Are you looking for a budget graphic card for your HTPC with enough kick to really game with? A graphic card that is energy efficient but also has enough power to play the latest and greatest games. If that's not enough for you how about you throw in 320 stream processing units, up to 1GB of memory and support for Microsoft DirectX®10.1 games, the ability to watch Blu-Ray movies and play HD content. Well Sapphire Tech has done just that with the HD 4650 OC edition graphics card. Not possible you say? Read on to find out more...
First Impression:
Today we take a look at Sapphire Tech's latest offering from the very successful 4000 series of graphic cards. Sapphire Technology has been making ATI/AMD cards for some time now and we can usually count on them to offer the consumer and the enthusiast something that is different than the usual factory reference designs. The 4650 that I am looking at today is no different. With it's Blue PCB, 512mb of GDDR3 ram, and an out of the box overclock; Sapphire has done just that.
Taking a look at the packaging that the graphic card comes in you see that they predominately display the main features of the card. The RAM, Over Clock and even the fact that it supports HDMI/w 7.1 sound out are all displayed on the front of this game sized box.
On the back of the packaging you see that the list of features continues. I have displayed those and others from Sapphires website below for your convenience.
24x custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA) and high performance anisotropic filtering
Dual mode ATI CrossFireX™ multi-GPU support for highly scalable performance
Dynamic geometry acceleration
Game physics processing capability
ATI Avivo™ HD video and display technology
Unified Video Decoder 2 (UVD 2) for Blu-ray™and HD Video
Accelerated Video Transcoding(AVT)
DVD Upscaling, Dynamic Contrast, Built-in HDMI with 7.1 surround sound support
Redefine HD Gaming
320 Stream Processing Units Enough power to tackle the most demanding HD games and applications.
Microsoft DirectX®10.1 Play today while preparing for tomorrow with state-of-the-art DirectX 10.1 graphics capabilities.
Enhanced Anti-Aliasing (AA) & Anisotropic Filtering (AF) High
performance anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing (4X AA) smooth
jagged edges and create true-to- life graphics, for everything from
grass to facial features
ATI CrossFireX™ Technology ATI CrossFireX™
technology with up to quad GPU support offers superior scalability so
your system is ready to level up when you are.
PCI Express 2.0 Support for PCI Express 2.0 will prepare you for bandwidth-hungry games and 3D applications.
Go Beyond HD Video
Unified Video Decoder 2 UVD 2 frees up your
CPU for other tasks so you get The Ultimate Visual Experience™ for the
most processing- intensive content. Take full advantage of Blu-ray
functionality with dual-stream, picture in picture capabilities.
Accelerated Video Transcoding(AVT) Edit and transfer your videos to a portable video player with new Accelerated Video Transcoding (AVT) technology.1
Upscale Beyond 1080p Watch the hottest Blu-ray movies or other HD content at full 1080p display resolution and beyond.2
Enhanced DVD Upscaling Watch standard DVD
movies in near high-definition quality with DVD upscaling.3 The GPU
uses post processing algorithms to enhance standard and low resolution
videos and movies on your HD display.
Dynamic Contrast Dynamic Contrast automatically
adjusts the contrast and brightness during scenes to consistently
deliver a crisp, vibrant picture.
HDMI Enjoy the latest audio technologies using
HDMI with 7.1 digital surround sound support. Also, xvYCC support
allows the user to enjoy a wider range of color when connected to a
capable HDTV.
1 Some digital rights management restrictions may apply
2 The ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series GPUs can upscale video display
to 2560x1600 on dual-link monitors which is almost twice the display
resolution of 1080p displays.
3 The ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series GPUs can upscale video display
to 2560x1600 on dual-link monitors which is almost twice the display
resolution of 1080p displays.
Break-through Efficiency
Dynamic Power Managemen ATI Radeon HD 4600
Series graphics cards feature ATI PowerPlay™ technology, delivering
high performance when needed and conserving power when the demand on
the graphics processor is low.1
More Performance Per Watt ATI Radeon HD 4600 series deliver up to 3x the performance per watt of AMD’s previous generation GPUs.
Energy Efficient Manufacturing Process Second generation 55nm chip uses the industry’s most energy efficient manufacturing process.
