It felt like just yesterday when Sapphire mailed us their Sapphire Toxic HD 4850 and it was only a few days ago since we completed the article on the Sapphire Radeon HD 4550. Sapphire has made a grand entrance with two great products for us to look at and today they top themselves by sending a Radeon HD 4850 X2 video card. The last dual GPU card we looked at was the Radeon HD 3870 X2 and while it feels like ages ago, only just nine months has actually passed. But you can say some quite exciting months with several cards being introduced. Technology has come a long way since then and we're excited to see what the Radeon HD 4850 X2 graphics card has to offer. - Overclockers Online

Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 Dual-GPU Style Review

The Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 arrived in a large retail box. The box follows all the themes of your usual enthusiast package, a shiny box with your female character wielding a weapon of some sort. The front of the box covers all the key features along the perimeter and the backside of the box is listing some product highlights. Their Sapphire logo is prominently displayed at the corners and it is impossible to miss the bold Radeon HD 4850 X2 text at the bottom. On the other side of the box, the system requirements and available external connectors are present. The product serial is attached to another side with a sticker.

Once you open up the box, you need to pull out a second cardboard box before getting access to the Radeon HD 4850 X2. There is a clear warning label that auxiliary power is required for the video card, remember you're basically powering two cards in one. Sapphire has gone the extra mile to package the accessories included with the Radeon HD 4850 X2 in a separate box below the video card. This will ensure nothing can bounce around and potentially damage your new purchase. We were quite excited to receive the Radeon HD 4850 X2 and it didn't take very long before the box was opened and the card ready to go into our PC.

The most obvious feature on the X2 card are the dual GPU fans. Obviously with two processors on board, you'll be generating a lot of heat. The easiest way to dissipate this is through a heatsink and fan combination. The Radeon HD 4850 X2 certainly has a lot of metal on it, but don't be decieved by the large black shroud. It doesn't do much but add weight as it's not in contact with the actual heatsink. What the shroud does do is make it easy to tell that this is a custom cooler that's unlike what ATI typically bundles with their cards. Once the shroud is removed, you can see they have maximizid each heatsink's surface area.

The Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 delivers stellar performance, performance that would rival a pair of individual Radeon HD 4850's in CrossFire. Those who thought ATI was out of the graphics card market are clearly wrong. The latest family of ATI hardware has flexed some serious muscle. One of my biggest issues with high performance is the high levels of heat generated and that often means loud cooling. We're completely surprised by how well the Radeon HD 4850 X2 cools itself, we were skeptical that the two tiny heatsinks would be able to do the trick, especially when there's probably more metal on the shroud.

One thing we didn't address in great detail is the graphics card's high definition capabilities. Sapphire has you covered with four DVI outputs and has even included a DVI to HDMI dongle. To top it off, the accessory pack includes DVD playback for you to fully enjoy every moment of your Radeon HD 4850 X2 when hooked up to a big screen TV. Overall, Sapphire is the first to market the Radeon HD 4850 X2 and it will certainly be a huge hit. If a single Radeon HD 4850 isn't good enough and the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is a little too rich for your blood, you will not be disappointed by the performance of Sapphire's Radeon HD 4850 X2.