Radeon 4850 Briefly On Sale; Specs

Seattle (WA) - Amazon.com accidentally put AMD’s upcoming Radeon 4850 graphics cards on sale earlier today and thanks to Google’s page cache we now have a confirmation of a few more technical specifications of the graphics card as well as its price: $199.99.

Our eagle-eyed colleagues from TweakTown were first to spot a Diamond Radeon 4850PE3512 graphics card earlier today. It did not take long until the page was pulled, but thanks to Google’s page cache, the information and pictures have remained available. In fact, Radeon 4850 cards have popped up on several pages in the last days, for example here, here and even on OfficeDepot’s site. Amazon.com’s $199.99 offer is apparently the starting point for 4850-based cards, while others are listing 4850 cards for as much as $230.95.

Only Amazon.com posted the full description of the card as well as a handful of pictures, including a box shot and product shots. According to the posted description, the technical specifications include:

ASIC: RV7000, 512MB Memory, GDDR3 Memory Configuration, 256-bit Memory Interface, Display Formats:x2 Dual Link DVI + HDTV-out with built-in HDMI, PCI Express 2.0 support, 480 Stream Processing units, Direct X 10.1 / Shader Model 4.1,OpenGL 2.0, ATI Crossfire X Multi-GPU Support for highly scalable performance (Up to four GPU support with an AMD 790FX based motherboard), High-speed 128-bit-HDR (High Dynamic Range) rendering, 55nm process technology, ATI Avivo HD Video and Display Technology, Game Physics processing capability, Up to 24X Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing, Unified Video Decoder (UVD) for Blu-ray and HD DVD, ATI PowerPlay energy conserving technology.

We especially want to point out the notion of 480 stream processors, a number that has been debated up until now. Also, the card is promoted with Game Physics processing capability, which may or may not indicate AMD’s first steps in a recently partnership with Havok: AMD graphics have been advertised with physics processing capability for some time.

Amazon.com’s posting also stated that the 4850 requires a 450 Watt or greater power supply (550 Watt for ATI CrossFireX with two 6-pin connectors), hinting to the power requirements of the new card. This specific card will ship with several goodies, including two DVI to VGA adapters, an S Video cable, a Crossfire Bridge Interconnect, a Component HDTV adapter and a DVI to HDMI adapter.

As previously revealed, the Radeon 4850 is based on the RV770PRO graphics processor and will be combined with 512 MB GDDR3 memory in this retail configuration.

According to our sources, the upcoming Radeon 4870 512 MB GDDR5 will be hitting the market in the $299 neighborhood.

It is unfortunate that the ATI Radeon 4850 and the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4850PE processor are one generation apart from each other. It would have been a special treat to see two 4850 processors in one system. But if numbers make you feel warm and fuzzy, you can always combine an Intel Core 2 Quad 8600 and Nvidia’s GeForce 8600GTS. Or you can wait for Intel’s Core 2 Q9600 and Nvidia’s GeForce 9600GT.