dunno

Thank y'all, it makes perfect sense. I didn't mean to throw imply any "bias" and realize in retrospect how that could be read wrong. I was more thinking about possible customer service / warranty differences between the manufacturers (if there are any). Such a difference would lead me to favor one over the other if giving an award I definitely didn't mean to imply any "fanboyish" devotion to one manufacturer or the other, or that I saw any bias in either article. I'm sorry for the late reply, I got to read Ccokeman's response over the weekend but couldn't reply until today, and I am glad I caught your response too damo (I hope everything bosco mentioned is working out ok). The difference makes sense to me given the different comparisons. I guess for me, the (now) $10 difference between the cards isn't a large deciding point (and could be explained by the cost of the coolers), but the warranty at the higher clocks are nice, and if the Toxic OCs farther and better, I think that's worth the extra $10. But, there's a reason y'all do this for a living. Thank you for the responses, sorry for the annoying prodding, but it was definitely worth it to see what you guys think about these two cards.

Hahah, thanks Bosco. The discrepancy just really confused me when I read the article, and clearly still does. I made sure to go back and check the test rigs -- they were the same, settings for the games seemed to be the same, etc., etc.. Just the reviewers were different. On pretty much any metric that was compared, the Toxic looked better. And it seems like it overclocks better. Maybe they had some deal with the manufacturers to not compare "early" versions of non-reference 4850s, I dunno. But, I am definitely looking forward to an explanation from either author (I have refrained from cross-posting in the Toxic article, and don't want to be rude). Maybe comes down to a preference for MSI over Sapphire. Just interested

snore.

shameless bump. And still confused.

Why is this MSI card ranked higher than the Sapphire Toxic card? Comparing the two reviews, it looks like the Toxic OC's better, and its numbers are WAY higher than this card (as tested). Temperatures seem comparable. I'm just curious in the comparison and wish this review could have compared the MSI with the Sapphire Toxic instead of a Sapphire reference card. Thank you for the hard work!