Customer Reviews

Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1 GB DDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card 100282SR

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Pros:
-The 5800 series are the fastest single GPU gaming cards in the world. Not to be compared to the X2 cards or the GTX295, which are dual GPU on a single card.
-DirectX 11 support. Ready for the next generation of games.
-5850 has a much higher price/performance ratio than the 5870.
-Cheaper yet slightly faster than it's competitor, the GTX 285
-Loaded with features. Eyefinity multi-monitor gaming, video conversion, Power Play energy saver
-Extremely efficient power usage will save you a decent amount of money per year.
-Actually, the low power consumtion is unprecedented. Also very cool while in 2d mode.
-Decent power usage and temperature during load.
-Released way earlier than nVidia's next gen. Fermi's release date is unknown, but we do know it will be expensive.

Cons:
-First card in next gen line.
-Driver support has issues. Namely, Power Play bugs out in Win7 64 bit, creating errors such as buggy mouse pointer, constant driver crashes, and unresponsive computer during video playback. There is a workaround for this (use a program to up the power).
-Memory modules are identical in 5850 and 5870. Why factory clock it slower? And the ati control panel does not let you speed it up to the 5870 memory speed level.
-ATI overdrive (overclocking) lets you barely overclock. Why not give customers more flexibility?
-Due to high demand (and low yields in the manufacturing process), the price of this card has gone up since release.

Bottom Line:
-Best price/performance ratio card out there.
-A much better choice (in my opinion) than a GTX 285. Faster, cheaper, supports future Direct X.

Best video card out there right now. Reason I think it's better than the 5870 because its pretty much the same card, but wayyyy cheaper. Who needs CrossFire when one of these bad boys runs Crysis maxed out @ 1600x900 AAx2 and still get about 40-60 fps.

The Sapphire 5850 gave me a huge boost in framerates in most games like Crysis, Left 4 Dead, ARMA 2. I upgraded from a 4850, and saw the average frame rates more than double in Crysis. I haven't had any stability issues, but ATi drivers should improve over time for those who do. Power consumption is low compared to cards from competitors in the same price range. It matches up well with my i7 920.

Overall this card is fantastic. I bought it to replace an EVGA 8800GT that burned out on me. It's a bit pricey @ $300, but I feel its well worth it.

Core 2 Quad Q9550, 8 gigs DDR2 ram, and now the 5850: I do not own crysis, but i downloaded the demo to see how it would run. I was getting a constant 40-45 FPS @ 1920x1200 with everything on High, and 2x Anti Aliasing, everything was running very smooth, and no stuttering (i believe this game is made to run smooth @ 30fps). I'm sure the actual game is much more refined and would run better, and there are probably some options that are not needed, but for the sake of testing, i left everything on.

Modern Warfare 2: This card doesn't even blink at it, X-fire reads a constant 92 fps even when starring across a map filled with players. sadly the card can't fix the lag due to have a bad host.

Street Fight 4 pc: Another game that is too easy for the card, all settings maxed out, 8x anti aliasing, 16x texture filtering, average of 59.95 fps.

Bottom line, this card is great. I only installed the display drivers, and decided to skip the Catalyst control center. No issues with drivers so far, no blue screens since installing it. ATi has done some good with this card, and even with a reputation of instable drivers, they have come through with flying colors.

this is an excellent card for the money. It is as good or in some cases better tan a 285 gtx. You can run it up to 1900x1200 with all the eyecandy turned up. Dirt 2 is coming out next month with direct x 11 support so then we can really see what this card can do. According to AMD they can't make enough of these to keep up with demand of the 5800 series or the 4000 now. Glad I got one while I could!

Got this item for 210 bucks in 2009, fatal error in amazon but they honored the deal since I got the order in before they fixed the price. Still rated 7.2 outta 7.9 in windows 7 diagnostic and its already a year old, very good investment. Unfortunately this will not do 3 monitors with one gpu, you will have to get very specific monitors to be able to pull 3 monitors outta this single gpu unit, very falsely advertised imo.

I didn't want to spring for the 5870 so I bought this. It's obsurdly powerful. Nothing I tossed at it even put a dent in it. It doesn't make much noise either. I'd hihgly recommend it to anyone needing a really nice video card.

this video card rocks in speed and performance i played all king of game in full without a problem even in autocad and sketchup render kick everything.

The bad: the video card is almost death the temp are very low no overheating or something but have memory problem or GPU some horizontal lines when windows start or blue screen, very mad paid 300+ to have this quality.

These are overkill in xfire! Eyefinity is amazing, love the heck out of that! In the near future, 256bit cards may not own up to the games on the horizon, so I'm looking forward to ati making a higher bit card. They do seem to keep track of today, while the competition keeps running around asking game makers to bow to their needs, so they can at least show off their wares. As of today, 256bit cards will kick serious but. Xfire these and you'll have a kick but rig. The competition cost way to much, granted they have hitech stuff incorporated in their cards, but what is out there today to take advantage of it? Not enuff in my opinion. Ati will catch up tech wise when it's wide spread, but not when it's not needed. I am not at all dissapointed!!!
Gigabyte 790fx
Amd 955BE
8 gigs gskill ddr3 1333
WD 1tb hdd
Two of these cards
Silverstone 850w psu
Big ole Tagan midtower case w/4 120mm fans
Scythe 92mm cpu cooler
Win7 pro 64bit
2 Hanng 22" monitors
1 Dell 22" display port monitor(very impressed with this monitor)
Some dvd thing, need to change it out for a more impressive one.
Titanium sound card.

This isn't the most powerful card on the market, but its pretty close. For under $300 you will be hard pressed to buy a better card. Its quiet, power efficient, is CrossFire capable and can play some of the latest games with their settings maxed out like its nothing. I've personally run Dirt 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Sins of a Solar Empire and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 all with max settings and seen rock solid frame rates, older games of course run even better. This is off of a single card. You can have up to 4 of these monsters install in a single system! God knows what kind of performance you could get with that kind of power. I've been running this card for over 6 months and have had zero issues. Its rock solid.

Pros:
Very Powerful
Moderately priced
Feature packed
Quiet
Reliable
4 outputs; 2x Dual-Link DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort
Overclocks well (with 3rd party programs)

Cons:
Large physical size (not suitable for small cases)
No VGA output for older monitors
Hard to find in stock
Crap installation instructions
Default Overclocking software is weak/conservative

Overall the pros greatly outweigh the relatively trivial cons. This is probably the best card on the market for the money and will continue to be until at least the end of 2010. Its also fairly future proof. It supports Windows 7, DirectX 11 and when the price comes down after the next generation of cards comes out you will probably be able to pick up a second one cheaply and run them in CrossFire mode to easily double your graphics performance to stay current.