| Sapphire Radeon HD4850 (512Mb DDR3) |
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It's Sapphire's turn to give mainstream gamers what they've been waiting for ... good performance that won't hurt their pockets.
INTRODUCTION Radeon HD4850 cards are now becoming widely available, and they're starting to hit the shelves at most stores. Sapphire, being one of AMD's major board parnters have of course, already released their Radeon HD4850 cards before anyone else. As always, we expect good performance from Sapphire's HD480 cards ... well, it should be as their cards like most are based on AMD/ATI's reference design. As I explained in our reviews of the MSI R4850 graphics card, the Radeon HD4800 series uses ATI's RV770 GPU and offer a lot more than its predecessor the HD3800 series. It uses their advanced 55nm technology, and now offers more processor stream units and better anti aliasing techniques. The Radeon HD4800 series have already received rave reviews from around the globe, and it could be THE choice for the mainstream gamer. In fact in a recent survey conducted by another website, 75% of their readers would choose AMD over Nvidia.
Here's a recap from our recent review on AMD/ATI's Radeon HD4800 series ... There are 2 flavours in the HD4800 series. The Radeon HD4850 uses the RV770 Pro GPU, while the more powerful HD4870 uses the RV770 XT GPU,
I think AMD/ATI have really hit the nail on the head this time. They've given mainstream gamers the two most important things ... and that's performance and price. OK, it's true ... the Radeon HD4800 seies may not be as fast of the Nvidia's latest GTX cards, but AMD/ATI is hoping that the mainstream gamers will be attracted by its price. What's more ... AMD/ATI can really bank on their Crossfire X technology this time. As this technology matures, and with better Catalyst drivers on the way ... gamers have been mesmorised by the boost in performance, as shown in our recent article on the performance of 2 x HD4800 in Crossfire mode. So what so special about this Crossfire X technology? ... Well, it's not just about having 2 graphic cards your system and making it look good, it's also about the "seeable" increase in real-life performance. 
In this review, we'll be taking a look at the Sapphire Radeon HD4850. The grahics card is based on ATI's reference design and uses their latest Radeon HD4850 (RV770 Pro) GPU, and is equipped with a total of 512Mb of GDDR3 ram. The whole card is based on a single slot solution and looks very similar in size and shape to its predecessor ... the Radeon HD3850. Using GPU-Z, we determined that the Radeon HD4850 (RV770 Pro) GPU runs at 625Mhz, while the 512Mb DDR3 ram runs at 1996Mhz (2x993Mhz). I suspect over the next few months graphic card manufacturers will be releasing super overclocked versions of the Radeon HD4850 with custom cooling solutions. We described in our MSI R4850 review that the Radeon HD4850 ran extremely hot. Well, there's no change in the cooling side of things. Our tests have shown the Sapphire Radeon HD4850 is no different. Even at idle the card can get really HOT, with GPU core temperatures reaching in excess of 70 degrees Celsius in some cases. I'm sure there will be after-market coolers available for the Radeon HD4850 very soon ... and maybe soon we'll see newer versions of the the Radeon HD4850 with custom more effecient coolers.
In our tests we'll be benchmarking the Sapphire Radeon HD4850 with several GPU intensive DX10 games ... with both 4xAA and 16xAF options enabled, as well as your usual 3D Mark 2005 and 2006 tests. Our test rig includes an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ default 2.4Ghz, Gigabyte GA-X48 DQ6 motherboard, OCZ SLI DDR2-1066 2Gb Kit, PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 860W PSU and a 19" Dell Ultrascan P990 monitor. All-in-all, it's a decently spec'd system for DX10 gaming. OK, lets not waste any more time and see how well the Sapphire Radeon HD4850 will perform against other Radeon based cards on the market.
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