Sapphire HD 4850 cards.

[fvbounty]

Originally Posted by yamawho

It was for me ...

So has was right you need vista to make hdmi work?

[yamawho]

I built a HTPC using an Asus P5N EM HDMI and could not get sound out of the HDMI in XP. I don't know if it's just a case of bad Nvidia or Asus drivers but it doesn't work in XP. In fact you are not even able to choose it as a device in the OS.

When I installed Vista along with the driver from the cd and then the update from the Asus site, it worked. However, it was not selected as the default device and the jumpers on the mobo were for DVI output.

I know Asus screwed up the sound drivers for the mobo and released a patch to fix a no sound issue after installing the hdmi driver.

YMMV of course.

[ATINUT]

My 3870X2 has HDMI but I don't use it at all. I had trouble with a 680i motherboard, and Nvidia's drivers, which is why I came back to ATI. The thing I don't like about Catalyst 8.7 is there is a severe frame rate drop at times in Mass Effect PC even with the game patched to version 1.01.

C&C 3 and it's expansion work just fine on my machine and the colors are good, I've learned not to get crazy when adjusting the colors in Catalyst Control Center.

I personally won't ever go back to Nvidia, until they get their mess with their chipsets, and drivers straightened out.

To truly use HDMI, I do believe you need Vista 32 or Vista 64.

[yamawho]

Vista 32 is what I used on the HTPC build.

atinut, what other games have issues with the 8.7 cats ?

[ATINUT]

Hellgate London, lockups when run in DX10 mode consistantly, whic is why I'm gonna trash that game and keep the DVD storage case.

Loki Heroes Of Mythology crashes, when alt tabbing out and then go back in to the game. Neverwinter Nights 2 stutters and freezes up if the graphic options are set to High on Windows Vista, Battle For Middle Earth 2, crashes when you exit from the main menu, and Dungeon Siege 2 freezes and crashes. These bugs have been Vista drivers for the 3870X2 since the beginning of this year, and yet they don't happen if you run WindowsXP or use just a single ATI card like the 3870 for example.

I don't know of any major game that came out recently that has trouble off hand.

[Sandog]

The Sapphire TOXIC card is a great card. It tried it in Vista (not HDMI) and I have the same issue. I believe it is my new monitor which has a very high contrast ratio. Also I scored 5217 in 3DMArk06 in Vista.

[Sandog]

Here's a review on the regular SAPPHIRE HD 4850. If you look at all the benchmark graphs, the bar on the left is the stock SAPPHIRE HD 4850 and the far right bar is the OC set to: Core - 670MHz Memory - 1100MHz. It so happens that the TOXIC version comes clocked at 675MHz/1100MHz so think of the far right bar as the TOXIC benches. Check out the benchmark performance against the GTX280

Sapphire HD4850 Review » Page 7 - Testing: Crysis - Overclockers Club

This is a great card in that it has such good IQ, top performance, does HDMI well, etc. Plus is looks great (matches my blue LED Intel HSF). Anyway, I may underclock mine to stock settings, the fan is slightly too noticeable for my case (everything is so quiet). I get great temps to. At default settings (675core/1100mem) I never go above 47C when loaded. Also the fan really cools the memory heatsinks to. You can feel a lot of air moving around the HSF. I actually took the HSF off and repasted. The Zalman HS is very good quality with a mirror finish on the bottom, heavy, and all copper. You get this great heatsink and around $70 worth of software for $209 at NE. This is probably one of the finest video card I have ever purchased and the price in unbelievable. Drivers need work and I still haven't went to Vista so I'm not using the HDMI cable yet.

[Sir Skully]

Congrats on new 4850, sound like a keeper.............

[Sandog]

Very much so. I was looking at the GTX's and 9800's which are great cards to its just that they are so much bigger, have double power connectors, plus they are more expensive than the 4850. It was a close call with the NVidia cards but I think this card will have better IQ once I get Vista up and running. Since these cards are so popular ATI should support these cards well into the future. The HD 4850 is more in keeping with my lower power PC build to. Now all I want is an E0 stepping quad Penryn and a P45 chipset board.

[Sandog]

I seem to have ironed out the visual difficulty I was seeing with the washed out screen. Reinstalled drivers. The only issue I have with the card now is the fan is too loud for my tastes. I purchased a Zalman fanmate for $3.99 but now I have to adapt the connectors to the video card board. I want to continue to use the power header on the video card so I will see fan speed in GPU utilities.

BTW, I tried the CCC profile hack for the fan speed but it doesn't work with the Zalman fan that comes with the board. At least not with Sapphire drivers installed. Maybe stock ATI drivers would prove different.

[yamawho]

I did the softmod with the 8.7 cats and have setup two profiles, one at 35% and the other at 45% fan speed.

[Sandog]

My Sapphire TOXIC is running great and looks great. I am getting to really like this card. Today I am receiving a Zalman fan mate that I will hook-up to my card somehow so I will still see rpms in GPU-Z. I will try to upload some pics tonight. I want to control the fan manually and forget about software. I will leave it around 1500rpm probably. Right now it runs around 1750rpm.

[Sandog]

I decided not to use the Zalman Fan Mate, the fan really needs to run at its design speed as the GPU gets really hot. Had the fan disconnected for about a minute while booting into Windows and the GPU hit 85C by that time.

I also ran the auto-tune utility. After it ran my core was adjusted to 690MHz and the memory went up to around 1200MHz. I am leaving it at default 675/1100 which is already OC'd.

GPU was running 41C last time I checked the desktop

[RickJ5]

Sandog,

I have a quick question if you don't mind. I've been thinking of getting a Sapphire Toxic 4850, but I just saw a review on it where the author claims it blocks 3 slots instead of 2. Here is a link to the Sapphire 4850 Toxic Video Card Review. On page 3 of the review he shows a picture and claims it takes up 3 slots. I suspect looking at the picture that he is wrong. It looks to me like the edge of the fan is even with the end of the second slot cover, so I think it only takes up 2 slots like I would expect. What I'm wondering is if you could check and see if your card only takes up 2 slots? I really like this card because it runs so much cooler than the reference 4850 cards and also because it comes with a copy of PowerDVD. I was planning to put it in a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 motherboard and I'm also planning to use a PCI Express sound card and PCI Express TV tuner card. Since there are only 3 PCI Express 1X slots on the board and one is definitely blocked by the cooler, if it blocks 2 of the PCI Express 1X slots my plan won't work. Just as an FYI I can't use the extra PCI Express 16X slot because on this board once you use that slot the PCI Express 1X slots are diabled. Thank you.

[Sandog]

It depends which mobo you have. I don't think it takes up more than two slots though. Here's my pics.
2007_08210014 (Large).JPG2007_08210015 (Large).JPG2007_0821001 (Large).JPG

I can't recommend this card enough. This is the best card I've ever owned. I had I believe a bad install when I first got it. After reinstalling drivers it now looks perfect. Also I am use to the fan which is slightly noticeable but not annoying. It blows a lot of air and keeps all the memory cool also. It is a very nice card with a high quality heat sink/fan that is solid copper with a mirror finish underneath. It will last unlike most stock HSF's. Also you get some very good software for free. I have a HDMI cable waiting for the card when I install Vista. I can't believe more people aren't jumping on this card. Also it comes OC'd and can even go much higher.