There are some clear benefits to the additional 512MB of graphics memory present on Gigabyte's Radeon HD 4850 1GB graphics card in some titles, but they're not there in others. Over time, the industry trend is definitely moving towards more graphics memory - that trend has existed for years now and it's not going to change any time soon - but the improvements on the Radeon HD 4850 1GB aren't quite as profound as they are on the Radeon HD 4870 1GB.

That is something to do with the resolutions that the Radeon HD 4850, in general, delivers an optimal gaming experience - they're not as high as they are with the Radeon HD 4870 and so the gains aren't quite as obvious. Without a doubt, they are still there though and the decision to opt for a 1GB Radeon HD 4850 over a much cheaper 512MB variant.

The premium works out to be approximately £30 or 25 percent, which is quite considerable in our opinion when you see that the difference between the Radeon HD 4870 512MB and 1GB variants is only 10 percent. And we're not even referring to Gigabyte's GV-R485MC-1GH Radeon HD 4850 1GB here either, as the passive cooling solution naturally pushes the price up a little - it'd be unfair to make that comparison because we believe the passive cooler does add some genuine value here.

Overall then, Gigabyte's GV-R485MC-1GH is a decent enough card backed with a good warranty that's ideally suited for those who are on a quest for absolute silence. However, we don't recommend the Radeon HD 4850 1GB for the wider market at the moment because the price increase doesn't reflect decent enough performance improvements in more than a few select titles at some rather extreme settings - that's not a fault of Gigabyte's, it's merely because of the general price difference between 512MB and 1GB variants of the Radeon HD 4850.

Should you choose to purchase the GV-R485MC-1GH though, there is one recommendation we need to make: you'll need to employ at least some airflow inside your chassis because the heat needs to be moved somewhere in the long run even though Gigabyte's Multi-Core cooler is better than a lot of passive coolers we've seen over the years.