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AMD bestowed its ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 graphics chips exclusively onboard partner Sapphire to bring to retail. It started at $399 when it launched back in November, but prices have come down as low as $299 for the 2GB version reviewed here. At that price especially, we find the Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 the best midrange 3D hardware currently available. In addition to demonstrating very fast performance, the Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 is also unique in supporting up to four displays on one PC. We recommend this card to any gamer interested in a reasonably priced investment in greater 3D power. We would also suggest it to anyone looking for a straightforward means to quadruple your screen real estate.
As with the Radeon HD 4870 X2, the 4850 X2 is a dual-chip 3D card. Powered by two Radeon HD 4850 GPUs, the X2 version is effectively a self-contained Crossfire setup. You need to connect this card directly to your PC power supply via one six-pin and one eight-pin PCI Express power input. And as a double-wide card, it also takes up a fair amount of space inside your PC. That said, no other card in this price range offers the same performance or overall capability.
| Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 | EVGA Geforce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked | |
| Price | $299 | $259 |
| Manufacturing process | 55nm | 55nm |
| Core clock | 625MHz (2) | 576MHz |
| Stream processors | 800 (2) | 216 |
| Stream processor clock | NA | 1242 MHz |
| Memory | 2GB | 898MB |
| Memory speed | 933MHz DDR3 | 2.0GHz DDR3 |
Nvidia has two graphics cards that compete with the Radeon HD 4850 X2. On the lower end, the updated 216 core GeForce GTX 260 comes in around $260 in an overclocked model from EVGA. You can also find the Geforce GTX 280 for about $315. Price fluctuations and rebates make it hard to pin down the exact price of any 3D card, and while the GTX 260 has consistently been the most affordable of the three tested here, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 has fluctuated from $399 at launch, to anywhere from $299 to $340 or so today, with changes occurring daily on NewEgg.com. Amazon's price has held steady at $299, this week at least, and hopefully that will remain consistent. Regardless, we expect the HD 4850 X2 and the GTX 280 will continue to compete on price for the foreseeable future.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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1,400x960 | |
1,680x1,050 | |
1,920x1,080 |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
|
1,440x900 | |
1,680x1,050 | |
1,920x1,200 |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
|
1,440 x 900 | |
1,680 x 1,050 | |
1,920 x 1,200 |
Thanks to the Radeon HD 4850 X2's strong performance, this part of the discussion is easy. It's faster on every game we tested, and at every resolution. The Crysis scores aren't that far apart, and all three cards struggle with our admittedly aggressive image quality settings, even at 1,440x900. Dial down the antialiasing or overall image quality and you should expect an improvement by 10 frames or so across the board.
