Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1GB GDDR5

Overview

TechSpot Metascore

Based on 12 expert reviews

Excellent:

11
Good:

1
Average:

0
Bad:

0

Pros:

Fast 3D gaming performance for the price.
Two bundled games.
The highest performance yet for a mid-range gaming card.

Cons:

Warranty support requires return to retailer.
Only a two year warranty.

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Last revision on May 9, 2020

Reviewers Liked

Fast 3D gaming performance for the price
Two bundled games
The highest performance yet for a mid-range gaming card
Two-heat-pipe cooler is very effective
Silent fan
Strong performance in games and benchmarks
Nice combination of connections out back: 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort, ATI Eye
Second-fastest DirectX 11 graphics accelerator
Consumes only 31W at idle and 157W under full load

Reviewers Didn't Like

Warranty support requires return to retailer
Only a two year warranty
Not much sets the Sapphire version apart from other manufacturer's offerings
Supposed to include a Dirt2 coupon, but neither card here has one
Fan exhausts some heated air back into case
Maximum post-processing Anti Aliasing is limited to 8x
Expensive

Expert reviews and ratings

The Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1GB boasts plenty of power, with many of the same features as the 5870. The clincher, though, is the price. Four hundred dollars is fantastic for a card hard on the heels of a GTX 295 or HD 5870. If you're shopping...

By Good Gear Guide on August 13, 2010

So it would seem that once again, Sapphire has presented us with yet another fantastic product. It should be mentioned of course that much of the credit really goes to ATi as unlike many of Sapphire's offerings, their Radeon HD 5850 is based...

By Overclock3D on February 21, 2010

Good performance, value and...

By Atomic MPC on February 02, 2010

100

It has to be said that the Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 really doesn’t disappoint in the slightest. Throughout all testing, synthetic and gaming, the card consistently achieves high, solid frame rates and what’s even more impressive is that the...

By XSReviews on November 19, 2009

Great performance at a midrange price As with Sapphire’s Radeon HD 5870, the company’s HD 5850 card ships with coupons for two games: Dirt 2 and Battlestations: Pacific. Sapphire’s HD 5850 delivers a stock Radeon HD 5850, with its...

By Maximum PC on November 16, 2009

100

The Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 beat the 1GB GTX 260 quite soundly in every test. The overclock gave me more of a performance boost than I would have expected from a 5% overclock, in all but one test the gains were significant. Even in the other test, a...

By ThinkComputers on November 16, 2009

Although our rating and final score are made to be as objective as possible, please be advised that every author perceives these factors differently at different points in time. While we do our best to ensure that all aspects of the product are...

By Benchmark Reviews on October 16, 2009

100

Verdict: If you're looking for a powerful new graphics card, this is the one. It's breathtakingly fast, yet still £100 cheaper than the HD 5870. The Radeon HD 5870 (see What's New, Shopper 162) is the most powerful graphics card...

By Expert Reviews on September 01, 2009

Personally, I’m of the opinion that both Sapphire’s HD 5770 and HD 5850 provide excellent value for your money by offering high-end performance coupled with excellent efficiency. Both of these cards have truly set the bar high and may...

By Hardware Canucks on January 19, 2010

First of all, let me remind you that all RADEON HD 5xxx cards support the new DirectX 11 API, higher-quality anisotropic filtering, triple-monitor configurations, as well as other features described in our baseline review. RADEON HD 5850 is the...

By iXBT Labs on December 12, 2009

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