RADEON HD 4850 1GB DDR3 - Good bang for the $135?

Hey All,
I've been researching video cards lately for an upgrade for my Biostar 790GX uATX board (w/ PII x4 940). The board has the Radeon 3x00 on-board graphics. I have been using a Radeon 3650 1GB with it but need a little more power.

I like the following card for $135:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150351

... DDR3 256-bit 1GB ... pretty good, I think (graphics/graphic cards are the weakest link in my computing repertoire )

Is this a significant upgrade for running Tom Clancy & COD games on a 22" 1680x1050? If so, is there a better "bang for my buck" card available at a lower price? I'm currently using a 420W power supply, so I'd like to pick a card that would NOT require me to get a new PSU.

I've seen several 4670 1GB cards around the $100 mark, but they are all 128-bit. What's the jump like between the 4670 128-bit & the 256-bit 4850?

Thanks for any help.

*PS ... yes I've reviewed the graphics charts on Tom's*

Thanks for the quick feedback. I do like the GTX 260 that drums recommended.

The card drums recommended is out of my current budget. My original budget is/was $125 (US) but I would be willing to stretch it by $10 for the card I listed.

Also, I thought I'd throw this in there. I am definately looking for something I could crossfire/SLI in 6-12 months down-the-road.

I also like this card (GeForce 9600 GT OC 512MB 256-bit GDDR3) that is better for my budget:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814162007

So ... now that I have both cards in my possession ... I can't tell a difference in performance?!?! They both run COD5, COD4, & Tom Clancy games with great frame rates. I am sure that the 1GB 4850 beats the 512mb 9600 in benchmarks, but is there really a difference in actual performance? I can't find any so far.

The 4850 is a couple of steps up, but it's not a huge improvement over a 9600gt.

You are experiencing what most people do when they upgrade a graphics card. It's almost always disappointing because you were expecting more.

What you need to do is, make your card work. Before you were getting good framerates on the 9600, now you can get good framerates with 2-4x AA, 16x AF. Just don't expect miracles because like you said, the 9600gt was running those games at great frame rates already, and there isn't really anything better than 'great' tbh.

It's really not that noticable BSD, at least not in raw fps. It is probably the same as an upgrade from an 8800gt to 4870, which is one I made and I was pretty underwhelmed with it to start with.

You do have to make it noticable, ie push the settings up to max. In pure fps terms there is hardly much going on at all between them. When I pushed all my settings to max, then I realised what the real upgrade was - not fps but quality.

Well, like I said earlier, I can't tell too much of a difference between the 4850 & the 9600. However, my Windows 7 Experience shot up from 5.4 or 5.5 (9600) to 6.9 (4850). I was really impressed with that jump. It far surpassed what I had expected. I feel better about my purchase now that I have actually seen that number. I think that the 4850 will service me longer (before I need to upgrade again) than the 9600.

I am let down that Newegg has dropped the 4850 down to $120 ... after I already bought it. And now I have an extra video card lying around that I can't use Now my $135 4850 cost me $225.

I know this post was made a little while ago, but I just noticed today that this card has skyrocketed in price. I recommended it to somone and they told me to look at it again.

It has gone from as low as $115 up to $190! That is a crazy increase!

No regrets returning it though, I returned it for a 4890 1GB at $150.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ATI-RADEON-HD- [...] 27ad2da53d


here the link valid for 28 more day's - every penny worth.........