Final thoughts, rating, awards.
Sapphire's Radeon HD 4730 512MB is an interesting graphics card that's based on a hotch-potch of Radeon 4-series architectures and designed to meet a very specific price-point of £60.Ostensibly based on a Radeon HD 4870 512MB PCB with identical core, shader, and memory clocks, performance is kept in check by, well, breaking the back-end in half - the card has eight ROPs and a 128-bit memory interface - and reducing the shader-count from 800 to 640.
Architecturally-heavy on the top-end and light on the post-processing, the card's Achilles heel is exposed when set to render copious amounts of AA/AF, to the tune of being 20 per cent slower than a Radeon HD 4770.
The Radeon HD 4730's provenance also comes through with respect to power-draw, which is higher than we'd expect for a mid-range card, and the cooler's none too great when idling and under load.
However, Sapphire's etail partners have priced it very well, at around £60, and it's fast enough to play most games at 1,680x1,050 (low AA/AF). Further, it opens up the tantalising possibility of potentially flashing the BIOS to a better-performing card.
Given a choice, we'd probably lay down the extra £15-£20 and go for a full-fat Radeon HD 4850 or GeForce GTS 250 512MB - but at least Sapphire gives you a choice, and we commend the company for that.
Bottom line: Sapphire's Radeon HD 4730 512MB has an interesting history and decent straight-line performance for the money. However, such is the architecture that gamers wanting high AA/AF may need to look elsewhere.
The good
Very competitively priced at £60
Good price/performance if AA/AF isn't applied
Integrated HDMI is a bonus
The not so good
Cooler's a little loud
AA/AF performance is lacking
Relatively high power-draw
Dual-slot cooler
HEXUS Rating
We consider any product score above '50%' as a safe buy. The higher the score, the higher the recommendation from HEXUS to buy. Simple, straightforward buying advice.
The rating is given in relation to the category the component competes in, therefore the card is evaluated with respect to our 'mid-range components' criteria. It's a good card that's held back by not-so-great performance with AA/AF invoked.
Sapphire Radeon HD 4730 512MB
HEXUS Where2Buy
The Sapphire Radeon HD 4730 512MB can be purchased from eBuyer for £58.99, including free delivery. The same card is on pre-order at Scan.co.uk for £67.47.
HEXUS Right2Reply
At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
