Customer Reviews

Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1 GB DDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card 100281SR

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

ordered when amazon first had it for pre-order. surprise to see it actually arrived in less than a week. i did have 3 LCD ready to try the 3-monitor set up. *one has to be display port. so far, everything works great, and i cannot wait for the Dirt 2 game to be released. * game coupon is included for free with this. there is another game, battlestation, pacific inside the box. game performance and image quality are much better than my evga 295 boards which cost over $150 more. sapphire is in, and evga is now on ebay...

You can throw pretty much any current game with max settings at it, and this card will give you a smooth experience. While the 295 GTX has a lead in some games, it is by only a couple of frames. As the 5800 drivers mature, this card will likely beat the remaining scores. Also, this card is a lot less costly than a 295. The only precaution to purchasing this card or any of the other 5870's, make sure you have sufficient room in your case. It's long, around 11.5 inches. I had to do a little bit of case modification to get it to fit. Other than that, it's cool, quiet, fast, and DX11 capable.

After installing the card, it worked flawlessly for a couple days. Then I started having cold boot problems where the fan ran very noisy and I got no video display. After 4 or 5 attempts, it usually started up. I contacted Sapphire tech support and ultimately they suggested I need to return it for RMA. Sucks to spend so much for a new card and not have it work for more than a couple days. And, returning it for RMA, I have to pay the shipping.

This card is outstanding! I love everything about it except for the DP port. I understand that this is the "wave" of the future, but for ATI(AMD) to disable the ablity to use three monitors at once from one card unless you either have a DP capable monitor or spend another $100 to buy a active DP dual link dvi adapter (passive adapters will not work!) is pretty chessy IMHO.

But once you drop the money and buy an active adapter or a DP monitor, it works great! I run FSX, DCS Black Shark, COD: MW both 1&2, X3:TC, Sins of a Solar Empire and many others, all at the highest resolutions on three monitors and it is just amazing.

My system is an i7 920 overclocked to 3.2GHz (V8 Cooler), Asus PT6 WS, and 6 gig of ram, Win7 x64, WD 1T drive, in a CM Sniper case.

If it were not for the DP issue, would have given it five stars.

I'm using a 24" Dell LCD and a Core 2 Duo 3Ghz processor. I really can't stand playing games without Vsync on, which often drives my frame rates into the ground, but I have been able to play a host of titles (Borderlands, Prototype, Star Wars: Force Unleashed, Red Faction Guerrilla, Fallout 3, Oblivion) all at relatively high Anti-Aliasing (8x) without the tearing affect and no noticeable dip in framerates at 1920x1080.

The card itself is really big, about an inch more than my ATI 4870, so many mid-tower cases may need to be completely rearranged for it to fit. The card itself is quite quiet, even when running under load. It rivals the 4870 while idle and completely blows it out of the water (quiet wise) when running pell mell. I'm running this card with a Crucial 520w power supply and it is working like a champ, so either I am getting really lucky or there is even more power hiding under the hood somewhere.

My only concern is the price which seems high to me, especially when this card is supposed to be the next-gen version of the 4870, which debuted at $299. That is only a knock on ATI for their pricing scheme, not that of Amazon or Sapphire. There is a good chance that the 5770 may be just as good, and cheaper, so definitely look into that when thinking about buying. This card is definitely overkill for me, but I don't want ANY slow down in games at a quiet noise level... so maybe it isn't!

Overall, great card that does what I want, quiet AND big and somewhat overpriced. I hope this helps.

PS - Amazon shipping is what made me buy from here... $25 bucks from just about any other store to Alaska PLUS handling fees? No thanks!

This card is worth the money. This ONE card outperformed my 4 video cards (3-Way SLI GTX 260 Superclocked + Physx 9800GT)on Crysis Highest Settings. The 260's Pulled 20-30 fps & This HD Radeon Pulls 40-60 fps!! Dont Make The Same Mistake I Did! This Card Runs A Little Warm, Be Sure To Have Sufficient Airflow!!! +Power Too...

HAF Full Tower Case
Silverstone 1000w PSU
EVGA X58 Classified 3-way Mobo
12 Gigs Triple Channel Patriot Memory
Intel i7 950 3.06Ghz
Thermaltake V1 CPU Cooler
Paired OCZ Solid State Hard Drives
ATI Radeon HD 5870 Video Card (Getting Second Card Soon =})

Bought this card like 2 years ago, still using it to max out all the graphics in the games I play. Fantastic card though nowadays theres a lot better bang for your buck.

This card is simply amazing. When I purchased it, it was a step below the just released 5970 but much cheaper and still crushing every game out at the time. A year later, this card is still able to handle every game I have on the highest settings without even breaking a sweat. I do have it water cooled, so that might be helping.

I was originally going to crossfire this with another one when the price came down, but even a year later, I see no need to.

Defintely the best videocard so far this far into Oct. 2009. Superior graphics, eyefinity etc. ATI is definitely kicking NVIDIA's butt this time around. Runs at low temps, easy overclockability as well.

I plugged my card into my system, loaded the latest drivers off ATIs site and went in game.

Artifacts everywhere. Like what you see when you overclock a card too far - except I didn't overclock anything.

I filed a ticket with Saphire, but I'm probably just going to return the card to Amazon and get a replacement. Customer service is better and I'll probably get a better turnaround time and I won't have to pay for shipping.

I really wanted the XFX instead, but it still isn't available.

The card is still a screamer, though. WOW is it fast.

LATER: I filed a ticket with Saphire the day I got the card. I've received no response a week later. Very disappointed with the customer service from the manufacturer. I'm guessing since the chipsets for these cards are pretty hard to come by, they're shipping stuff out regardless of whether it works.