Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB video card review

When we covered AMD's launch of their flagship Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics board, our attention on the part in hand was almost wrenched away by what was arguably a more exciting prospect - A second dual-GPU board based around the Radeon HD 4850, designed and priced to go up against NVIDIA's own flagship GeForce GTX 280 part.

Since seeing said product mentioned back in August, we've been increasingly impatiently waiting for it to emerge, and just as we began to wonder whether it would ever see the light of day at all, guess what landed on our doorstep three months later?  That's right, Sapphire's own exclusive Radeon HD 4850 X2 offering.

Just as we hoped, this board is priced and kitted out to take on NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280, so can it manage to snatch the crown at this sole remaining price point where AMD currently don't have a true competitor?