Posted on Tuesday, November 04 2008 @ 22:16 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Sapphire showed off its new Radeon HD 4850 X2 graphics cards, these models are available in 1GB and 2GB versions and feature two Radeon HD 4850 GPUs. The GPUs are clocked at 625MHz and the GDDR3 memory has a frequency of 1986MHz. The MSRP is unknown but it should be in the same range as a GeForce GTX 280.
Designed by SAPPHIRE, the new HD 4850 X2 comprises two complete HD 4850 graphics systems on a single PCI-Express card connected by an on-board PCI Express Gen 2 bridge chip. Each GPU has 800 stream process units and a 256-bit memory interface driving 1GB of GDDR3 memory, making a total of 2GB on-board memory. Four Dual Link DVI outputs are provided as well as TV-Out. This provides a choice of Multi-monitor operation or CrossFire mode in which 3D applications such as games use both on-board GPU’s together to deliver a single accelerated output on the Primary display. In this mode the SAPPHIRE HD 4850 X2 delivers industry leading levels of performance and achieves previously unavailable frame rates in games even at high resolutions with features enabled.
The SAPPHIRE HD 4850 X2 is implemented on a single ATX format PCI-Express card, with a dual fan assisted cooler making it a standard dual-slot configuration. This solution will have immediate appeal to performance users with only a single PCI-Express slot available. On a suitable PCI Express Gen 2.0 CrossFireX mainboard it is also possible to use two SAPPHIRE HD 4850 X2 cards in CrossFireX mode to provide even higher levels of performance.
The SAPPHIRE HD 4850 X2 incorporates the latest ATI Avivo™ HD Technology for enhanced Video display and features a second generation built in UVD (Unified Video decoder) for the hardware accelerated decoding of Blu-ray™ and HD DVD content for both VC-1 and H.264 codecs, as well as mpeg files, reducing CPU loading to a minimum. The SAPPHIRE HD 4850 X2 is HDCP ready and is compatible with the latest High Definition displays. Like other HD 4800 series products it also supports HDMI over the DVI interface with the HDMI Adapter supplied.
