catalyst 08.8
– ATI Catalyst Version String: 08.8
– ATI Catalyst Release Version String: 8.522-080731a-067975C-ATI
– OpenGL Version: 2.1.7873 Release
– GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) Version: 1.20
– OpenGL Renderer: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
– ARB Texture Units: 8
– Vertex Shader Texture Units: 16
– Pixel Shader Texture Units: 16
– Geometry Shader Texture Units: 0
– Max Texture Size: 8192×8192
– Max Anisotropic Filtering Value: X16.0
– Max Point Sprite Size: 8192.0
– Max Dynamic Lights: 8
– Max Viewport Size: 8192×8192
– Max Vertex Uniform Components: 512
– Max Fragment Uniform Components: 512
– Max Varying Float: 68
– Max Vertex Bindable Uniforms: 0
– Max Fragment Bindable Uniforms: 0
– Max Geometry Bindable Uniforms: 0
– Multiple Render Targets / Max draw buffers: 4
– MSAA: 1X
– MSAA: 2X
– MSAA: 4X
– MSAA: 8X

OpenGL Extensions: 105 extensions

The extensions exposed by the old Catalyst drivers are HERE.
You can use GPU Caps Viewer to retrieve the list of extensions of your graphics card.

Continue reading »

ATI Optimizes Catalyst 8.8 to be FurMark-Proof!


 Here is an incredible news to start the day: Expreview has found that ATI’s Catalyst 8.8 have been optimized to detect FurMark and downclock the frequencies of a Radeon HD 4850/4870 to avoid to burn the GPU.

So if you have a Radeon HD 4850 or Radeon HD 4870, just rename FurMark.exe in something.exe and you will see the difference!

Expreview has done the test with Quake Wars: Emeny Territory and has renamed etqw.exe to FurMark.exe and saw performance drop from 141.3FPS to 93.7FPS!

I have not a Radeon HD 4000 series but I think that I’m going to buy a Radeon HD 4850 today!

It’s a pain to develop a benchmark to make it running properly on most graphics hardwares and now I have to include in FurMark a Catalyst anit-cheat???? Thanks AMD/ATI….

Why AMD doesn’t contact me directly to find out the problem???

Update

[Geeks3D-Test] ATI Catalyst 8.8 vs 8.7: OpenGL Performance Drop


 Catalyst 8.8 graphics drivers have been released few days ago, and today, or better this evening I’ve done some tests with oZone3D.Net OpenGL Benchmarks and a Radeon HD 3870 (stock clocks). I also used Lightsmark 2008 in order to have another OpenGL 2.0 application to confirm oZone3D.Net OpenGL benchmarks.


Here are the results, rather unexpected

Catalyst 8.7 Catalyst 8.8 Diff
FurMark 1280×1024 3100 3229 +4%
FluidMark 1280×1024 954 937 -1.8%
Soft Shadows Branching OFF 3384 2590 -23%
Soft Shadows Branching ON 4088 2993 -26%
Surface Deformer 13526 10332 -23%
Lightsmark 2008 391 376 -4%
TOTAL Sum 25443 20457 -18%


System Configuration: Core 2 Duo E8400 default clock, motherboard EVGA 790i Ultra SLI, 2Gb DDR3 1333, HIS Radeon HD 3870 default clocks, Catalyst 8.8 XP32, Windows XP SP2 32-bit.

Global Performance Drop: 18%. OpenGL performance tumbled by around 26% in dynamic branching (soft shadows), around 23% in vertex processing (surface deformer) and around 4% in Lightsmark 2008. Only FurMark takes advantage of Catalyst 8.8 with a little 4% of performance boost. FurMark makes an intensive use of texture fetching and blending (ROPs) and maybe ATI has improved something in this part of Catalyst. But as said hereafter, Expreview has noticed a performance drop with a Radeon HD 4850 and FurMark. I don’t have such a radeon and then I can’t confirm this last result but FurMark score is somewhat weird…

Expreview on his side, has tested the Catalyst 8.8 with an ATI Radeon HD 4850 and compared to Catalyst 8.7, the new driver boosts the performance in games. If you have a Radeon HD 4850, Expreview recommends you update to Catalyst 8.8. But if you look at the results more seriously, you can notice that scores are boosted mainly for DirectX 10 titles. In other OpenGL or DirectX 9 titles, there is no or a little boost only. And with FurMark, Expreview has the same kind of performance drop I had with the HD 3870.

TweakTown in his Catalyst 8.8 review has also experienced a severe OpenGL performance drop with Radeon HD 3870 and Cinebench, the OpenGL benchmark derived from Cinema 4D. The Radeon HD 4870 has a drop too but less important.

Conclusion: for OpenGL applications that are performance focused, it’s better to not use Catalyst 8.8. In some cases, Catalyst 8.8 brings a little boost only and in other cases, a dramatic drop is noticed.

If you have some interesting results with OpenGL applications, do no hesitate to post a comment!

More OpenGL related posts: OpenGL @ Geeks3D.
More Catalyst releated posts: Catalyst @ Geeks3D