Haha dual 4870 in Crossfire must've been a furnace! Insane heat output for sure.
Haha perfect reaction to 96°C! This card runs hotter than Mugatu's temper.
Picked up a reference HD 4870 for $11. Hit 96°C at stock but pushed through GTA San Andreas, CoD4, NFS Most Wanted 2005 and Crysis on a Core 2 Duo rig. Full video here: https://youtu.be/yf9m_z8Nqxs
Following up from the HD 4850 video — this time a reference HD 4870 for $11. Tested on 6 games on the Core 2 Duo rig.
GTA San Andreas
CoD4 Modern Warfare
Tomb Raider Underworld
Just Cause 2
NFS Most Wanted 2005
Crysis
Hit 96°C at stock but handled everything thrown at it. Full video here: https://youtu.be/yf9m_z8Nqxs
Haha 4x Crossfire sounds like an absolute disaster — so much heat for worse performance! But that's the kind of experiment you do just to say you did it. Running Crysis on 4x HD 4850 with a Phenom is peak LAN party energy!
The 9800 XT was a great card! And same story for a lot of people — ATI had some really strong offerings before the AMD acquisition. The HD 4850 era was probably their peak value for money!
That's actually a really smart approach — a separate dedicated how-to video for the maintenance process and then reference it in future videos. Saves time in the main video and makes it more reusable. I'll definitely consider this for future videos, thanks!
Exactly! That's why I overclocked the CPU to 3.8GHz to alleviate the bottleneck. But you're right, Crysis runs way smoother on a Quad-Core. The GPU still takes a massive beating though!
Haha the Celeron trap — more cores but way slower! The 4850 didn't come with Half-Life 2, that was the 9800 Pro era with ATI. But it was definitely a legendary card in its time!
Haha that's actually a great idea — might have to try that in a future video!
Haha yes the fan noise on these old cards was something else! The Zalman cooler on this one is actually surprisingly quiet compared to the stock coolers."
Thanks for the feedback! When I made these first videos I wanted to show the full process step by step — in case someone wants to do it themselves and needs a reference. But I agree it gets tiring after a point. After the HD 5000 series the videos will be faster with fewer scenes. On the music I'm still searching — YouTube's copyright system is very restrictive. Really appreciate you taking the time to watch and comment!
Picked up a used Gigabyte HD 4850 with Zalman aftermarket cooler for $10. The Zalman cooler kept temps at just 53°C — massive difference from my previous HD 3850 that hit 106°C! Tested on a Core 2 Duo rig with GTA SA, CoD4, Crysis and more. Full video here: https://youtu.be/0ORqQPk7kjs
Following up from my HD 3850 video — this time a Gigabyte HD 4850 with Zalman aftermarket cooler for $10. Cleaned it, repasted it and tested on 6 games on a Core 2 Duo rig.
GTA San Andreas CoD4 Modern Warfare Tomb Raider Underworld Just Cause 2 NFS Most Wanted 2005 Crysis
Temps stayed at 53°C — massive difference from the 106°C of the HD 3850!
Full video here: https://youtu.be/0ORqQPk7kjs
Following up from my HD 3870 video — this time I picked up an untested HD 3850 from 2007 for $9.90. Cleaned it, repasted it and threw it at 6 games on a Core 2 Duo rig.
• GTA San Andreas
• CoD4 Modern Warfare
• Tomb Raider Underworld
• Just Cause 2
• NFS Most Wanted
• Crysis
Temps hit 106°C but it survived.
Following up from my HD 3870 video — this time I picked up an untested HD 3850 from 2007 for $9.90. Cleaned it, repasted it and threw it at 6 games on a Core 2 Duo rig.
• GTA San Andreas
• CoD4 Modern Warfare
• Tomb Raider Underworld
• Just Cause 2
• NFS Most Wanted
• Crysis
Temps hit 106°C but it survived.
That's a great first GPU story! The 4870 definitely needed a real PSU — those prebuilt power supplies just couldn't handle it.