Sapphire HD 4850X2

By David Hollingworth, Justin Robinson, The Inquirer
16:25 Nov 5, 2008 | 18 Comments
Tags: Sapphire | HD | 4850X2


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A new dual GPU solution from Sapphire and ATI.

First spotted lurking on a Chinese website here, the Sapphire HD 4850 X2 is now a reality.

The new dual GPU graphics card comprises two complete HD 4850 graphics systems on a single PCI-Express card connected by an on-board PCI Express Gen 2 bridge chip. Each GPU has 800 stream process units and a 256-bit memory interface driving 1GB of GDDR3 memory, making a total of 2GB on-board memory.

Four Dual Link DVI outputs are provided as well as TV-Out. This provides a choice of multi-monitor operation or Crossfire mode in which 3D applications such as games use both on-board GPUs together to deliver a single accelerated output on the Primary display.

The hardware sits on a single ATX format PCI-Express card, with a dual fan assisted cooler making it a standard dual-slot configuration. It's even better news if you have two free PCI slots as you can cram two of these babies using Crossfire mode and really get the frame rates up.

Other onboard gubbins includes ATI Avivo HD video, a second UVD (Unified Video decoder) for the hardware accelerated decoding of Blu-ray and HD DVD content for both VC-1 and H.264 codecs and supports HDMI over the DVI interface with the HDMI Adapter supplied.

Sapphire tells us the card will be on sale from today (although we can't find them anywhere) locally just yet.

We're lucky enough to be able to nick one from PC Authority's labs, so we've even had a quick benching session to put this card through its paces.

The sad thing is, the performance is not as thrilling as we were hoping. Even a single GTX260 can beat this quite handily! We suspect that the card's newness may well be working against it, and that the drivers we're using simply aren't optimised for this new card. We were fully expecting at least 15,000 3DMarks - just over 12,000 is a touch disappointing.

Anyway, we'll keep chipping away at this puppy. Expect more results and a full review in an upcoming issue.

Product Info

Supplier:

Sapphire

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*Products and prices sourced from staticICE and are in no way associated with Atomic MPC

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18 Comments

AMD AKIMBO Nov 5, 2008 5:54 PM	hmmm... was hoping to pickup two of these for some quadfire, i think i will wait and see how the drivers go. any idea on pricing anyone ?
nesquick Nov 5, 2008 6:45 PM	sounds to me like only 1 gpu is functioning as i get pretty much the same score with my 4850 by itself.
nesquick Nov 5, 2008 6:51 PM	yea see here for its true performance > http://www.elitebastards.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=633&Itemid=27&limit=1&limitstart=3 seems to be on par with or better than the GTX280 in most things which makes sense because it is the same rv770 cores as on the HD4850 (single core)
Fat_Bodybuilder Nov 5, 2008 7:31 PM	With the performance in that review, I think I'll go get an 8800GT.
SquallStrife Nov 5, 2008 9:18 PM	Come on guys... we should all know by now that 3DMark06 is simply not the benchmark to use on today's multi-GPU monsters. You'd find that the score would jump if they added some FSB. Give us a Vantage score.
nesquick Nov 5, 2008 9:54 PM	no the card is faulty or they have not installed latest drivers (could be any number of things), the link I provided shows the card in most cases is better than a gtx280.
A Hitman Nov 6, 2008 4:59 AM	Why use 3dmark? Use in game benchmarking to find performance.
smakme7757 Nov 6, 2008 5:34 AM	That score is way below what that card can get, a single 4850 gets 12/13k there is something wrong here. I look forward to getting a proper atomic review when you guys get your hand on the software needed to take advantage of that card. Q: If this is all the card can show us why did they bother making it? A: It can do more its still early silicon.
Hawkeye Nov 6, 2008 10:03 AM	Yeah, there is definitely an issue here, but these scores were what we got literally minutes after getting a hold of the card. Trust me, we're expecting much more oomph from this baby. - DH
SquallStrife Nov 6, 2008 10:13 AM	So, suggestions for the atomic review... Don't use 3DMark06, use Vantage instead, and compare it to the 4870X2!
Hawkeye Nov 6, 2008 10:39 AM	Yeah, fair call on Vantage - first looks are only relatively new on the site. We're still working out how they fit in with what gets done later in the magazine, and if fuller testing here, first, will affect people and their purchasing of the print product. In other words, it's a balancing act that we're still perfecting.
Bonez Nov 6, 2008 11:36 AM	Any idea as to how much it will cost once available?
Hawkeye Nov 6, 2008 11:47 AM	We haven't had any official pricing, but staticICE (above) puts it at between $650 and $750.
Bonez Nov 6, 2008 11:53 AM	I saw that after I posted my comment. That puts it at just few dollars cheaper than the 4870x2's lowest price of $709.
SceptreCore Nov 6, 2008 3:02 PM	Try and keep it until you can get the 8.11's Dave! Anyway, you should still have expected more then that... optimised drivers or not.
AMD AKIMBO Nov 9, 2008 9:17 AM	and how bout some tri and quad benchies, i wanna see how these scale.
Hawkeye Nov 9, 2008 10:17 AM	That's just a matter of getting enough cards to test. Often, with early stock like this, there might only be a handful - even just one - card available to the press.
sethh Dec 2, 2008 11:22 AM	You guys did something wrong:Test Setup Q6600@3.4, Gigabyte x48 mobo 4 gig 800mhz ram no oc, 4850x2 only one atm (will check them in crossfire results in few hours:))But in 06 don 18665 points w/o any overclocking on the cards....Test it again....

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