Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 - Budget Overclocking
Introduction & Specifications
Published: 18th November 2008 | Source: Sapphire | Price: £99.99 |
Introduction
Just last week Tom took us through a budget Radeon roundup with the likes of the 4670, 4830 and 4850 locking horns on both performance and price. The end result saw the recently released HD4830 coming out top of the charts, offering extremely playable frame rates along with a cost per frame unmatched by any of the other cards. Today we're going to be re-visiting the 4830 once again, but this time to find out what Sapphire Technology have to offer.As many of us will already know, Sapphire is one of ATI/AMD's key AIB partners. With a graphics card production rate of over 1.8million cards per month, Sapphire are also used as the OEM for many of the other top 10 ATI based graphics card companies. It's no surprise then that Sapphire are often also the first to the market with the very latest AMD/ATI based GPU's and have often been seen to dabble in non-reference designs such as the X1950 Pro Dual we were lucky enough to take a look at quite some time ago. Here's what Sapphire have to say on the About Us section of their website:
Since ATI announced its manufacturing & distribution relationships with ODMs and AiBs in June of 2001, SAPPHIRE has been THE key ATI Graphics Boards Supplier worldwide and now stands poised and ready to capture the mainboard audience of those who seek a stable platform for their mission critical operations.
Captured within the circuitry of each of SAPPHIRE's graphic cards and mainboards can be found the collective feedback from generations of enthusiasts in every market niche. Brought to life through performance oriented innovation and an emphasis on quality control, SAPPHIRE designs, manufactures and distributes the most complete range of ATI video boards and mainboards--from the mainstream products that afford the casual user the opportunity to enjoy enriched graphics and affordable platform solutions to the state-of-the-art technological marvels that drive fantasies to before unattainable thresholds of realism, and offer the pinnacle of stability and performance! SAPPHIRE refuses to compromise quality by cutting corners at the expense of its customers experience with their products. All ATI board designs undergo a stringent layout inspection by our staff of engineers to guarantee that they represent the usual high-quality image of ATI original boards. We also enjoy the resources of a highly innovative technical department that layout complex designs to accommodate different market niches as they arise. SAPPHIRE ATI video boards have long been the reliable choice for a great number of OEMs and large System Integrators in Europe, North America, Asia and Latin America based largely on our ability to meet a fast paced technical markets advancements as well as our means to produce large quantities of product.
Captured within the circuitry of each of SAPPHIRE's graphic cards and mainboards can be found the collective feedback from generations of enthusiasts in every market niche. Brought to life through performance oriented innovation and an emphasis on quality control, SAPPHIRE designs, manufactures and distributes the most complete range of ATI video boards and mainboards--from the mainstream products that afford the casual user the opportunity to enjoy enriched graphics and affordable platform solutions to the state-of-the-art technological marvels that drive fantasies to before unattainable thresholds of realism, and offer the pinnacle of stability and performance! SAPPHIRE refuses to compromise quality by cutting corners at the expense of its customers experience with their products. All ATI board designs undergo a stringent layout inspection by our staff of engineers to guarantee that they represent the usual high-quality image of ATI original boards. We also enjoy the resources of a highly innovative technical department that layout complex designs to accommodate different market niches as they arise. SAPPHIRE ATI video boards have long been the reliable choice for a great number of OEMs and large System Integrators in Europe, North America, Asia and Latin America based largely on our ability to meet a fast paced technical markets advancements as well as our means to produce large quantities of product.
Obviously having already reviewed the HD4830 but only a week ago, we need to add some twist to the review. So today we're going to be finding out just how much extra performance we can eeek out of this circa £100 graphics card by doing what we do best...overclocking. With a stock speed of 575MHz (Core) and 900MHz (Memory) the 4830 has quite a way to go before it can match up to the 625/993MHz speeds of it's bigger brother, but let's not get deterred quite yet and instead check out the rest of the specs listed on Sapphire's website:
The new SAPPHIRE HD 4830 shares the award winning graphics architecture used in the existing HD 4800 series and offers the same features, but with an optimised specification and lower price point to deliver the best performance in its price category. With 640 shader engines and clock speeds of 575 MHz (core) and 900MHz (memory), it offers similar overall performance to the HD 4850 model but at a reduced price point.
• GDDR3 memory 256-bit memory interface
• DirectX® 10.1
• 24x custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA) and high performance anisotropic filtering
• ATI CrossFireX™ multi-GPU support for highly scalable performance
• Use up to four discrete cards with an AMD 790FX based motherboard
• PCI Express® 2.0 support
• Dynamic geometry acceleration
• Game physics processing capability
• ATI Avivo™HD video and display technologyUnified Video Decoder 2 (UVD) for Blu-ray™ and HD VideoBuilt-in HDMI with 7.1 surround sound supportOn-chip HDCP
• ATI PowerPlay™ technology
• GDDR3 memory 256-bit memory interface
• DirectX® 10.1
• 24x custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA) and high performance anisotropic filtering
• ATI CrossFireX™ multi-GPU support for highly scalable performance
• Use up to four discrete cards with an AMD 790FX based motherboard
• PCI Express® 2.0 support
• Dynamic geometry acceleration
• Game physics processing capability
• ATI Avivo™HD video and display technologyUnified Video Decoder 2 (UVD) for Blu-ray™ and HD VideoBuilt-in HDMI with 7.1 surround sound supportOn-chip HDCP
• ATI PowerPlay™ technology
Now that we know exactly what we're dealing with, let's go in for a closer look at what you get for your money...
Most Recent Comments
nice review Jim.This looks to be a killer little card as there is some very interesting benches regarding these things in cross-fire(they beat "green teams" best cards on one or two games.
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=16300&page=5
I read that and I am temped to replace my 8800GT with one of these with a view to get another in the future.
It's a good comparison, but I do have to point out a few flaws.
The 9500GT has to have been included as a joke. Anything nVidia release below a x600 can only be perceived as a multimedia/desktop card (even tho ALL gfxcards promote themselves as "great gaming performer" - that's shtick). It's always been the case with the x400, x200 etc. Hence they're around or below £50. Now if u did a pureHD comparison also, that'd be different perhaps.
I have a 8400 in a media pc, and have no expectations of benching it against a 8600.
If u popped in a 9600GT, as nVidia's base expectation for proper game playing, then we could perhaps be more serious. The costing ofc would be that much different, but also would be the performance.
It is great that the 4830 can push it's elder brothers when it's oc'd, but what bothers me in the comparisons is that if u bought the brother - u'd most probably oc that too. Tricky.
For £100, I don't know about the validity of getting this card tbh. It's not something I'd promote.
The 9500GT has to have been included as a joke. Anything nVidia release below a x600 can only be perceived as a multimedia/desktop card (even tho ALL gfxcards promote themselves as "great gaming performer" - that's shtick). It's always been the case with the x400, x200 etc. Hence they're around or below £50. Now if u did a pureHD comparison also, that'd be different perhaps.
I have a 8400 in a media pc, and have no expectations of benching it against a 8600.
If u popped in a 9600GT, as nVidia's base expectation for proper game playing, then we could perhaps be more serious. The costing ofc would be that much different, but also would be the performance.
It is great that the 4830 can push it's elder brothers when it's oc'd, but what bothers me in the comparisons is that if u bought the brother - u'd most probably oc that too. Tricky.
For £100, I don't know about the validity of getting this card tbh. It's not something I'd promote.
Yeah the 9500GT was nothing really more than a performance marker. However, I will make the point of saying that at release, the 4830 was the same price as the 9500GT. nV basically crapped themselves and slashed the price of the card and brought the more capable 9600GT down to the 4830's level.
9500GT was ~£100 ? That's odd.
We do know nVidia mark down all their prices by some % a few weeks/month after release. Despite the wranglings of people saying they do this as a reaction to what AMD release, these %ages are made known b4 release.
For example we knew the 9800GX2 was going to drop by $49 about 3 weeks after release, this was known b4 the card even hit the shelves - but it's latched onto as a panic price reduction in relation to an AMD release. It's planned.
We do know nVidia mark down all their prices by some % a few weeks/month after release. Despite the wranglings of people saying they do this as a reaction to what AMD release, these %ages are made known b4 release.
For example we knew the 9800GX2 was going to drop by $49 about 3 weeks after release, this was known b4 the card even hit the shelves - but it's latched onto as a panic price reduction in relation to an AMD release. It's planned.
9500GT was ~£100 ? That's odd.
Ye not too far off. Among a load of other stores who are still selling it near £100, these guys who are probably better known still have it @ £83: [url]http://www.morecomputers.com/extra.asp?pn=EN9500GT%20TOP/DI/512M&referer=Froogle[/url]
Yeah that figures, £83 minus a %. £53. It's one reason I shop at Scan, who sell the card for £72 atm, and it's an ASUS, and it's the OC model @ 700 jiggahurtz. Why ASUS ? Why ? Gainward sell an non-oc version for £42.
Thing being, if they had brought out the GTX290 (as opposed to GTX280 name), it could be £380/£400 for just under a month and drop to £340/£350. It's what they do. Whether it's an aide to selling under a finite supply at this time, or a pure money grab on that basis, I dunno.
Thing being, if they had brought out the GTX290 (as opposed to GTX280 name), it could be £380/£400 for just under a month and drop to £340/£350. It's what they do. Whether it's an aide to selling under a finite supply at this time, or a pure money grab on that basis, I dunno.
Ebuyer actually do the 9500GT for £44.95;).
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148276
Great review again Jimbo!
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148276
Great review again Jimbo!
you cant really OC the 4850 because it has an horrible cooling setup. The 4830 on the other hand, has a nice set up(and it was underclocked).
you cant really OC the 4850 because it has an horrible cooling setup. The 4830 on the other hand, has a nice set up(and it was underclocked).
My 4850 overclocks very well, has the same cooler as the 4830 on review :)
700/1200 in CCC no sweat
CSS Valid
Care to explain why?
Nice review jimbo. Think im going to grab something like this just to tide me over for a while. Next on the cards is something like this and fallout 3 :)