Sapphire’s Radeon HD 5850 Toxic Edition: Our First Fully-Custom 5850
by Ryan Smith on February 18, 2010 10:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Test & Results
Sapphire’s 5850 Toxic edition is clocked at 765MHz/1125MHz, a 5.5%/12.5% overclock on the core and memory respectively. So performance compared to a reference 5850 can be anywhere between no improvement (CPU limited) to a full 12.5% improvement if the bottleneck is memory bandwidth. This of course will vary from game to game.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.33GHz |
| Motherboard: | Intel DX58SO (Intel X58) |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 9.1.1.1015 (Intel) |
| Hard Disk: | Intel X25-M SSD (80GB) |
| Memory: | Patriot Viper DDR3-1333 3 x 2GB (7-7-7-20) |
| Video Cards: |
AMD Radeon HD 5970 AMD Radeon HD 5870 AMD Radeon HD 5850 AMD Radeon HD 5770 AMD Radeon HD 5750 AMD Radeon HD 5670 512MB AMD Radeon HD 4890 AMD Radeon HD 4870 1GB AMD Radeon HD 4850 AMD Radeon HD 3870 AMD Radeon HD 4770 AMD Radeon HD 4670 512MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT |
| Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA ForceWare 190.62 NVIDIA ForceWare 195.62 AMD Catalyst Beta 8.66 AMD Catalyst Beta 8.66.6 AMD Catalyst 9.9 AMD Catalyst Beta 8.69 |
| OS: | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
The difference, as we expected, is varying from game to game. The factory overclock on the 5850 Toxic isn’t enough to significantly shift the performance of the card, but it’s enough for 5-10% better than a stock-clocked 5850.
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Alouette Radeon - Wednesday, March 24, 2010 - link
Agreed, I see no reason to upgrade my HD 4870.strikeback03 - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
Umm, the 4850x2 hasn't been available for "years", it was released Q3 2008.Iketh - Sunday, February 21, 2010 - link
Hey Ryan, just a small tip for your writing technique. Page 5, first line: "amount of heat it will be generating" can be "amount of heat it will generate" or furthermore "amount of heat it generates"d4a2n0k - Sunday, February 21, 2010 - link
Ive had an Asus 5850 since September '09 that is not limited by this so called hard limit set in place by AMD. It ships with an overclock program and bios that is not crippled like these Sapphire cards. Ive had it running at 925/1300 at stock voltage for the past five months stable but if I needed to I can mess with the voltage. Now explain to me how this card is worth the premium.AmdInside - Sunday, February 21, 2010 - link
Sounds silly but I ordered this card mainly because of the blue heatsink. I don't know why red is popular for computer hardware. Cars are the only items I can think of that look good in red. My keyboard has blue lighted keys. My mouse has blue backlight and my Dell monitors main button glows blue so I wanted something to match.Alouette Radeon - Wednesday, March 24, 2010 - link
Umm, well, Red IS the Colour of ATi, after all! LOLIDontKnowWhat - Sunday, February 21, 2010 - link
It's now for sale at Newegg for $160 and it features a custom PCB, custom fan, and different connectors (DVI, VGA, and HDMI).spigzone - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
Powercolor's had a non-reference card out for a while, it has a larger, quieter fan, runs cooler, has essentially the same factory overclock, and costs $40 less.Just saying.
Godzealot - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
I OC my old vanilla 5850 to 785/1200 daily right when I turn on the computer no problemsleexgx - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
have the VRMs been fixed, as the 5850 i got here is making more noise then my GTX280 i used to have until i cooked it