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Tags : dx10 1   GDDR3   Graphic Cards   Radeon HD4850 512Mb DDR3   Reviews   RV770 Pro   Sapphire   toxic  

Introduction Specifications Photos and Pictures The Radeon HD4850 Card and Installation Test Setup and Procedures GPU-Z, Everest and 3DMark Vantage Benchmarks: F.E.A.R. (DX9) Benchmarks: Call of Juarez (DX10) Benchmarks: Crysis (DX10) Benchmarks: 3DMark 2005 Benchmarks: 3DMark 2006 Verdict and Conclusion

The Toxic Series from Sapphire comes to the rescue ... It's cooler and faster, and features an overclocked GPU and memory.

 

INTRODUCTION 

Last time when we reviewed the AMD/ATI Radeon HD4850 from both MSI and Sapphire, we weren't impressed with the thermal performance. The stock cooler was ineffecient at cooling the GPU, with temperatures reaching in excess of 70 degrees Celsius. So, it wasn't long before manufacturers decided to drop the stock cooler in favour of a more powerful, more efficient cooler ... Sapphire is among the first to do this.

Sapphire's Toxic series have been doing pretty well over the past 12 months or so, introducing graphic cards aimed at the enthusiast gamer and higher-end market. The Toxic series of graphic cards usually feature an overclocked GPU and memory for faster gaming performance. And to cool these graphic cards, Sapphire have removed the stock coolers and replace them with more powerful, more efficient coolers, some of which are unique to Sapphire ... take for example their VaporX technology.  

 

The excess heat has been one of the main issues with the Radeon HD4850, so Sapphire have now included a pre-installed, all copper Zalman VF900 GPU cooler on their new Toxic HD4850.

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This would really help in keeping the temperature down, as well as offering lower noise level.

For a mainstream gaming card, the performance of the Radeon HD4850 is in no doubt one of the best we've seen for a while. In fact, we've seen an increase in sales of Radeon based cards ever since AMD/ATI released the HD48xx series. What's really good about these cards, is the fact that you can Crossfire two of them and get a really good boost in graphics performance ... that you can actually see!

It'll be interesting to see what the future holds for AMD/ATI, especially when Nvidia have been really aggressive lately. No sooner has the Geforce GTX 260 and GTX 280 been released ... Nvidia are already offering price cuts.  Still, I believe AMD/ATI can still pull a surprise on Nvidia. Anyway, all I can say is ...  I can't wait to get our hands on the Radeon HD4870x2. This is one card that can really make you change your mind about AMD/ATI.

 

 

In this review, we'll be taking a look at the Sapphire Toxic Radeon HD4850. The graphics card futures an overclocked GPU and memory, which gives that extra boost in performance. It's also equipped with a total of 512Mb of GDDR3 ram, and features ram sinks attached on all the memory chips. The whole card is based around a dual slot solution and looks very similar in shape and size to Powercolor's Radeon HD3870. The Toxic HD4850 is then cooled by a pre-installed, all copper Zalman VF900 GPU cooler. Using GPU-Z, we determined that the Toxic Radeon HD4850 (RV770 Pro) GPU runs at 675Mhz, while the 512Mb DDR3 ram runs at 2200Mhz (2x1100Mhz).

We expecting lower temperatures from the Sapphire Toxic Radeon HD4850, as well as some performance increases due to the overclocked GPU and memory. It'll be interesting to see how well it will compete against other Radeon HD4850s on the market.

 

             

 

In our tests we'll be benchmarking the Sapphire Toxic Radeon HD4850 with several GPU intensive DX10 games ... with both 4xAA and 16xAF options enabled, as well as your usual 3D Mark 2005 and 2006 tests. Our test rig includes an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ default 2.4Ghz, Gigabyte GA-X48 DQ6 motherboard, OCZ SLI DDR2-1066 2Gb Kit, PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 860W PSU and a 24" Samsung SyncMaster 245B LCD monitor. All-in-all, it's a decently spec'd system for DX10 gaming.

OK, lets not waste any more time and take a look at the specifications of the Sapphire Toxic Radeon HD4850 ....

 

    Specifications - Next >

Introduction Specifications Photos and Pictures The Radeon HD4850 Card and Installation Test Setup and Procedures GPU-Z, Everest and 3DMark Vantage Benchmarks: F.E.A.R. (DX9) Benchmarks: Call of Juarez (DX10) Benchmarks: Crysis (DX10) Benchmarks: 3DMark 2005 Benchmarks: 3DMark 2006 Verdict and Conclusion