its probably a defective card because if its at stock it shouldn't be artifacting... and the 4850s can and do get that hot

a brand new 500 watt antec PSU, model EA-500

Couls also be a driver issue (ATI starts with some terrible/buggy drivers) or as feared it could be due to overheating (causing a "Partial crash" ). But if new drivers don't fix the issue, then it probably is a defective card.

im not sure, try to run atitool and scan for artifics. the heat shouldnt be a problem. coz it meant to handle it.

The 48XX series should have excellent thermal properties and be able to handle temps of 85C

This is the reason why:
The 38XX series was fabricated on what was known as A11 Silicone.

The 48XX uses the new and improved A12 Silicone which has a dramatically higher heat tolerance.

If a 38XX series card ran at 85C it would probably burn it up.

ATI clocked the RV770 cards hot because they knew the new A12 Silicone could handle it.

If your card is artifacting out of the box just call Visiontek. They have a lifetime warranty on their cards and should be able to replace it with out a problem. Sounds to me like you just got a defective chip.

If it's artifacting it could be the drivers, but unlikely, and don't bother with changing the heatsink fan, if it's artifacting on the stock cooler then send it back.

Defective cards happen, but you shouldn't have to add aftermarket cooling regardless of the chips ability to handle higher temps.

heats problem. really common problem in 4800 series

Do what outlw666 said. Increase your fan speed (try 50% at first) and see if that works, though you may just want to RMA it and get a new one.

Check your overall case temp.... The 4850 don't force the air out. The 4870 card force the hot air out.

Your case should have a good exhaust fan....

Cool. Breaking news this morning. Here are photos of the HIS HD4850 IceQ4 Radeon card. It looks awesome!

http://forum.donanimhaber.com/m_25172353/tm.htm

You will probably see this card on Newegg this week or next.

Good eyes on the PCIe 1.0a.
A 4850 will have no problems running in a PCIe 4x 1.1 or 2.0 slot but PCIe 1.0a is not fully compatible with 1.1 and 2.0.

From the PCIe Wiki Page.

I am not sure if this would mean that it should not work at all or if it has to possibility to work incorrectly when and incompatiable GPU is inserted into a PCIe 1.0a slot.

A down and dirty test you could perform is to beg/borrow/steal a friends system with a newer PCIe 1.1 or 2.0 motherboard. Provided their system has enough power, if your 4850 tests fine in their system, I would start looking for a new motherboard.

Perhaps TGGA will have better incite to what issues may occur with a newer GPU in a PCIe 1.0a slot.
Unfortunately, I have never seen this tested and am unable to spend to much time googling it at work

It could be your PSU, MB or RAM.

I'm intending to buy a 4850 as well, and I realised my mobo also only has a PCIe x16 V1.0a.

I'm just sort of hoping the "rare cases" mentioned on the wiki is not in the 4850's case. How can I find out?

http://forums.amd.com/game/message [...] adid=96977

Some dude here says that the 4850 will definitely be compatible. I've been searching online for a compatibility list but to no avail. Seems like there are quite a number of compatibility problems with the 4850 when I go into the AMD forums.

Will the 4850 bottleneck with a PCIe V1.0a, by the way?

Just got a Visiontek 4870 and am having this very same problem with an AsRock 775Dual-VSTA mobo. It is definitely not a heat issue, so it must be incompatible with the PCI-e 4x slot.

Replacing my motherboard is now a priority, but it is a more involved, and more expensive upgrade path, as I will need new RAM and some other hardware as well. I was hoping for a quicker, easier upgrade with the video card route.

My BFG 8800 GT OC is a 2.0 card that currently works fine in my PCI-e slot, but it's obviously not utilizing the same bandwidth as the Radeon. I'm up in the air about trying a different 4870 card, or trying a Geforce 260, as I'm not sure whether or not to expect this same problem.

Ok I have real solution for all who have ASRock motherboard.

My friend have ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 motherboard and just couple days ago bought new ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/1G and had exactly the same problems as were described here.
We were trying together all the solutions, described on any forum which we found and our own ideas and finally after 2 days we solved the problem and solution is very simple.
Here is a list what we did:
- changing drivers for graphic card (new, old, form original CD) - not solving a problem
- changing drivers for motherboard (VIA 4in1) - not solving a problem
- switching ram (from dual to single, someone had such idea) - not solving a problem
- we switch even PSU, my friend had X-Power 450W PSU and he bought new BFG 800W and problem was still not solved. However, he had lot of VPU Recovery alerts/errors and change of PSU solved this problem so if you have VPU Recovery problems, my advise is to buy new and good PSU from A good brand, not none name crap
- re-installation of windows (XP Pro) - not solving a problem
- and many more which I don't even remember were also not solving a problem

We wanted to give up and give graphic card on warranty but we use our last idea and it helped!!!
We simply updated motherboard BIOS to latest version 2.10. Update is very easy, you need to just follow steps which are described on ASRock web page and you can all this do from Windows.
After this and also reinstalling drivers to the newest Catalyst 8.12 (probably on older it would be working fine too) problem was solved. Graphic was working fine, no more artifacts or any geometry problems.

Additionally if you will go to VGA Support List on ASRock web page you will notice this:
Vendor/---/Chipset/---/Model/---/BIOS/---/Driver
ATI/---/Radeon HD4850/---/GECUBE HD4850/512M/GDDR3/---/P2.10/---/Catalyst 8.12
GECUBE is mentioned, however it is 4850.

So I hope guys that it will help you too and don't believe in such crap like, graphic card is overheating if it have temp. 50C. This graphic cards can easily work with temperatures more than 90C!!!
Btw BIOS is the same for 4CoreDual-SATA2 as for 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0.

Please let know if you tried this solution and it helped you.
Cheers.

Hi,

my setup:
AsRock 4coredual-vsta
core2duo
radeon HD 4850 (Sapphire)

Upon changing from GF8800GTS (which broke) I had the same artifacts, especially bad in WoW.
After some testing I found this thread and downloaded the newest bios, which didnt work. Then I randomly tested BIOS PCI-E settings.

!!
Setting delayed PCIE transmission to disabled and also disabling the other setting next to it, worked.
!!

Hope this helps someone struggling with the same problem, I wasted so much time

Well if you can just change one setting (PCIE transmission) under chipset and it seems to work fine, I'm not gonna try a beta bios performance is at least better than my geforce 8800 GTS, so it cant hit performance that badly.