Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2: Price and loudness reduced

Sapphire has officially reduced prices for its exclusive Ati Radeon HD 4850 X2 - currently there is no other manufacturer offering this dual CPU graphics card. The 2 GiByte version now costs 280 Euro, the 1 GiByte version 240 Euro. The price comparison of our German website confirms this information - however, there the cards are much lower priced than at the time of release.

Price development Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2, 2x 1024MB GDDR3

Price development Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2, 2x 512MB GDDR3

It is interesting that the 4850 X2 now almost costs the same as two single cards: The 512 MiByte 4850 starts at about 120 Euro (Bulk), the 1,024 MiByte version starts at about 150 Euro.

Sapphire HD 4850 X2 now quieter
However, more exciting is the news that Sapphire now uses an improved fan control profile. This profile ensures that the Ati Radeon HD 4850 X2 cards will be much quieter during idle and 3D operation. After our tests this was definitely necessary since the 2 GiByte card reached up to 8 Sone during 3D operation. If the new BIOS will be available to all owners or only to new customers remains to be seen. We stay in contact with Sapphire about that issue.

Background for Ati Radeon HD 4850 X2
Like the HD 4870 X2 the Radeon HD 4850 X2 uses two RV770 chips which communicate via the multi GPU technology Crossfire X. The cards measure respectable 28.5 centimeters - 1.5 cm more than the already long HD 4870 X2. The PLX chip, which is responsible for the communication of the GPUs, sits in the middle but has been rotated by 45 degrees. Furthermore the voltage supply is done with a sandwich cooling - a passive cooler sits on the back of the card's rear end.

The clock exactly matches the solo HD 4850: Both GPUs run with 625 MHz and the GDDR3-VRAM works with real 993 MHz.

More articles about graphics cards tests:
• PCGH Review: Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2
• Benchmark review with six graphics card generations