Looking at HD4870's. (not x2's)

What's the difference between the regular ATI brand and the Sapphire brand of the card?

At Newegg, I see 4 Sapphire 4870's (2 @ 512mb, 2 @ 1gb) but all if them feature the same cooling as the ATI reference card. Performance-wise I would consider all 4870's at the same memory size basically equal. The more expensive models just feature quiet/improved cooling (and the possiblilty of a higher overclock).

I see, so it makes more sense to save a little and just get the ATI brand if the differences are that minimal

Check what type of memory they use; some of the cards only have GDDR3 but you should be looking for ones with GDDR5

I have one of these and I love it so far.

Thats how I feel. I would purchase the best deal at the time. Some might come bundled with a free game, or certain manufacturers might offer a better warranty. Any differences in advertised gpu clock speeds and memory speeds are just minor overclocking which you could achieve yourself.

Check out this link: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-4870-palit,2096.html

It's an article which compares a few 4870.

Not positive but I thought all 4850's use GDDR3 and all 4870's use GDDR5.

Cool guys thanks.

also Jlee I saw those as well, but I'm looking for 1gb of memory. =P