Reviews - Pro-Clockers! PC Reviews One MegaHertz At A Time

Introduction

There once was a time when ATI video cards were looked upon as a good card with plenty of features that many people would be happy to have but at the same time they were taking a backseat to Nvidia and the pure brut speed they were sporting. I was one of the people that felt ATI just wasn't cutting it when it came to my old 800GTX. Every benchmark and games backed up everyones feelings on who was the faster subject.

Just like processors, the battle between Intel and AMD, there is a time where things come a full circle. And what was the best at one time is second at the moment. Right now ATI has captured the crown of the fastest video card with the HD4870 X2. With its dual GPU and two gigs of ram no Nvidia can touch it. With its introduction it even forced Nvidia to lower the prices of their 280GTX, which was fast but still cheaper than the X2.

But at the going price of $500 the X2 can easily be considered too pricey for most. I for one shy away for the higher priced cards as they tend to be more than what I need. I do love to play and bench but on a moderate level. So a 4870 X2 would be more than what I need. As of late I have been sporting a very capable HD4870 . It plays everything I like at above settings. But with the release of games like Fallout3, Far Cry 2 and others I am wanting to up my gear to something a little more fitting.

In the past few weeks we here at Pro-Clockers have reviewed all the latest ATI offering so we find it only fitting to review the HD 4850 X2, a card that I feel is "a little more fitting." The 4850 X2 is a dual GPU two gig of ram solution all on one PCB just like it's big brother the 4870 X2. And these are not enough numbers let me give you a few more. The clocks are preset at 625MHz on the core, 1000MHz for the memory and 800 stream processors times two. Enough of the preliminaries lets get into some testing.

What Sapphire has to say about the 4850 X2

Designed by SAPPHIRE, the new HD 4850 X2 comprises two complete HD 4850 graphics systems on a single PCI-Express card connected by an on-board PCI Express Gen 2 bridge chip. Each GPU has 800 stream process units and a 256-bit memory interface driving 1GB of GDDR3 memory, making a total of 2GB on-board memory. Four Dual Link DVI outputs are provided as well as TV-Out. This provides a choice of Multi-monitor operation or CrossFire mode in which 3D applications such as games use both on-board GPU’s together to deliver a single accelerated output on the Primary display with industry leading levels of performance.