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


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!