XFX HD5870 Black Edition Review

The results today reaffirm my initial feelings that XFX, along with Sapphire are leading the way with their ATI graphics card designs. XFX have released an overclocked card which not only considerably outperforms the reference design but which also runs cooler and quieter … an intoxicating mixture for an enthusiast gamer.

XFX have not yet released this card to the masses and they are initially offering it to existing customers via a rather cool reward style system. It is nice to know if you buy an XFX product then you get ‘first pickings' on the new models when they are released. Pricing has yet to be confirmed but I was told by XFX that a figure of £370 inc VAT when it hits sale in the United Kingdom will be close to the mark.

So who should buy this card? If you currently have an older card and want to move into the highest performance category then we can completely recommend the XFX Black Edition HD 5870. The design is considerably better than the reference HD 5870 and the price doesn't look to be bank breaking either as the standard XFX model is £330 in retail right now. This means you pay around £40 more for a cherry picked, overclocked card with a completely revised cooling system which omits less noise. Seems like a pretty sweet deal to me.

Normally I could find fault in some area, perhaps with the bundle – but once again XFX excel and they have not only a top quality DX11 game (Alien V Predator), but they have included power cables, crossfire connectors and a plethora of other deal sweeteners such as metal Black Edition case badge and custom stickers.

This is one of the most impressive HD5870's on the market right now and if you want to push it even further with manual overclocking we found a lot of headroom with our own, although as always results will vary from card to card. XFX has released an overclocked Radeon HD 5870 card that not only outperforms ATI's original reference by a significant amount, it is also much cooler and lot quieter… an intoxicating mixture for an enthusiast gamer and a serious challenge for Fermi.

KitGuru says: XFX, yet again release another “Xtremely F**king Xcellent” video card.

UPDATE: XFX have offered us 10 copies of Alien V Predator to give away soon – this competition will be announced shortly!

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