Mainstream Category

Among the most affordable gaming graphics cards the ATI Radeon HD 4830 is the brightest star. This might be expected considering the origin of that card. It is a cut-down Radeon HD 4850, but the amputation wasn’t too harsh, so the result is impressive. Priced at less than $150, this graphics card delivers very good performance, being inferior to the Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT only in Dead Space and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky but the gap is small in the former game and you can play normally at 1680x1050 with maximum graphics quality settings.

Well, the Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT turned in a good performance too, despite the outdated architecture and cut-down configuration of the graphics core. It can be recommended for purchase as well, especially if its retail price proves to be lower than that of the Radeon HD 4830.

The Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT, ATI Radeon HD 3870 and ATI Radeon HD 4670 are not truly gaming cards if you want to play modern games at highest resolutions and maximum graphics quality settings available.

Conclusion

We have to admit that our preference lies with ATI’s solutions nearly everywhere. This is yet another proof of the wise choice of development strategy undertaken by the graphics department of AMD. It is only in the Premium category that the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 and Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 compete on equal terms just because the former is costlier and consumes more power and may have problems with multi-GPU support in the ATI Catalyst driver. In the other categories the models of the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series are preferable. Each of them is 100% worth the money asked. Nvidia must hurry up with the release of a new-generation mainstream GPU. Otherwise it will go on losing its influence on the market of discrete graphics hardware just it is doing right now.