Just last week ATI launched their newest card in the Radeon HD 4800 series of cards, the Radeon HD 4830. Well since ATI improved their game incredibly with launching cards when they're ready in stores this has also cut down the time on non reference cards hitting the market. These cards are out there now and today we have one to look at from Sapphire in their new Radeon HD 4830 card. Again we do have to say that ATI has just done a great think by taking their excellent RV770 core and crippled it just a bit to become more affordable but still ready to kick out some serious performance. And in fact this Radeon HD 4830 can really stand against the competition it faces within the same price range. - AMDZone

Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 CrossFireX Edition Review

This Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 is very similar to some of their Radeon HD 4850 cards and other Radeon HD 4800 series cards as it features a blue PCB with their custom and large heatsink. This heatsink is visually very appealing but also drops the temperatures on a standard Radeon HD 4830 card dramatically. We've been saying since the launch of the Radeon HD 4800 series of cards the one major problem with all of them is that the heat is just far too high. This card ran at around 38°C for us and that's in Texas. Easily the coolest running Radeon HD 4800 cards we've seen so far. When the card was maxed we topped out at 53°C.

The card was very touchable unlike the other reference ATI Radeon HD 4800 cards. Our stock Radeon HD 4830 for reference at idle was already at 52°C and reached around 90°C at normal operation. Of course this card is a dual slot card as the larger heatsink and fan extends out from the card but we think that tradeoff is more than worth it for the comfort of knowing your video card isn't getting too hot. We've personally had too many crashes in Crysis Warhead from stock ATI Radeon HD 4800 series cards for our liking. Not much else is different from other Radeon HD 4830 cards but not much else has to be.

We've already looked at the Radeon HD 4830 once and it definitely is a great card which is about ten percent upper or lower performance from a Radeon HD 4850. If you are gaming at medium or below widescreen resolutions then this is the perfect high-end graphics card for you. And just a bit more also seems very acceptable but we might go ahead and go for the Radeon HD 4870 card over the Radeon HD 4830 as you'll want more memory bandwidth at a higher resolution and that's only going to increase in the future. Still, it is just something anyone looking for good performance should consider.

It also seems to top a standard GeForce 9800 GT and come in around the same as an overclocked card. Of course with a much better feature set though it isn't much of a contest. Overall, we're very happy Sapphire can provide a great card that rids the Radeon HD 4830's one problem which all Radeon HD 4800 cards have and that is heat, and do so at a great price. And a copy of a game would have been nice but it's not a major loss. Sapphire's Radeon HD 4830 is available for an excellent $129, which is basically the price of reference card. For that price this is a fantastic deal if you're looking for a Radeon HD 4830 card.

Resolving the heat issue of these series removes the one flaw in the cards and is a great and practical movie on Sapphire's part. Sapphire's similar Radeon HD 4850 card is $172 though we've seen them closer in price at some other stores.