SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4850 1GB GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card 100258-1GL

Pros: Being a gamer with an aging system, amidst an economy going to po0p... I decided to be frugal and push my A64X2 4200+ for another year or so. :)

The biggest upgrade would be from the video card, and power limitations prevented me from going beyond a mid-range card. My 500W PSU canna take any more, cap'n.

Choices were between a Nvidia GTX260 Core216 896MB (Non-OC) and an ATI 4850 1GB. For this purchase, I went with the price > performance mindset. The 4850 won out.

Oh, and the whole Nvidia cover-up with their faulty 9, 8, and whatever-series-chip-that-we-still-don't-know-about, left a bad taste in my mouth. The whole thing hurt my trust in the company. I'm sure the GTX series wasn't affected, but ATI gave me happier thoughts this time around. :)

This is the 3rd Sapphire ATI card I have purchased within the last 5 years. I'm satisfied with Sapphire, and always look them up first when deciding to purchase an ATI card. My last card was a BFG GF 7950 GTO, which was SOLID.

Cons: Ok, there is one gripe I have with the this card. Whenever I run a graphics intensive program (usually a game,) it gives off a slightly annoying static hum clicking noise. The noise varies with the load being processed by the card. It seems to die down after a while (or maybe my hearing becomes used to the noise?) Who knows...

A little Internet research said this is quite normal for some cards, and will not harm the system. It is supposed to have something to do with the power coils on the card, whatever that means.

Overall Review: Whatever the case may be with the humming noise, it's not enough to bother me. I just rather people know about it, and won't be like WTFX o.0?! when they start up a game (like I did.) Heh.

Pros: + 1GB-256.
+ Card is very stable.
+ Plays Crysis, Counter Strike source, America's Army w/out a problem.
+ Price is not that bad.

Cons: - I have 2 of these cards, and on the first one New Egg made an inventory mistake and sent me a 3850 AGP instead, then it took a total of 16 days to get the right card with RMA.
- This card does not get the heat out of the PC, so you need xtra ventilation inside the case, specially if you got it set up in crossfire like I do.
- The stock fan (at full speed) gets the card running on 71C, while running Crysis on high, on my well ventilated case COOLER MASTER COSMOS S RC-1100. I had to remove stock fan and spend xtra money on a Zalman VF1000, so the temperature in the primary card would drop down from 71C to 48C !
- With this card, the max settings I get for Crysis is "High" even on crossfire with CCC v9.4, MOBO M3A78-T and Phenom 9850 OC'd to 2.9, 4GB G.Skills OC'd, Win XP Pro SP3.
- If you over clock this card using CCC tool, then you'll get artifacts while playing.
- New Egg policy does NOT allow refund for this product, so if you don't like this card, to bad. :(

Just do th

Overall Review: Radeon 4890 is a lot better for only few bucks more