Customer Reviews

Sapphire Radeon HD4850 X2 2GB DDR3 Dual DVI / TVO PCI-Express Graphics Card

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This card plays Crysis extremely well. Stays cool at approx 57 degrees celcius after an hours of play and the fans never went above 20% speed. The fans are very quite and even at 100% you can hear them slightly but not loud at all. Highly recommend this card. I can't even imagine running these in crossfire mode with an additional X2 card having 4 GPU's that would be insane if a game could handle it.

I've been an Nvidia man for over 10 years...until yesterday. Yesterday I recieved this card from amazon, after carefully reviewing every review and benchmark I could find. They all said it was a GTX 280 killer, so I took the plunge. All I can say is...astonishing! Fast! Quiet! Powerful! Add to that the price AND the rebate and you've got a winning deal.

I used this card to replace an Nvidia 8800 GTS - which is no slouch in and of itself. I couldn't find my crysis DVD, so I used Medieval Total War II and created 2 huge armies and turned them loose on each other at max settings. Now, you might think that's wierd, as most benchmarks are done on first person shooters, but when you have 2000 detailed warrior figures running around the screen, each doing their own thing, plus a dynamic environment, plus airborne missles, trust me, it used to make the 8800GTS choke on high settings and the game unplayable. In comparison, the Saphhire Radeon 2850 x2 ran the game as smooth as can be.

Highly recommended. But wait, there's more! Take note: I have a CoolerMaster Centurion case - this card is so long I had to take out one of the front drive bay frameworks to fit it in.

This is one fast card for the price I paid. There are much more expensive cards out there, but this was a deal for what I needed. 3 stars because of the lack of fan control. I may be missing something here, but the fans come on at 100% for a few seconds before calming down, then repeat the cycle every 10 seconds or so when doing light work. When playing games, the cycle is every 2 to 3 seconds. When the fans come on like that, they are LOUD! I have the card in an Antec 1200 case, so that doesn't help reduce the noise with all of the vents in the case.

After reading more in depth reviews from Tom's and Arstechnica I decided to purchase this card. It is a big card but not that much larger than most and measures at ~11 1/8" from the plate to the rear of the card. I had to do a slight modification to my old Lanboy Pro case but nothing major, just removed the aluminum HDD bay and placed my drives in the unused FDD bays. One other thing to note is that the noise level is not that loud. I am not sure what kind of library most of these guys are crating their box to but the noise is minimal at best and barely discernable above my Zerotherm NV120. This was an upgrade from a Sapphire X1950 Pro and I am very pleased with the performance. Left 4 Dead and COD4 have never looked better. Also, if you are new to ATI chipsets, avoid Catalyst Software as a rule of thumb and just download the standalone drivers.

I had a 4870 and it clonked out all the time b/c of overheating and artifacts all over the place. I got the 4850x2 after reading the reviews and benchmarks. I have not been dissapointed one bit. the card is HUGE I have this case: http://www.amazon.com/Antec-Hundred-Gaming-External-Internal/dp/B000GQMHBI/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1236264351&sr=8-1

IT WILL FIT IN IT !!

Also the case holds about 3-4 fans that will allow you to run everything cool. The card itself has 2 fans on it and has only gotten hot as 47 degrees while playing COD4, Crysis, Devil May Cry 4, and GRID.

It is a little loud but most PC's are running loud nowadays and once you get used to it you won't even notice it.

Also MAKE sure you get the drivers from the Sapphire site itself

Overall its a powerful card that out performs some if not all of the heavy hitters.

i ordered this card from amazon mid-february for $244.99, no tax, no shipping, after the $30 manuf rebate. Thats half the price of a 4870x2!!! not including tax/ship to calif. I overclocked to 5% on gpu and memory, but sure u could take it to 10%+ with heatsink modifications. i removed the heatsink and fans, and bought two 120mm case fans, but it ran me up an extra $20.00 each. so i returned them and bought a $7 pci-slot fan, and stayed with the stock fans, the hot air is exhausted out of my case. This card is a no-brainer hell of a deal. up to within 5% performance of an 4870x2 for half the price? the 4870x2 will slaughter a gtx285, so at 5% less of the 4870x2 performance vs. the gtx285...

the eight screws that hold the cover onto the card should have been aligned with the holes on standard 120mm case fans. that would have made fan upgrades possible in 5 minutes. but after the ftock fans are removed, the heatsink is level. that is a plus because u can then apply thermal glue and a two cpu heatsinks and high speed fans, though its too much hassle and costs for me. i'm happy with a stable 5% overclock for $7 more.

i dual boot xp/vista. to a dell inspiron 531, and the card still fits (although) it is extremely tricky. you "must" use right-angle sata cables. because this card covers the sata slots too closely... i play all the latest top games @max settings on a 24"lcd 1920*1200. this card at this price is a BARGAIN! noise is not really an issue bc i play games with a headset, and when im surfing, the card is not running at full power, so the fans aren't too noticeable. with the $250 savings over the 4870x2, u can buy two 74gb raptor drives for $99 brand new, and put them in raid zero. i have one 150gb raptor and am gonna get another one. it was so so so much faster than my 500gb drive, can't wait to put in the second one. 2 raptors, raid o = best upgrade u can make to ur current system.

Bought this card and only 2 of the 4 ports worked. Have had difficult time getting replacement even after ATI support said card is bad return for refund or replacement.

I'm gaming using a 30" LCD
Bought this to upgrade my previous card that started to be a little short... (an 8800 GT)
This was a total loss of money.
This card is very noisy, and prevents me from playing any game over 1280 resolution. If i do try to use any higher resolution, that usually ends with a wonderful system freeze among a concert of fans....

Pretty bad experience with Sapphire tech support too.. took ages to have them to admit that there is an issue with card and the best i could get them is to replace/repair it... Problem is the process in order to do that :
- Ship the card to them
- Pay an extra 15 dollars and the shipping fee...
- wait ... (how useful is your pc during this time ?)
- maybe get something else...

Just decided to write it off as a loss...

For information if someone is in the same situation. I bought a 5770 XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB DDR5 PCIE Graphics Card HD577AZNFC that basically exhibited the same issues... (less the fan noises) so stay clear of this one too... but i returned it right away.
My latest try is a Diamond 5870 Diamond ATI Radeon HD5870 PCIE 1024 MB GDDR5 Video Card 5870PE51G and this one works... almost no fan noises and run perfectly for now.

well, after many research i choose this card for my gaming rid. after 2 months at test i have to say is absolutely mind breaking powerful. doesnt matter the game or app you use feel free to go for the most extreme quality settings this card wont even notice it. only cons is a bit louder than other cards but any 280 series card stand a chance against this one. i feel free to say is this or the next step gtx 295

Very good graphics card. I had this card installed and going very well. With this addition the machine is flying to the moon. Stunning graphics. I recommend it ....