Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 2048 MB

[Zehnsucht]

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.

Dual MCW60's all the way baby

 

[btarunr]

Dual MCW60's all the way baby

With the barbs/tubes right over the memory?

 

[Duffman]

dang it, when is this card hitting the 'egg!?

 

[Zehnsucht]

With the barbs/tubes right over the memory?

Either low profile heatsinks (have thermalright now), or a cool haird00de on the swiftech sinks will make it possible.
Like so:

(courtesy of http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=2279894 )

 

[btarunr]

hahaha, nice one

 

[Duffman]

Each GPU controls its own fan speed depending on its own temperature.

That is an awesome feature

 

[erocker]

Either low profile heatsinks (have thermalright now), or a cool haird00de on the swiftech sinks will make it possible.

That looks awesome! Like copper fur.

 

[v-zero]

It's great and all, and it's nice to see that memory bandwidth becomes unimportant at high resolutions as the shaders become the bottleneck, at which point the lower latency of DDR3 compared to DDR5 gives it the upper hand - however, I think they got the price wrong. Even with 2048mb of memory it doesn't make sense... $160 x 2 = $320 . So, 1024mb of DDR3 costs $100, erm... no. Plus it's the price of one PCB (slightly more complex PCB) rather than two...

Cheeky buggers.

 

[douglatins]

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

Ok ill refuse to believe that, will check other reviews

 

[W1zzard]

Ok ill refuse to believe that, will check other reviews

let us know of the other reviews you find which compare the 4870 x2 to the 4850 x2 in multiple resolutions of the same test. will be interesting to see

 

[PCpraiser100]

Now thats a graphics card. I'm still very surprized that if you OC it through CCC the card is more powerful than it's bigger brother, wow.

 

[douglatins]

Now thats a graphics card. I'm still very surprized that if you OC it through CCC the card is more powerful than it's bigger brother, wow.

Right!?!?!?!

 

[Duffman]

i think i have to agree with Wizz on the fan noise...I was all about getting this card until i saw those db's. And being as how it looks like Sapphire will be the only one making this card, and you can't get the heat sinc off of the bridge chip, there will be no aftermarket cooling solution for this card either. The only option would be to rip the Sapphire fans off so you can put some of your own, quieter fans on...

I don't think i'd want to pay $400 for a gfx card just to turn around and have to tear it apart to make the noise more bearable.

 

[btarunr]

Now thats a graphics card. I'm still very surprized that if you OC it through CCC the card is more powerful than it's bigger brother, wow.

Quite a bargain, isn't it?

 

[W1zzard]

Now thats a graphics card. I'm still very surprized that if you OC it through CCC the card is more powerful than it's bigger brother, wow.

i didn't overclock the card through CCC because of the overdrive limit. but there is no reason why the card should not perform identical when oc'd through ccc

 

[TRIPTEX_CAN]

i didn't overclock the card through CCC because of the overdrive limit. but there is no reason why the card should not perform identical when oc'd through ccc

Not if the Overdrive limit is 700Mhz like most other 4850s. Still waiting for "ATI Tools successor" to OC my cards.

 

[newtekie1]

Very nice card, and at more than $100 less than then HD4870x2, I think this card would kill the HD4870x2 sales. Though, I couldn't stand the fan noise, I don't know why ATi doesn't spend some time improving their cooling, nVidia has been miles ahead on their cooling solutions.

I really think going with the GTX260(216) would be the best bet for buying a video card right now though. Overclocking to match a GTX280, and only $300 can't really be beat.

 

[Binge]

Review at Overclocker's Club has reviews at lots of resolutions but no variable AA/AF.

The 4850x2 seems to do well in odd places. I really wonder if it might just be a driver issue.

 

[hclarkjr]

i am curious about something though, some of the other reviews are not showing the same results as this review. especialy vs the GTX280

 

[Scrizz]

Not if the Overdrive limit is 700Mhz like most other 4850s. Still waiting for "ATI Tools successor" to OC my cards.

mine is 800 in CCC

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showpost.php?p=976909&postcount=5

 

[TRIPTEX_CAN]

Without a BIOS tweak?

 

[Scrizz]

it's not so hard, is it

 

[Bytor]

With the barbs/tubes right over the memory?

Sure.. Why not? Works great on my 3870's... Just a little trim work on the heatsinks and they work great...

 

[SystemViper]

nice job Bytor!

 

[jbunch07]

hmm I'm very surprised that this card outperforms its bigger brother in some test.
I was playing with the idea of CFing this card with my 4870 X2 but I was worried that this card would cause my card to run at slower clocks considering that it will default to the lower clocked card iirc. But now that I see that it performs very close/better than the 4870 X2 I wonder how they would do in CF? anyone have any ideas?