Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Conclusion:

The Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 512MB had performed well ahead of the Radeon HD 4670 and not too far behind the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. In fact, the overclocked Radeon HD 4830 had run neck-and-neck with the Diamond HD 4850 in a few of the tests. Of course, these tests were without any forced antialiasing (AA) or anisotropic filtering (AF), but had there been, there would be a larger delta.

The Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 retails for roughly $130 USD while the Radeon HD 4850 is currently going for $160 at least and the Radeon HD 4670 for at least $80. In our minds, the Radeon HD 4830 is a much better offering over the Radeon HD 4670 and should satisfy most casual gamers on Linux that aren't concerned with the best performance possible. With Enemy Territory: Quake Wars running along smoothly with the Radeon HD 4830, this should fit the build quite with this being the most demanding game on Linux currently. Besides that, there is OverDrive support on Linux, CrossFire capabilities, emerging X-Video Bitstream Acceleration (XvBA), and leading open-source support for all ATI Radeon HD graphics processors.

The benefits that the Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 has over other AIBs is the larger dual-slot heatsink (although without any video memory cooling support), Qimonda GDDR3 memory that's capable of easily running 100MHz higher than what it's currently clocked at, and is backed by the Sapphire quality that we've come to know. For $130 USD the Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 512MB isn't a bad deal and is certainly a PCI Express 2.0 graphics card worth considering.

For pricing information and other graphics card reviews, visit TestFreaks.com.

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