GIGABYTE GV-R485MC-1GI Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

Reviewed By: Tom on 4/10/2009

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Silent yet runs cool, much cooler than the HD2600XT it replaced. I do have a 120 mm fan 5 volted, blowing in directly from the outside 4" away though. HDMI out, no adapter needed, my case already sticks out the back of my entertainment center and an adapter would make it that much farther. Video and audio with one cable.

Cons: Quite large, buggy drivers. Expensive for a 4850. The drivers I ended up using to make the sound from the HDMI were the ones from Realtek site for rear HD output, the ATI one didn't produce any sound for me. The video driver was right from ATI. The ones on the disk were old and the ones from Gigabyte site were even older. But now I can't get the Catalyst Control Center to load and every time I reboot it says new hardware found Microsoft UAA Bus Driver. I don't want to mess with that because sound and video work great, so I'll live with that for now.

Other Thoughts: I bought this for an HTPC mainly watching instant NetFlix and games like GTR2, Live For Speed, which run fine @ 1920 x 1080 with everything max. rarely drops below 60 fps. I have this in an Apevia case with a full size ATX board and size is an issue. I got it to fit but if you're wondering about size, I hope I can help. It takes up two slots. It's 9 3/8" from the L bracket to the end of the card and 4 7/8" from the top of the motherboard to the top of the card when installed. So the cooling fins stick up 3/8" above the L bracket. Don't forget to add for the 6 pin plug which would make it 9 7/8" front to back plus the amount to bend the wires 90 degrees if necessary. If I site down from the top, the back of the 6 pin plug is directly even with the back edge of the motherboard. I ended up taking my case apart and was able to move the PSU forward a little, so now it fits fine.

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Excellent Quiet Card

Reviewed By: Spyder1 on 2/26/2009

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 week to 1 month

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Fanless and quiet. Superb cooling. 1Gb ram for large textures and AA. This is particularly useful on most titles starting @ 1920x. For very demanding titles 1680x. Well built and a handsome card.

I am running two of these in Crossfire in a TJ10 case. The top card is idle/load 31c/55c, the bottom card is 47c/70c. Obviously, the close proximity of the top card to the bottom is heating it up.

One of these would be a great card for 1680x with moderate filtering. It would also make a darn good addition to a HTPC.

If you're tired of cards with fans that whine at idle or howl at load, give this card a whirl.

Wonderful product.

Cons: This is more of a warning. Being as it's a fanless card, good airflow is required in your case for this product to excel. They are two slot cards so users with very close PCI-e 16x slots would not be able to, or want to put them in Crossfire. If they were in a case with excellent cooling like the Cooler Master HAF I would retract that last statement.

Other Thoughts: As I noted, if you want a truly quiet card and play 1920x with filtering active try two of these in something like a Cooler Master HAF.

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Sound problems

Reviewed By: on 11/10/2009

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 week to 1 month

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Great card, silent, does't run too hot, despite being fanless.

Cons: The sound device built into the video card (????) conflicted with the sound built into the motherboard. I tried absolutely everything short of re-installing Windows. I reinstalled audio and video drivers for the card, un-installed and re-installed drivers for built-in sound. Disabled and re-enabled sound via BIOS. Set my audio out to video card and then back to built-in audio via the Control Panel Sound thing. Eventually just bought a cheap sound card at Worst Buy. That worked.

Other Thoughts: I have an ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe, which is a rather old motherboard, so maybe it's just a matter of the driver for the built-in sound not being written properly. However, I had the same problem in Ubuntu (I dual-boot) so maybe it's a BIOS/ACPI thing?

I never tried hooking up the HDMI from the video card to see if that audio was working. My speakers don't take HDMI. My TV does, but I was too lazy to move my computer over there just to see if a feature I didn't want to use worked. I just wanted to use plain ol' analog sound from the mobo.

So, it could be the card itself works fine. The audio for the video card works and it's just a problem with my motherboard. But, regardless, I bought a video card and got problems with my audio, was not expecting that... works great now though, playing L4D2 demo, much better than the 7600GT I upgraded from.

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Powerful card for noise haters

Reviewed By: IT Spec on 11/5/2009

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 week to 1 month

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Fast - Completely Quiet - Well made

Cons: Absolutely none

Other Thoughts: As an IT Specialist for 25 years, I can recognize a truly special computer product. This is, without a doubt, the best video card I have ever installed/ owned (and I have installed and owned many).

I am averaging 37c idle and 49c load on demanding games/programs. To the reviewers who are having major heat issues with this thing it just doesn't add up or make sense. Are you using the card in a closed case? Do you have any case fans that are actually working? Pasively cooled high power video cards need air flow through a computer case. Most modern cases have this so I am at a loss regarding the stories of over heating issues told by some.

Also, the 4850 drivers are very mature and seem to work well with everything.

I was an Nvidia fan for many years and was drawn to ATI by the fact that they are still the only game in town as of right now if you want to be able to hookup to an HD monitor using an hdmi cable, with no other cables or adapters, and get digital sound over the hdmi.

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Quiet? Yes - Crossfire? Dunno

Reviewed By: mournewind on 10/22/2009

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Fanless design on a card a bit shorter than I had antisipated (shorter than my 8800GTX). My side fan is keeping it (just one) at 60C at 90+ load running Folding@home.

Cons: I have two cards purchased at Newegg but neither one came with the Crossfire bridge so I'm waiting on Gigabyte support. Very disappointed.

Other Thoughts: My purpose was to build a quieter gaming rig leveraging my 120MM fans... still waiting.

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