New Shorter 4850s

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Stuey83

Limp Gawd
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Mar 8, 2006
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Initial release: Sapphire 4850
New release: Newer Sapphire 4850

I have the longer Sapphire based on the reference design, and it's pretty long; getting the PCIE connector in there in a P182 is quite challenging. I wonder what other changes were made between revisions?

There's a new cooler, the card is shorter, and.they changed the color of the PCB. Are you guys seeing any other differences between the two cards?
 
I personally wouldn't trust anything not based on the reference PCB, and certainly not from Sapphire or Powercolor.

To answer your question, I imagine they simply redesigned it with cheaper components, fewer traces, etc. in order to lower the overall production cost. The size reduction is likely coincidental.
 
Actually, Sapphire has several new or new-ish SKUs, including that new shorter one along with several that still use the older reference design, I can't make sense of it... C/P from another thread:

Sapphire's lineup is rather confusing if you ask me... I imagine they might be updating some of their SKUs, maybe they're putting in a better BIOS or whatever, but it still doesn't make much sense. Originally they had this card:

100242L
sapphire1bz0.jpg

Standard reference design, nothing special... That one was recently deactivated at Newegg and it's apparently replaced by this other card:

100244L
sapphire2kt4.jpg

Which is identical in price at Newegg ('cept it's out of stock, but has an ETA), design (as far as I can see), and specs... Obviously the PCB color changed (no longer red like almost every other ATI card), and the model number. I can't really spot any other difference at all, even the cooler's the same.

It seems to be the same general design as their newer 1GB version, the 100242-1GL, and I suppose that might've been why they had to switch PCBs and whatnot, though that SKU resembles the original more... And the 1GB card has a different slim cooler on it, it's still a single slot card but the cooler spans the length of the card, weird. Then there's slightly more expensive Toxic model, with the same blue PCB and design, save for the Zalman cooler and memory 'sinks:

100242TXSR
sapphire3xg9.jpg


And on top of that there's this newer shorter card with a blue PCB, a similar (but probably cheaper) heatsink sans heatpipe, and a design that's decidedly not the reference design...:confused: The kicker is that it's actually the cheapest 4850 on Newegg right now, by like $5 but still, go figure.

100245
sapphire4yz9.jpg


Anyone make sense of it all? Heh, I don't see anyone else switching PCBs or updating their designs, though I'm lazy and I'm only looking at Newegg... Basically they replaced their original SKU and now they've got a non-reference design selling for less or the same as the reference one, w/a new cooler, they've got a Toxic version w/a Zalman cooler selling for like $20, and they've got a 1GB version seeling for even more.

The few other cards I've seen with non-stock heatsinks all seemed to use the reference design, one from Powercolor, one from ASUS (the ASUS being rather overpriced), and that MSI linked in this thread (still deactivated at Newegg). Powercolor/ASUS both used heatsinks similar to these, the MSI is the only one I've seen with a two-slot outside-vented cooler of sorts. :(
 
Hmm, it also seems like the new design comes with a dual slot cooler?

It could be that with the new single slot design the only difference is the PCB color. Maybe they fixed the out-of-the-box slow fan setting issue? I did see one somewhat broken article at firingsquad that mentioned the dual slot 4850 has quite a few component location changes.

The Toxic I could understand - the only difference between that and stock 4850s is that it is OCed and with a Zalman heatsink.

Could it be that they're trying to appeal to the masses that complain about overheating who also aren't savy enough to do a quick google to find the fix?
 
Well it does seem like the newer single-slot card is still identical save for the color of the PCB. It's that third (or fourth, whatever) card without the ram sinks, with a dual slot cooler similar to Zalman's (but probably not as nice), with the lower price, and with the non-reference shorter design that's the one anomaly. I dunno... There's also this dual slot HIS if anyone's interested btw, only other back-vented design I've seen 'sides MSI's:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10009140&prodlist=celebros

I've no clue why MSI's seems to have disappeared... Some places it's just out of stock, but usually Newegg doesn't deactivate items unless it's certain they ain't coming back.
 
All non-reference are all dual slot : ( Wish they could improve on single slot as I value my (lack) of connections in matx boards.
 
Only way you'll really improve on that single slot cooler is by editing the XML of your CCC profiles and raising the fan speed, the reference cooler is pretty solid, the fan's just real wimpy... It's small and the stock speed is really really low, you can raise it up a notch or two before it becomes audible... If you live somewhere hot like I do, or your case is rather cramped, every lil' bit helps, can always set it back to stock.
 
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