Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB [H]

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FrgMstr

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Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB - Today, we have Sapphire's Radeon HD 4850 X2 on the test bench. With 512MB of memory available to each GPU, will this video card's performance suffer, or can the considerable amount of shader power make up for it? We'll find the answer to that question and more with the help of six of today's hottest games!
The Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB video card can be bought right now from Newegg for $259.99 USD, with free shipping. Thanks to very recent price drops you can get a nice AMD Radeon HD 4870 1GB video card for $189.99 USD after MIR, and it also comes with free shipping. Finally, a good NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 (with 216 shaders) can be had right now for $204.99 USD after MIR, and even that comes with free shipping.
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yang88she said:
Thanks Kyle, been looking forward to this one
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We originally did not cover this card due to it simply being too expensive for what gaming value it returned....that and it only coming from one builder. Then we saw it fall in price and it started to make a bit better sense. But as described on page 1 of the article, things have changed in regards to value after we started our testing.

But thanks! I hope you guys like it. It is good coverage from Mark.
 
nice but it seems too gimped by the 512M for anything that is memory intensive which kinda limits it's target market to one that single GPU can usually handle fine.
 
I agree w/ the conclusion, since I don't game full time, but I use multiple monitors, it's a great gpu for those that run 3-4 monitors w/out having to add another gpu
 
That price drop recently really turned the tables on this video card. If it were to not have happened this video card may have held more positive value in our conclusion. The price drop really changed our opinion of it as we were working on it. The drop was nice for consumers, but it did lessen the value of this video card, unless it too drops in price soon.
 
Dual gpu solutions generally double the problems as well as the number of gpu's. Unless they are significantly faster then any single card solution so there is no other choice best avoided imo.

4850X2 is a case in point - it might be faster then a 4870, but sometimes it's quite a bit slower. It's also significantly more likely to suffer glitches and crashes. Better to have a 4870 which guarantee's good performance across all games, then something that's sometimes amazing, but also sometimes a right a pain in the arse.

Incidentally when reviewing it might be worth trying with some games that aren't *review standard*. Both nvidia and ati obviously try extra hard to get their cards running with the games they know you will review, however there are many other ones out there that we still want to play that don't get the same attention.

Another interesting test would be to see how well support for the card is likely to go in the future when it's no longer the centre of attention. e.g. try playing the latest games with dual 3870's - once the setup so many people wanted, now starting to suffer more and more issues as the driver teams just don't try so hard to keep new games working with them - this is your future if you buy a 4850X2.
 
I'm always on the lookout for a 4 DVI card, and in this case, here it is. I feel though that'd I'd be better off with a 4870 or GTX260 + a lower end card in this situation. As it is now I'm running an 8800GT with an 8600GT for the other displays. Maybe time to step it up to a 260 + 8600.
 
Nice review guys but I have to ask, why did you bother with the 1gb version at all? though it was interesting just how much the frame buffer killed it in some games.

Still for for some people it might not be bad, For myself the price difference between the 2gb and 1gb renders the 1gb a mute point
 
This article will help me sleep better tonight. I recently recommended to a friend to get a 4870 and not the 4850x2, I was afraid the frame buffer would be limiting and from the looks of it, it is really doing that.

The most important thing to me has allways been minimum frame rates, not max or average. From the looks of it, while it is tollerable in some places, it's not something I'd be happy with if I spent my money on.
 
Valset said:
Nice review guys but I have to ask, why did you bother with the 1gb version at all? though it was interesting just how much the frame buffer killed it in some games.

Still for for some people it might not be bad, For myself the price difference between the 2gb and 1gb renders the 1gb a mute point
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That's what we had to test of course, we needed to find out if the framebuffer was a limitation for the shader power available. This doesn't exclude us from also testing the 2GB model and now we will have something to compare it to and see if simply doubling the memory will really give it the boost it needs, all weighted by price.

I've also thought about what would happen if you added another 512MB 4850 to this video card and enabled Tri-CrossFire, would that even help, or would the memory limitation show absolutely no change in gameplay experience. Interesting video card combinations are possible.
 
It could also be a memory bandwidth issue combined with the smaller framebuffer. After all, both the GTX 260 and 4870 have ~1.8x the memory bandwidth of the 4850x2
 
I wish AMDati/Nvidia would list on their site the performance increases with different Crossfire/SLI card setups.

Takes the guess work out.
 
kllrnohj said:
It could also be a memory bandwidth issue combined with the smaller framebuffer. After all, both the GTX 260 and 4870 have ~1.8x the memory bandwidth of the 4850x2
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bandwidth should be less of an issue with multiple gpu setups as the penalty is not really felt like it is with a single GPU.
 
This might sound needy, but how about tests with this card with another of the same model in crossfire?
 
Brent_Justice said:
That's what we had to test of course, we needed to find out if the framebuffer was a limitation for the shader power available. This doesn't exclude us from also testing the 2GB model and now we will have something to compare it to and see if simply doubling the memory will really give it the boost it needs, all weighted by price.

I've also thought about what would happen if you added another 512MB 4850 to this video card and enabled Tri-CrossFire, would that even help, or would the memory limitation show absolutely no change in gameplay experience. Interesting video card combinations are possible.
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interesting but I wonder if its worth your time, all that shader power and the same bottlenecks. then again is it necessary to do a full review for you test that sort of thing? If you guys have the hardware I bet that most everybody would love a simple scale test.

What I would like to see (highly impractical though, can't see a lot of people spending 900 dollars in video cards for an AMD system) is a quadfire test of the 4850 2gb.
 
Valset said:
bandwidth should be less of an issue with multiple gpu setups as the penalty is not really felt like it is with a single GPU.
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I depends on the application. It can sometimes be *more* felt in a mGPU setup, as a significant amount of copying content between video cards sometimes has to be done, further reducing the amount of raw GB/sec available for new render data.
 
Mark_Warner said:
I depends on the application. It can sometimes be *more* felt in a mGPU setup, as a significant amount of copying content between video cards sometimes has to be done, further reducing the amount of raw GB/sec available for new render data.
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Hum, I had not considered that. Or I should say I had not considered that to be a function of the memory bandwidth. It also makes me wonder if anyone has every done an accounting of the full overhead for running multiple GPU? or that it might explain some of the poor scaling in some games?
 
Valset said:
Hum, I had not considered that. Or I should say I had not considered that to be a function of the memory bandwidth. It also makes me wonder if anyone has every done an accounting of the full overhead for running multiple GPU? or that it might explain some of the poor scaling in some games?
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I know that AMD is acutely aware of it, and that it is why they designed the SidePort feature of their X2 cards. When we first spoke to AMD about the HD 4000 series, they expressed an interest in reducing the bandwidth soakage for copying as much as possible, as well as improving the bandwidth between GPUs. I'm sure that NVIDIA is also interested in reducing overhead, but I have never talked to them about that specifically, so I can't comment.

On an amusing note, I whined to NVIDIA at length a while back about making a card with 4 DVI ports. I know that it is a niche thing, and that such a feature wouldn't be demanded by a lot of people, but it was something that I wanted (and still want), and they said "we just don't see the need, but we'll look into it." (suure...) So here it is...from AMD.
 
4850x2 2gb card would of been a better review for 1920x1200 and up. Oh well. Wasn't the amazon price of the 4850x2 2gb version cheaper than the 4850x2 1gb version at one point? I can't see anyone buying the 1gb version over the 2gb version...at least, not anyone in these forums, so reviewing the 1gb version makes no sense, especially when dual cards benefit from more memory...because people want to game at higher resolutions with dual gpu solutions...that's the whole point really.
 
Beasy89 said:
4850x2 2gb card would of been a better review for 1920x1200 and up. Oh well. Wasn't the amazon price of the 4850x2 2gb version cheaper than the 4850x2 1gb version at one point? I can't see anyone buying the 1gb version over the 2gb version...at least, not anyone in these forums, so reviewing the 1gb version makes no sense, especially when dual cards benefit from more memory...because people want to game at higher resolutions with dual gpu solutions...that's the whole point really.
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The simple answer is that this is the card that Sapphire sent. If I was a Sapphire marketing person, I would have sent the 2GB card to make the best impression possible. But I'm not....so we got the 1GB card.
 
There are some people out here on the forums that were actually thinking of getting that card. In addition, some of us were very curious just how well that card can perform. Thus, it does make sense for them to review the card. In addition, the reviews gives a close primer on what one can expect from HD4850 CF with newer games AFAIK
 
Mark_Warner said:
The simple answer is that this is the card that Sapphire sent. If I was a Sapphire marketing person, I would have sent the 2GB card to make the best impression possible. But I'm not....so we got the 1GB card.
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sapphire marketing for the failure
 
nice review, mind adding to the conclusion and bottom line:

This card provides a lot of shader power, and will not be the best performer for people with 24-30" displays (1920x1080 res and higher) while might provide you with pretty decent value at the lower resolutions.

There are still guys who run those res's ;)

but nice to see how my 4870 CF 512 mb stacks up @ my res, diffrence from 4850 and 4870 isnt that big.

Nice review :)
 
Mark_Warner said:
I know that AMD is acutely aware of it, and that it is why they designed the SidePort feature of their X2 cards. When we first spoke to AMD about the HD 4000 series, they expressed an interest in reducing the bandwidth soakage for copying as much as possible, as well as improving the bandwidth between GPUs. I'm sure that NVIDIA is also interested in reducing overhead, but I have never talked to them about that specifically, so I can't comment.

On an amusing note, I whined to NVIDIA at length a while back about making a card with 4 DVI ports. I know that it is a niche thing, and that such a feature wouldn't be demanded by a lot of people, but it was something that I wanted (and still want), and they said "we just don't see the need, but we'll look into it." (suure...) So here it is...from AMD.
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and yet the side port supposedly did not improve performance very much. makes me wonder.

thanks for the info, something to think about
 
Valset said:
and yet the side port supposedly did not improve performance very much. makes me wonder.

thanks for the info, something to think about
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Well, I think that any technology will take a couple of generations to evolve and prove beneficial (if it is going to actually be beneficial, that is). AMD has a very long-view perspective on the GPU race, so I wouldn't be surprised to see SidePort again in future products.
 
Mark_Warner said:
Well, I think that any technology will take a couple of generations to evolve and prove beneficial (if it is going to actually be beneficial, that is). AMD has a very long-view perspective on the GPU race, so I wouldn't be surprised to see SidePort again in future products.
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Just curous as to what you think here, is this part of the reason for AMD not producing a refrence 4850 X2?
 
Valset said:
Just curous as to what you think here, is this part of the reason for AMD not producing a refrence 4850 X2?
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I think AMD would rather see their partners develop their own products around AMD's technology than foist their own products upon them. AMD has said many times that they want to cultivate the environment for product development, rather than be the sole developer.

I'm with them on that one. There is precious little innovation happening with NVIDIA cards. About all they can do is change the cooling device. You have companies that are completely capable of making their own products (ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte) selling the same rubber-stamp clone NVIDIA video cards because they really have no other option. Sure, they might replace the cooling device here and there, but that is not what I would call innovation. (Of course, many of those companies sell the same bog-standard AMD cards as well, so I'm not sure how strong the impetus for innovation is anymore.)
 
Mark_Warner said:
I think AMD would rather see their partners develop their own products around AMD's technology than foist their own products upon them. AMD has said many times that they want to cultivate the environment for product development, rather than be the sole developer.

I'm with them on that one. There is precious little innovation happening with NVIDIA cards. About all they can do is change the cooling device. You have companies that are completely capable of making their own products (ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte) selling the same rubber-stamp clone NVIDIA video cards because they really have no other option. Sure, they might replace the cooling device here and there, but that is not what I would call innovation. (Of course, many of those companies sell the same bog-standard AMD cards as well, so I'm not sure how strong the impetus for innovation is anymore.)
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good point. I was actually pretty pleased with the 4850 2gb (from what I have seen of it) it improved my opinion of sapphire quite a bit.
 
I paid 279.00 for my 4850x2 2GB..... not much higher and well worth it. look forward to the read either way
 
I'm not sure that was a fair comparison. Most of the GTX 260 Core 216's are overclocked by default to about 675Mhz core etc.... I don't think this changed the conclusion at all but with the price drops this makes the 260's all that much more competitive and this was a direct response to AMD's lineup.

I'm basing this off of your clocks mentioned on the overclocking page which show = (576Mhz/1.99Ghz).
 
Looking at the numbers and the associated possible bandwidth issue, I'd love to see how this card stacks up in an apples to apples comparo at 1680x1050 with all the AA/AF maxed out - since that's the sweet price spot in LCD's (22") right now, and it seems like the lower res would level the playing field. If I had (read: could afford) a monitor capable of 2560x1600, I wouldn't be thinking about this card OR the 260 - it would be a 4870 x2 or a 285 all the way! Maybe since this is more of a midlevel card pricewise, it would be fun to see them tested this way as an upgrade path...

Besides, this card looks great to me so I can move a pair of old 9600GSOs to a new dedicated folding box & slap one of these in my existing gamer box without upgrading my 2 yr old monitor (which is 1680x1050, surprise). Why pay the extra cash for more card than I can use?
 
I am really interested in your take on the 2GB version of this card. Anantech loved it.

But the real stand out has to be the Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB. This unique card really shined and held it's own all the way up to 2560x1600. While a 1GB 4850 might not make much sense (the extra RAM only really helps at resolutions where the 4850 can't keep up in terms of processing power), the 1GB of RAM per GPU on the 4850 X2 2GB really helps make this single card multiGPU option high end.

The Sapphire 4850 X2 costs less than a single NVIDIA GTX 280 or 285, and performs better than these as well. While the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is viable as high end single card multiGPU option, it competes at a price point beyond NVIDIA's high end. the 4850 X2 really puts pressure on anything that costs between $300 and $400 from the competition. It's very surprising to us that AMD hasn't pushed this configuration and that Sapphire are the only manufacturer to have put one of these out there.
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http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3517&p=14

They did not like the 1GB version much over there either. Looking forward for this site's take on the 2GB version.
 
Great review wish I had it months ago when I was about to purchase....

But; after reading the review I can say that when you guys get your hands on a 2GB version of the card you should be impressed and probably change opinions....

It is also important to point out that at the time of my (and most of the forum member's) purchase the price drops had not occurred on the 4870 and 260 and the 4850x2 2GB was less than $280.00 with NO MIR (i know it is pointed out in the review but only the 1GB version price is listed)


Also: Jathanis is correct about the LCDs; if I can afford 2 or more 24" + Monitors then I can afford a 4870x2. oh, and my 22" monitors run at 1920x1080 just to get a comparison of the performance I can run all games listed on max settings at that res.
 
jzodda said:
I am really interested in your take on the 2GB version of this card. Anantech loved it.



http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3517&p=14

They did not like the 1GB version much over there either. Looking forward for this site's take on the 2GB version.
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I think it is necessary to point out that Anandtech uses the 8.12hf drivers while [H] is using the 9.2s which have shown to perform worse IME. Any other x2 users want to argue that point or chime in ???
 
Mark_Warner said:
The simple answer is that this is the card that Sapphire sent. If I was a Sapphire marketing person, I would have sent the 2GB card to make the best impression possible. But I'm not....so we got the 1GB card.
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Ahhh....Sapphire basically doesn't care I guess. Aren't you guys connected enough @ [h] to get a 4850x2 2gb card for a review from another source?
 
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