While the appearance is dramatically different – The Sapphire HD5850 Toxic Edition is just like any other HD5850 on the market with 72 texture units and 1440 stream processors.
The card is surrounded by a custom made heat pipe design cooler with a large eleven blade structured fan which is positioned directly above the GPU core.
The fan shroud is very attractive and Sapphire informed us that this was designed specifically for this card … a two ball bearing configuration.
Turning the card over we can see the four silver screws around the GPU and two black screws on the left of the card are used to hold on the passive cooler for the voltage regulators. As with most of the high end Toxic Edition cards Sapphire have used Black Diamond chokes throughout which lowers overall temperatures while increasing choke efficiency by around 30%.
The card demands a feed from 2x6pin PCI power connectors which is the same as a reference design and AMD recommend a 500w or greater PSU for a system containing the HD5850. Running in Crossfire increases this recommendation by 600w. If you are unsure exactly what we are talking about then read the KitGuru Power Supply guide which will break down all the attributes you should be considering before a purchase.
On the rear there are two dual link DVI outputs with an HDMI and Displayport connector. You can run Eyefinity with this card if you have the correct monitor and cable configuration. There is also a grill on this area so that the hot air is expelled outside the chassis.
The Sapphire HD5850 Toxic card is slightly bigger than a reference HD5850 being around 10.1 inches long rather than 9.5 inches. If you are using a small chassis with confined space this is worth taking into consideration.