Sapphire Radeon HD 4830

We've already looking at the 4830 once and it definitely is a great card which is about 10% upper or lower performance from a Radeon HD 4850. If you're gaming at 1680x1050 or below then this is the perfect high-end card for you. 1920x1200 also seems very acceptable but we might go ahead and go for the 4850 or 4870 card over the 4830 as you'll want more memory bandwidth at a higher resolution and that's only going to increase in the future. Still, it is something anyone looking for good performance should consider. It also seems to top a standard 9800 GT and come in around the same as an overclocked card. Of course with a much better feature set though it isn't much of a contest. Overall, we're very happy Sapphire can provide a great card that rids the 4830's one problem which all 4800 cards have: heat, and do so at a great price. An OEM copy of a game would have been nice but it's not a major loss.

While the performance obviously won't equal the more expensive cards, the price-to-performance ratio is very favorable. It makes the Radeon 4830 worth considering for gamers who don't need the absolute best, just a card that can hang with today's games while leaving plenty of cash in their pocket. The card would be a good fit for non-gaming systems too, as the performance, low noise output, and low heat production would make it an excellent choice for an HTPC.

I’m impressed with the performance of the card mainly for what you have to pay for one. Currently, they are about the same price as the Nvidia based 9800GT out there depending on where you shop and who has what for a mail-in rebate going this week. So, if you’re on short purse strings, but need a new video card to play some of today’s current games at reasonable settings, you should be giving the Sapphire HD 4830 a look. It’ll be worth your time.

Now we have to think in terms of cost/benefit ratio. Radeon HD 4850 – which is a video card that we highly recommend to users looking for a high-end performance at a very affordable price – is at least 23% more expensive than the new Radeon HD 4830, but it doesn’t bring a 23% performance increase over the reviewed card. That said, Radeon HD 4830 (and GeForce 9800 GT, we most remember) provides a good cost/benefit ratio for users looking for a video card on the USD 130 range that will provide an excellent performance for this price point. Of course if you can afford a Radeon HD 4850, go for it. But if you are a mainstream user that likes to play but doesn’t want to spend a lot of money on a video card, Radeon HD 4830 is a good option.

At this point in time if you wanting the most bang for the buck as far as processors go the Intel E8400 is the way to go with it's abilities to get close to 4 GHz. When it comes to video cards the HD 4830 may very well be it companion in reaching numbers far removed from their stock setting. If you were to pay $164.00 for the E8400 Wolfdale and then add $119.00 for the Sapphire HD 4830 you would have the beginning of a very nice system for less than $300.00. Without a doubt the Sapphire HD 4830 is a card to consider either for your main system or a backup system simply because the cost to performance ratio is just to good to pass up.