Gaming Rig $1000-1500

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charley

183 posts

Master Geek

#167297 26-Sep-2008 11:10

Hey kiwijunglist, Have you checked out any reviews on the hd4850 toxic? They usualy have comparisons with other cards like the reference hd4850.

kiwijunglist

2981 posts

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#167298 26-Sep-2008 11:12

yeah i just updated my post a little. the reviews say it is good, but for the extra money you should spend a bit more and get 4870. However with the prices on the review the toxic sits half way between reference 4850 and reference 4870.

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

charley

183 posts

Master Geek

#167302 26-Sep-2008 11:17

If it's within your budget sure go toxic. I can personally comment on sapphires dual slot cooler card and it is very quite and does a good job keeping temps down. The cooler probable not as good as the one on toxic but it does a good job.

p.s I read in one review ages ago that the toxic had corrosion issues. I think sapphire said that they have fixed that so as long as you get a new one you should be ok.

kiwijunglist

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#167308 26-Sep-2008 11:43

Just in case someone comes accross the thread later...

Sapphire Dual Slot HD4850 vs Sapphire Toxic HD4850 Review
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/sapphire_toxic_4850_dual_slot_review/

All the other reviews compared only the toxic vs the reference HD4850, as the Dual slot is better than reference and same price as reference, i will just go with dual slot cooler, which can be overclocked to toxic speed without any mods.

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

Quidam

291 posts

Ultimate Geek

#167310 26-Sep-2008 11:58

For what it is worth, I think the Toxic is a better choice. It's not much more and in my books, cooler/quiter cooling is a significant benefit -especially if you were ever going to use it to watch movies. But whatever you choose, you are getting a great system.

"There is no way to Peace -Peace is the Way" (A. J. Muste)

kiwijunglist

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#167312 26-Sep-2008 12:07

Ive read that noise levels have toxic being slightly louder than dual slot with both being a lot quieter than the reference HD4850. The toxic doesn't seem to allow much more overclocking than the dual slot. So i will just stick with the dual slot sapphire.

Here's a graph showing toxic vs dual slot

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

charley

183 posts

Master Geek

#167326 26-Sep-2008 12:40

Cool seeing a review comparing these 2 cards against each other. That Zalman VF900-Cu cooler does an awesome job. Was surprised at how much smaller the dual slot cooler card was to the toxic. Shame they didnt pull off the dual slot cooler to take a peak at what's underneath. Another bonus for the toxic is the Zalman RAMsinks on the GDDR3 memory modules. If i was to buy the toxic it would be for it's cooling. And like you said you can always overclock the dual slot cooler card to toxic levels if you need that little extra fps.

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Quidam

291 posts

Ultimate Geek

#167353 26-Sep-2008 14:06

Those temperatures on the Toxic would have me sold -but it's really only a personal thing. The dual slot is a great solution as well.

Anyway, which all this new kit on the way, what games are you looking to play? I just picked up Crysis warhead today..

"There is no way to Peace -Peace is the Way" (A. J. Muste)

kiwijunglist

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#167362 26-Sep-2008 14:33

dunno

i think the only game i have currently is tower defense of some java applet site

i would like to try the latest version of unreal tournament because i really liked that game.

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

eXDee

4032 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#167366 26-Sep-2008 14:38

The toxic had teething problems with the factory overclock - it seems there was a bad batch of memory chips or something. Not sure if this is all good now, but to be honest that $50 extra could be spent on an Accelero S1 Rev2 cooler which will be a hell of a lot quieter and allow a much better overclock.

As for the latest Unreal Tournament - I loved UT1 and UT2004 was pretty good fun, though very different. UT3 has attempted to go back to the UT1 roots in terms of movement, however when i played the demo it felt a lot like a gears of war/ut hybrid, everyone has way too much armour on.

As for other games - an awesome strategy game with a great triple campiegn single player is Company Of Heroes (get the gold edition). Far Cry 2 looks very promising, and CoD4 is good fun.

kiwijunglist

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#167369 26-Sep-2008 14:41

If your gonna overclock you would want to buy the reference HD4850, because the components have been moved around on the Sapphire Dual Slot version so apparently it may not fit.

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

charley

183 posts

Master Geek

#167393 26-Sep-2008 15:36

Cod4 was fun to play. Looked awesome with everything on high with my hd4850. The single player game was very short though. Looking forward to the next release in the series.

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