Sapphire HD4850 Pcie 512MB DDR3 2PORT Dvi-i/tv Out 256BIT

I just upgraded to this 4850 from a 7600GT, so the difference was enormous for me.
So far, I'm extremely pleased, and very impressed, with this card. It's less than $200, and it has power to handle everything you throw at it to date (within reason). It needs only 1 6-pin PCIe connector as well, instead of 2 like it's competition, the GTX260.
The GTX260 is a tad faster, it's true, but it's around 10-20% faster for an increase of around 80% in price (at time of writing this). That's enough for me to decide on this little powerhouse.
So you get an idea of what it does: so far, I can play Crysis at High with CCC mod at 1280x1024 butter smooth (not a single frame drop... can probably go higher), CoD4 at max on everything at this rez, and it's 3DMark06 score (sorry, no Vista for Vantage) is 11,900ish.
People are talking about how hot this card runs, and that is true. Out of the box, it comes with a stock fan speed of around 20-30%, which makes the card sit at 70-80ºC...Read more

great card for this price. quite hot, (70 deg.idle) but after fan rotation fixing (45%, no noise) temp. become 50 idle & 70 load

stable OC 690/1050 MHz (original - 625/993)

P.S. download newer drivers and RivaTuner

Just upgraded my computer to play Warhammer Online. Previously had a GeForce 7800 that I paid $450 for. Anyhow, I was extremely excited about this card's price and benchmarks, so I finally bought it. It was a tough choice between Sapphire and Powercooler, but Sapphire seemed to have more enthusiasts swearing on their quality and performance.

First impression was that the card was very well manufactured. The heat-sink covers most of the card in a curved fashion; I'm guessing it's for the air to travel over more surface area. It's almost 1/3 the thickness and weight of my brother's GeForce 8800gt. It is a tad long though, which brings me to gripe about the power connector being on the end (I have a mid-atx case, so I had to move a hard drive to be able to connect the power cable).

The reviews about it running hot are absolutely true. When I first ran temperatures, the card registered 81 C, which was way too hot for my liking. Being a tinker that I am, I came...Read more