Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 2048 MB

W1zzard · Nov 4, 2008

Being priced at reasonable $419, the Sapphire HD 4850 X2 is designed to take some market share from NVIDIA's GTX 280. The card features 2 GB of GDDR3 memory and comes with a custom designed cooling solution. Even though you would expect very little overclocking from a dual-GPU card, we saw an amazing 15% performance increase from overclocking without touching any fan settings.

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Binge · Nov 4, 2008

It always makes me sad to see my performance per Watt and performance per dollar for the 4870x2 :laugh:

Great review! I bet that card would easily take aftermarket coolers.

johnnyfiive · Nov 4, 2008

Such an awesome card that STILL needs a better cooling solution. I want a 4850x2 for sure now. But, I'm waiting until a better cooling solution version or part comes out. That is SUPER loud and no external venting?!?!

[I.R.A]_FBi · Nov 4, 2008

wait for teh palit verison

kyle2020 · Nov 4, 2008

Its finally here! :eek:

my next upgrade!

buggalugs · Nov 4, 2008

Performance looks good but why oh why do we still get cards that are very noisy. Its not good enough for a highish end card.

Zehnsucht · Nov 4, 2008

buggalugs said:
Performance looks good but why oh why do we still get cards that are very noisy. Its not good enough for a highish end card.

High:ish end card? It is simply the most high end card out there in resolutions over 1680.

I'm getting this in a couple of months. Paired with water cooling

zithe · Nov 4, 2008

Awesome! You should try Oblivion + Qarl and stuff sometime. Those mods can be pretty heavy.

knightlag · Nov 4, 2008

Yay! been wanting to see a review of the HD4850x2. Like Zithe said, you should try Oblivion + Qarls Texture Pack 3 + More then everything visible when distant, that puts a load on almost any setup.

douglatins · Nov 4, 2008

Why the (F*Word) did ati do to make it better than my 4870X2, oh cmon!, F*Word u AMD, FIRST and last ati card, nvidia FTW. And F*Word your drivers too! No physix, WTF.

razaron · Nov 4, 2008

it beats the 4870x2 on higher resolutions, thats a bit stupid

zithe · Nov 4, 2008

douglatins said:
Why the (F*Word) did ati do to make it better than my 4870X2, oh cmon!, F*Word u AMD, FIRST and last ati card, nvidia FTW. And F*Word your drivers too! No physix, WTF.

...They're driver issues. Not sure how to explain it. I don't see why you're upset, anyways. You probably never drop below 60 frames per second unless you play crysis... This kind of thing happens on both ends...

mlee49 · Nov 4, 2008

Nice review Wiz. I really enjoy seeing F@H listed as a review category, perhaps a few new categories will be added? maybe some will be dropped as new games/benchmarks come out?

lemonadesoda · Nov 4, 2008

Excellent Review! As always, wiz does the magic:

You know, now the dust is settling, GTX260, esp with CUDA, really is a great little (or big LOL) contender. I think that or the new fab reduced GT206(?) is on my next upgrade list.

wiz: can you BIOS hack the 4850x2 2GB memory sizes to trick it to access just 1GB of memory for a comparative?

btarunr · Nov 4, 2008

Zehnsucht said:
I'm getting this in a couple of months. Paired with water cooling

It would be interesting to know if full-coverage water blocks come out for this PCB. It's a one of a kind PCB. Even then, you'd need some nano-bots from the future to go in and dissolve that epoxy for the bridge chip's heatsink, so you could use a block.

douglatins · Nov 4, 2008

zithe said:
...They're driver issues. Not sure how to explain it. I don't see why you're upset, anyways. You probably never drop below 60 frames per second unless you play crysis... This kind of thing happens on both ends...

Ok i guess you're right, i think i cant get over the fact that i didnt think that a so hot gpu would also increase my overall system temp quite highly

TRIPTEX_CAN · Nov 4, 2008

ATI didnt release this card eariler for a reason.... its just as good as the 4870x2 until you hit resolutions above 2500x1600. This card would have killed the 4870x2 sales based on price alone.

Now if the other AIBs would only release their versions without this horrible fan Sapphire used.

Good review Wizz

douglatins · Nov 4, 2008

razaron said:
it beats the 4870x2 on higher resolutions, thats a bit stupid

This is what got me very upset :banghead:

btarunr · Nov 4, 2008

Yes, it beats HD 4870 X2..those tests were re-run many times over for both the cards.

TRIPTEX_CAN · Nov 4, 2008

ATI has been using DDR3 for a long time. They know how to use it better than they know DDR5. They engineered the 4850x2 very well.

mdm-adph · Nov 4, 2008

.and down, down go the prices on the GTX 280.

niko084 · Nov 4, 2008

btarunr said:
Yes, it beats HD 4870 X2..those tests were re-run many times over for both the cards.

Probably has to do with better drivers..

But all in all, not a bad card, but I am still having a hard time seeing the reason for it when the 4870x2 is right above it... :ohwell:

**Read next post #24**

btarunr · Nov 4, 2008

niko084 said:
Probably has to do with better drivers..

Both cards were compared in an identical environment.

niko084 · Nov 4, 2008

btarunr said:
Both cards were compared in an identical environment.

No they were not..

The 4870x2 was done with 8.7's
The 4850x2 was done with 8.10's check the reviews

**
Scratch that, I never noticed that the cards are actually all re-tested with the newer drivers..

TRIPTEX_CAN · Nov 4, 2008

For W1zzard's review the drivers were the same.

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Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 2048 MB

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