OC3D Review: Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 - Budget Overclocking

[Jim]

"Take one Sapphire HD 4830, Apply plentiful overclocking and enjoy the performance of a HD 4850 at an even lower price point."



Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 - Budget Overclocking

[nepas]

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

[Hassan]

Not my 'cup of tea'

[llwyd]

Originally Posted by name='Hassan'

Not my 'cup of tea'

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

[!TIMMY!]

Originally Posted by name='nepas'

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.

[Rastalovich]

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.

[Jim]

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.

[Rastalovich]

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.

[Jim]

Originally Posted by name='Rastalovich'

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: http://www.morecomputers.com/extra.a...eferer=Froogle

[Rastalovich]

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.