When reviewing our first Radeon HD 4850 back in June, we knew almost right away that this was going to be the best value graphics card of 2008. Now roughly 3 months later, I think it is safe to say that the Radeon HD 4850 is the best value graphics card of 2008, at least it is in my opinion. In fact, we do not believe that a graphics card has offered the kind of value that this new Radeon does in quite a few years now.

The Radeon HD 4850 offers gamers an astonishing level of performance for less than $200 US. In the past, current generation graphics cards engineered for performance have cost at least twice this dollar figure, making the Radeon HD 4850 truly remarkable. This new Radeon seems almost flawless and really it is, with the exception of one little kink in its armor, and that is the AMD reference cooler.

Since the release of the Radeon HD 4850 we have seen a number of examples from various manufacturers, all of which featured the standard single slot reference cooler. The problem with this cooler is that it allows the GPU to reach almost 90 degrees, while the idle temperature never drops below 70 degrees. Despite the high operating temperatures, the Radeon HD 4850 is actually a very power efficient product, using much less power than a GeForce 9800 GTX for example.

This excess build up of heat seriously hampers the overclocking abilities of the Radeon HD 4850, and we have had a great deal of difficulty pushing cards using the standard cooler much above the default specifications. For this reason, when Palit released their overclocking version of the Radeon HD 4850, we were extremely eager to get our hands on it. This new version comes with a 10% core overclock, which has been made possible by the heavily upgraded cooling solution which has now been promoted to a dual slot design.

However, while improved cooling is certainly what we have been waiting for, Palit has out done themselves in more ways than one with their new Radeon HD 4850 Sonic graphics card. Not only has Palit completely upgraded the cooling, but they have also reworked the entire PCB design, and in the process improved the power circuitry for better overclocking performance and stability.

Amazingly, despite all these impressive upgrades, the Palit Radeon HD 4850 Sonic graphics card still comes in at under $200 US. Depending on how the Radeon HD 4850 Sonic performs, we could quite easily be looking at the best value Radeon HD 4850 graphics card on the market. However, before we jump into the benchmarking phase, let’s take a more in-depth look at some of the features that make this graphics card so special…