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
Maybe it was the 3rd machine I built, then. 🤔 I had a 9800XT, too, at some point. Up until AMD bough ATI, I was only ever using ATI cards.
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!