Overclocking/Thermal Dynamics

To overclock the 4830's we used the ATI auto-tune option within the Catalyst Control Centre, a very quick and easy process and one of the best aspects of the ATI software.

Before starting we expected the PowerColor card to have the highest memory overclocks due to the chips having dedicated heatsinks but this proved not to be the case. The card actually had the lowest memory overclock of 70MHz, which was 20MHz behind the HIS and 210MHz behind the hugely impressive Sapphire card. Sapphire also had the highest core overclock with 690MHz equal to PowerColor and HIS were a little behind on 640MHz.

Temperature testing was performed at each cards default fan speed. Load results were taken during a loop of the Lost Planet Colonies timedemo and idle temperatures were recorded after 30minutes of inactivity on the desktop.

In this area it is clear that Sapphire and HIS are using coolers which are much more effective than PowerColor. Sapphire have the lower idle temperature and the joint lowest load temperature, HIS also produce some impressive results but PowerColor are some way behind on 44c idle and 69c load.

NOTE: Catalyst Control Centre now offers fan speed control, of the three models tested today the only one which allowed us to use this function was the PowerColor branded card.