Conclusion on Linux Benchmarks

I didn't entirely expect the Radeon HD4850 to play completely on par with the Radeon HD3870 in Linux. ATI has not released new Linux drivers since my review of Sapphire's Radeon HD4850, so there is no performance gains to be seen in Linux.

It's kind of disappointing to see the performance I saw in Windows diminish so much in Linux. Although AMD claims the Linux driver simply hasn't been optimized for the Radeon HD4850, how long will it be before we catch glimpse of these optimizations?

Regardless of these issues, the Radeon HD4850 did fall where I expected it to. Despite the performance gap in Windows against the nVidia family of cards, I did expect the Radeon HD4850 to fall behind these cards in Linux. As I've said many times before: nVidia's Linux driver, while not perfect, is still superior to AMD's.

Temperature & Noise

Since the X-Qpack is a small-form factor case, space is tight and wires are fairly abundant. The power supply is directly above videocard, and there's a single 120mm fan on the rear of the case, in the corner opposite the videocard. Suffice to say, there isn't a lot of cooling options. Although the 9600 GSO maintained respectable temperatures, I think a lot of it had to do with the dual-slot cooler.

Something to consider with Palit's Radeon HD4850 is that it was sent to me with a final firmware, whereas I had to flash Sapphire's HD4850 with update firmware.

Palit's Radeon HD4850 runs idle at 62°C, and heats up to a burning 70°C under full load. This is much more respectable than Sapphire's card, but I have a feeling much of this has to do with the card's firmware.

While idle, the card is near silent. Every so often, the fan spinning up can be heard, but the card remains reasonably quiet unless under a heavy load.