Model HD 4850 that we have tested is signed by Sapphire, premium ATI partner, so there is no room for amazement because that is the first model of HD 4850 that came to our lab. Card has standard dimensions, like the ones that are used for Radeon HD 3850 and same goes for cooling solution. Cooling system is almost identical to one that used HD 3850 as reference. By our opinion this is a problem, because card very easily reached temperatures from almost 100°C (212°F). The problem exists because situation doesn’t change a lot even when card “stands still”. When card is in idle state GPU clock is miserable 160MHz, but temperature is even than over 70°C (158°F). Even though there are some small improvements done on cooling profile we can hope that there will be manufacturers that will offer their original cooling solutions. In package with card you will find basic equipment like cables, discs with drivers etc. Version with much richer bundle will exist but we are sure that price will also follow accordingly. Clocks for Sapphire HD 4850 are 625MHz for core and 1986MHz for memory. Naturally we tried to overclock it, but we soon stopped at 675 MHz for core and 2160MHz for memory. Performance jump was adequate and with better cooling it seems possible to expect even better results.

Performances

We must admit that we very much liked performances that provides Radeon HD 4850 512MB because for announced price from around 180€ for basic model you will get incredibly great performances. Bear in mind that price has a constant tendency of dropping down and as huge number of CROSSFIRE motherboards are available on market, adding one more card is real option. Performances with two graphics cards are very well scaled which means that you will feel acceleration. The only fault of this card is warming up mentioned above, but with better cooling system even that should not be a problem.