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HIS and Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Face Off

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News Posted: Tue, Oct 7 2008 1:48 PM

With the recent run of newer and more affordable graphics cards from ATI, it's almost easy to forget that there's already a sub-$200 frame-rate cruncher called the Radeon HD 4850. Based on the same RV770 chip as the more powerful, yet more expensive HD 4870, the HD 4850 ships with the same 800 stream processors, 40 texture units, and 16 ROPs that have made these cards such hot items. The main area where they differ, other than clock speeds, is in regard to memory. While the HD 4870 ships with high-end GDDR5 memory chips, the HD 4850 finds itself loaded with 512 MB of more mainstream GDDR3.

A major caveat with the Radeon HD 4850 that has arisen, however, is the excessive heat that gets produced by the RV770 GPU. It seemed the single slot reference cooling solution had a tough time handling the heat output of the RV770. With heat being a concern, and manufacturers having more time to tinker with their cards, we weren't surprised to find out that two of ATI's major partners, HIS and Sapphire, had two new cards waiting in the wings, each with their own ramped up clock speeds and with some superior cooling thrown in as well. Come on by the site and check out the Sapphire Toxic Radeon HD 4850 512M and HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ4 TurboX...

HIS and Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Face Off



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3vi1 replied on Tue, Oct 7 2008 11:06 PM

As I've said so many times that it bores even me:  The only thing turning some of us off to ATI is the poor performance of their drivers under Linux.  If their cards, today, performed with the same respective performance under Linux as they do under Windows, I would buy one for my next system.

I can't really blame them for not concentrating on this small marketspace; I can only say that this small marketspace recognizes their concentration.

People read the stupidest things.  Like this sig, for instance.

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Drago replied on Wed, Oct 8 2008 12:51 PM

Uh you people do realize you can get overclocked 9800gtx+'s cheaper than the 4850s you reviewed. Neither of those 4850s are below 200 bucks, and what is an even more slap in the face, the Asus ultimate 9800GT is between the GTX and the GTX+ performance wise and it sells for $149. Im glad to see the HIS cooler, and if i got ATI i would go for them specifically because of that, but for another $40 you could have a stock 4870.

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