Sapphire Radeon HD4850 512MB Graphics Card Review

Conclusion

A few months ago the world of graphics cards was a pretty dull place with numerous rehashes of the same architecture again and again from a company that seemed like it was trying to saturate nearly every portion of the market. While the price we paid for performance had slowly decreased to the point where a $300 graphics card could play literally any game on the market, ATI was somewhat left out in the cold with their HD3800-series lacking the performance needed to be truly competitive. The HD3870X2 was a breath of fresh air but it relied on sometimes flaky Crossfire support to really shine. Truth be told, ATI has been silently biding their time and has now delivered a swift kick to the nuts of the graphics card industry with the release of their HD4800-series. They were trying to shake things up and have accomplished this in leaps and bounds.

With the HD4850, they have brought a part to the market which costs about $200 with all the performance bangs and whistles to challenge cards that were previously retailing for upwards of $300. The card we are referring to is the 9800GTX which was caught with its pants down to the point of Nvidia having to reduce its price by a full hundred bucks so it could compete with the HD4850. Indeed, even with this newly reduced price the 9800GTX seems ready to compete directly with the HD4850 in the $200 market but even in the best of instances in can only narrowly eke a win over the ATI card. As Nvidia struggles to push out the paper-launched 980GTX “+”, ATI seems to be running away with the market as their new cards are literally flying off the shelves.

As we saw in the tests, the Sapphire HD4850 excels in high texture, high AA situations, DX10 applications and higher resolutions. It is here that this new ATI core can really stretch its legs over the competition while keeping power consumption to a minimum. The new ATI is all about performance per watt and they have really held onto that mantra with this card since in this area as well it has run like a lightning bolt through the industry. There isn’t a single application where we see the HD4850 coming up short and this is on beta drivers. I think this driver situation in itself is extremely interesting since ATI has shown in the past that they can unlock some pretty significant performance gains through driver updates.

Unfortunately, while the future looks bright in terms of drivers we have to fault ATI a bit in the one area we also praise: driver development. It has now been nearly a full two weeks since the release of the HD4850 and we are still waiting for WHQL certified drivers. Having customers use their beta (*cough* hotfix *cough*) drivers only goes so far and even though the 8.6 drivers support the R770 cards, their performance is anything but stable. C’mon ATI, we’re waiting here.

Even though there are plenty of competitors on the market, Sapphire has delivered a HD4850 which they should be proud of. They are able to stand above other ATI board partners by offering an extremely complete package with everything from DVD viewing & creation software to game demos to a copy of 3DMark06. The only thing they are missing is a full game but as we mentioned before, it is better to not include a game than to include a title no one is interested in. Even though their warranty isn’t the best around at a paltry two years, in the past I personally have had nothing but quick, concise responses from Sapphire’s customer service department. All in all, they have made a great card even better with their take on the HD4850.
It has been a long, bitter, uphill struggle for ATI to reach competitiveness once again but with both the HD4870 and the HD4850 they are looking poised to take back their rightful place in the discreet graphics card market. The HD4850 offers users the best bang for their buck at this point in time and ATI should be proud of themselves for keeping costs down while bringing some amazing performance to the table. Thus, we are proud to present the Sapphire HD4850 512MB with our Dam Good Value Award.


Pro:

- Amazing price
- Great performance in nearly ever game
- Low power consumption vs competition
- Complete accessory & software package
- Quiet


Cons:

- Runs a bit hot
- 2-year warranty