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Which 4850? Asus/Visiontek/Sapphire?

S

shebalord

Weaksauce
Joined
Oct 13, 2005
Messages
65
Hi ppl,

I'm trying to decide which HD 4850 to get. Are these 3 basically the same except for the brand?

ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

VisionTek 900241 Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

SAPPHIRE 100242L Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

Also, I'm planning on using this for cooling:

ARCTIC COOLING ACCELS1 Rev 2 VGA Cooler - Retail

I'm not going to overclock at all, but I want to keep the video card as cool as possible to prolong its life. Should I also get the Turbo Module?

Thanks!
 
i don't understand why everyone is buying aftermarket coolers for their 4850/70 cards. with a simple text edit you can increase the fan speed and not void your warranty.

anyway...i have two visiontek 4850's in crossfire...lifetime warranty...
 
mikemodano9c said:
i don't understand why everyone is buying aftermarket coolers for their 4850/70 cards. with a simple text edit you can increase the fan speed and not void your warranty.

anyway...i have two visiontek 4850's in crossfire...lifetime warranty...
Click to expand...

visiontek ftw.

agreed on the text edit and even then its not like ati didnt test these cards and make sure they are capable of running for extended periods at high temps.

Also a friend of mine is still using a Radeon 9800 Pro with the stock heatsink, running perfectly stable, been that way for the last 5 years. something tells me ati knows what they are doing in regards to heatsinks / heat in general
 
They all use the reference design, clocks, and BIOS (with the exception of ASUS); thus should perform identically. Choose one with the best services which can be quite subjective, or the cheapest available.
 
Another Visiontek vote here...lifetime warranty ftw seeing as most other makes of ATI cards carry fairly short warranties. Overclocking is gonna be just as hit and miss with any other brand so why not take the lifetime warranty? :)

Visiontek also has a half decent forum up and running on their site, including an overclocking section...telling me that they're not huge a$$es about potential damage from oc'ing.
 
I like the Visiontek's that I got. I also like the fact that they don't put some picture on their cards, even though I don't have a window, however you may get one of their cards with Mass Effect on it.

Obviously not many of us buying the 4850 have had any experience with their warranty yet. I guess lifetime is good. Of course if you buy an aftermarket cooler, that warranty is useless.
 
My ASUS is running well. Honestly, a three year warranty is enough in most cases as in three years a 4850 wont be playing much. Mine doesn't OC worth a shit but it doesn't sound like you will be doing much of that anyways. Also, as someone already stated, the aftermarket cooler will void any warranty for ATI sellers.
 
I got aftermarket cooling for my 4850 because it sounded like a leafblower. I value my noise sanity.
 
i try to keep my pc as quiet as possible...is the stock fan at around 50% loud? the reasons i want to look into aftermarket cooling is to reduce heat and noise.
 
lt_shiro said:
I would suggest Sapphire 4850 Toxic pre installed aftermarket cooling.
Click to expand...

Honestly...go with the Visiontek with lifetime warranty and spend a little extra coin on an aftermarket cooler. The amount you'll save in the long run with the lifetime warranty is more then worth it, not including avoiding frustrations of possibly having to deal with Sapphire in the event of any hardware issues.

I've never had issues sending something for RMA if I've had an aftermarket cooler on it if the card didn't die until some time later. Obviously I'm not gonna be "dirty" enough to RMA a card if it died immediately after i put the cooler on...fairly obvious what happened there, but that hasn't happened yet and i believe that you have to be either half conscience or a completely beginner to kill a card installing a cooler.

If you consider yourself anything above a complete novice installing aftermarket coolers go with the Visiontek and look into cooling options later.

If you're conscience pushes you to avoid installing anything aftermarket then avoid Sapphire, Asus would be a good choice IMO...nice support whenever I've had to deal with them.
 
shebalord said:
i try to keep my pc as quiet as possible...is the stock fan at around 50% loud? the reasons i want to look into aftermarket cooling is to reduce heat and noise.
Click to expand...
Its loudness is dependent on the rest of your system. In a moderate system with several normal 120mm ball-bearing fans at 12V, you probably can't hear it. In a silent system, it's irritatingly obvious.
 
I picked up 2 of the Asus 4850's to go with my Asus board... ;) Brand loyalty? A bit... I prefer to keep brands alike in builds, just a quirk. I doubt it makes that big of a difference. However, I wish I would've checked about the Warranty though, I may have gotten the VisionTeks then.

Anyway, I'm happy with them.
 
Its loudness is dependent on the rest of your system. In a moderate system with several normal 120mm ball-bearing fans at 12V, you probably can't hear it. In a silent system, it's irritatingly obvious.
Click to expand...

Well spoken and completely true, something I overlooked mentioning.

I picked up 2 of the Asus 4850's to go with my Asus board... Brand loyalty? A bit... I prefer to keep brands alike in builds, just a quirk. I doubt it makes that big of a difference. However, I wish I would've checked about the Warranty though, I may have gotten the VisionTeks then.
Click to expand...

For the warranty Visiontek is nice, but if for any reason you're considering anyone else I'd say Asus, like I said...I've always had positive experiences dealing with them.

Now if only eVGA/BFG/XFX would got on the red train and offer us some real support. :D
 
Another vote for VisionTek here.

I purchased a VisionTek 4850 about a week ago & I've been very impressed with its performance for the price.

It seems to run cooler than a lot of other 4850's too - about 52c - 55c at idle with stock fan speed settings.

I changed the fan speed to 40% and now it idles at 42c - 45c.

I appreciate the lifetime warranty as well... :cool:
 
spikeh said:
Its loudness is dependent on the rest of your system. In a moderate system with several normal 120mm ball-bearing fans at 12V, you probably can't hear it. In a silent system, it's irritatingly obvious.
Click to expand...

i would say my computer is a fairly quiet one...I use the Antec P180 and the loudest thing in my setup is the hard drive...
 
Visiontek 4870 w/ fan fixed @ 35% ftw. Can barley hear it and cant break 60C under load. Awesome card. Terrific price. I paid $269.99 for mine. I was gonna get the GTX 260 when it launched but i decided to wait a bit and i'm glad I did. nVidia was charging $430 for the 260 when it launched and not even a month later it dropped to $270. Just goes to show you how much of a nVidia marks up their cards and how much they're raping their customers. ATI = Power to the people!
 
I can't get past 45C at load on my 4850....has an accelero s1 with quiet 120mm fan on top.
 
I've got an Asus and a Visiontek. The Asus does a much better job of ramping fanspeeds with the stock BIOS, and definitely wins the award for box bling, but Visiontek's lifetime warranty is pretty compelling, and fan speeds can be fixed easily enough on any of these cards.
 
Kelv said:
I like the Visiontek's that I got. I also like the fact that they don't put some picture on their cards, even though I don't have a window, however you may get one of their cards with Mass Effect on it.
Click to expand...
I wish the freaking card came WITH Mass Effect. I was sorely disappointed when I saw they don't actually come with it.
 
aquemini said:
I wish the freaking card came WITH Mass Effect. I was sorely disappointed when I saw they don't actually come with it.
Click to expand...

I was a little put off by that as well, but I got a copy of World in Conflict with my Visiontek HD4870 so I'm happy enough with that. :)
 
Visiontek, because they have really good support if you have issues.
 
Get the MSI 4850 it comes with a Kickass cooler on it
the zalman 1000 it will be worth it trust me
 
Mystic-Micro said:
I placed an order for the gigabyte, came with a 3 year warranty, which i thought was pretty sweet.
Click to expand...

A 3 year isn't too bad and Gigabyte isn't horrible to deal with, but Visiontek's support itself is very good ontop of the lifetime warranty.

I really think that they need to start getting some of the same positive recognition that XFX/eVGA/BFG have been getting in the last couple years, people need to be educated.
 
HIS only comes with a year warranty, but the new ICEQ4 Cooler looks awesome. Also exhaust air out of the PC ....

HIS ICEQ4 HD 4850 .....

http://forum.donanimhaber.com/m_25172353/tm.htm

hd4850hisicepi8.jpg


I hope they do the same for the HD 4870 with 1GB of GDDR5.
 
That MSI looks like no more then a 7900GTX cooler ripoff, not that that's a bad thing....but it's the HIS that really interests me. Looks like one hell of a step in the right direction when compared to the older Silencer inspired coolers, the heatpipe is nice, as well as the solid copper (by the looks of it) base.

My only hope is that Arctic Cooling follows suit and brings that same cooler to the market as a stand-alone HSF, looks very nice.
 
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