Configuration:
A system with the following components was used to test the
Sapphire Radeon HD4850 X2 2048MB graphics card:
»
ASUS P5E64 WS Evolution X48 ATX motherboard
» Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 dual core processor (at 3.2GHz)
»
G.Skill 4GB DDR3-1600 Pi Series dual channel memory kit (at 1600MHz and 7-7-7-18)
»
OCZ Technology Vendetta CPU cooler
» Maxtor MaxLine III 250GB SATA 3Gbps hard drive
» TSST Super WriteMaster optical drive
»
Nesteq EECS 700 Watt ultra quiet power supply
All tests were conducted in the 64-bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium SP1, and the driver's provided with the card (version 8.54 RC1) were installed.
The screenshot below shows the details on the HD4850 X2, as provided by Techpowerup.com's
GPU-Z and by the Catalyst Control Center's Overdrive tab.
For comparison purposes the following two other video card configurations were tested head to head with the Sapphire HD4850 X2 2048MB graphics card:
» 1x
Sapphire Toxic 512MB Radeon HD4870
» 2x
Sapphire Toxic 512MB Radeon HD3870 in CrossFire
The image below shows all of the cards side-by-side, and the 4850 X2 really stands out as the big boy of the bunch.
These two other configurations should provide for an interesting comparison. The Toxic 512MB Radeon HD4870 is just about the fastest single GPU solution in the ATI family, and the pair of Toxic 512MB Radeon HD3870s in CrossFire represent two of the fastest previous generation cards working together. The table below compares the key specifications, and the thing to note is that you have to double the values listed for the HD4850 X2 to get the whole story. For example, it says 63.6 GB/s bandwidth, which is for one GPU, so the card as a whole offers 127.2 GB/s, which is close enough to the 128 GB/s advertised.
