ASUS Matrix & Sapphire Toxic Radeon HD 4870,4850

by Marco Chiappetta — Thursday, February 12, 2009, 11:33 AM EDT

It's been over half a year since the Radeon 4800 series of graphics cards first arrived, but there are still very much in the limelight. Manufacturers continue to produce new takes on the Radeon 4800 series and there is a 4800 series product aimed at every consumer segment, from low cost reference designs to premium solutions with custom cooling. ASUS and Sapphire are two such manufacturers and they have both recently released new 4800 series products aimed at the higher end performance segment.

ASUS recently announced a new line-up of video cards under their Republic of Gamers brand, the Matrix series, and we will be evaluating the new 4850 and 4870 offerings in this article. We'll also be evaluating Sapphire's take on a pumped up non-reference 4870, which is a member of their premium Toxic line-up, that will be competing for your dollars in the same price segment as the Matrix cards. Come on by the site and check them out...

ASUS Matrix and Sapphire Toxic Radeon HD 4870 and 4850 Cards

Tags: Asus, Radeon, Sapphire, graphics, GPU

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com