Sapphire Radeon HD4870 512MB PCIe

Zitat: However, recent weeks and a couple of price cuts to the GeForce GTX 260 have made my life decidedly more difficult on this occasion - Viva la competition! With NVIDIA´s offering now so much closer to AMD´s in terms of price, which is the better purchase? To some degree, this is almost a question that needs to be answered on a game by game basis, with some titles favouring the Radeon HD 4870 heavily while others swing the way of the GeForce GTX 260. Future gaming performance is equally difficult to predict, with our most graphically intensive tests also swinging either way depending on where you look. Even judging on feature set doesn´t necessarily make things easier - On the one hand, the Radeon HD 4870 has DirectX 10.1 support and more comprehensive HDMI capabilities (including audio without the need for a pass-through from your sound card), but on the other the GeForce GTX 260 has PhysX support. Again, which of those features (if any) are more important is a tough one to judge right now, as well as being a personal preference to some extent. Despite all that though, it´s my job to make decisions whenever possible, and looking a little deeper at the situation a couple of important points become apparent. Firstly, despite those price cuts, the average Radeon HD 4870 (and particularly Sapphire´s offering we´re focusing on today) is still cheaper than even the lowest priced GeForce GTX 260 here in the UK, which certainly makes it the more tempting part when you look at the level of performance it offers. The real decider in my mind however, is that the Radeon HD 4870 is the first time we´ve seen the possibility of a board at a relatively affordable price point which can offer up the use of 8x multi-sampling almost across the board at a high resolution. It seems like a long time ago (and I suppose it is in 3D graphics terms) that we saw the revolution that made 4x anti-aliasing a must-have and usable feature for any gamer, and AMD´s latest flagship single GPU offering could well be the part that raises the image quality bar by making 8x AA the weapon of choice for any discerning gamer out there. As a big proponent of improving image quality whenever possible, this is a thrilling piece of news for me personally, and the degree of dominance the Radeon HD 4870 held in our testing over the GeForce GTX 260 in this field simply can´t be overstated. In closing then, whether you choose either AMD or NVIDIA as your allegiance at this near-£200 price point for this generation, you´re guaranteed an excellent gaming experience at 1920x1200 with 4x anti-aliasing more or less regardless of the game in question when it comes to current titles, so to that degree there´s no such thing as a bad choice. However, if you´re looking to push the boat out with regard to image quality, then the Radeon HD 4870´s 8x multi-sampling performance is the stuff of dreams, and coupled with the rest of its feature set and the low price point of Sapphire´s offering, it would be very hard for me to do anything but recommend it as the graphics board of choice for anyone looking for a new graphics board with this kind of budget in mind.

Zitat: Im Großen und Ganzen ist Sapphire mit der Radeon HD 4870 eine hervorragende Karte mit relativ ansprechendem Preis gelungen, die auch in höheren Auflösungen noch anständige Leistungen liefert. In sehr hohen Anforderungen ist aber auch mit diesem Modell ein Limit erreicht. Für extreme Spieler ist die HD 4870 nicht die Erfüllung aller Träume, doch leistungsmäßig ist sie dennoch top. Die überzeugende Leistung bei angemessener Lautstärke sowie das rundum gute Abschneiden der Grafikkarte belohnen wir mit dem Top-Hardware-Award. Wünschen würden wir uns eine verbesserte Energieausbeute im Idle und etwas bessere Temperaturen - doch alles kann man nun auch nicht haben.

Zitat: + Hochwertige Ausstattung + Sehr leise unter Windows - Lärmpegel im 3D-Betrieb

Zitat: Etwas teure Grafikkarte für anspruchsvolle Spiele und Auflösungen bis zu 1600 x 1200 Bildpunkten.

Zitat: + Spieleleistung + Geräuschentwicklung + Ausstattung