Sapphire HD5850 Toxic 1GB Video Card Review

When testing video cards, it is important to use a system which would suit the target audience. For this review we are using a Intel Core i7 975 processor paired with the excellent, KitGuru award winning Asus Rampage III Extreme Motherboard – check out the review here if you missed it. We will compare the card to the higher end HD 5870 model as well as a reference HD5850 to see how it falls between the two very different price ranges. KitGuru also always tries to mix and match a wide range of games within our reviews – no one wants to see the same five or six games in every review.

Test System:
Sapphire HD5850 Toxic 1GB Edition
Intel Core i7 975
Coolit ECO A.L.C.
Asus Rampage III Extreme Motherboard
6GB Corsair DDR3 1866mhz Memory
Intel 160GB SSD Drive
Lacie 730 30 inch screen.
Western Digital Raid 0 (2x1TB Drives)
Enermax 1250W Revolution PSU
Lian Li Armorcase

Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit – all newest patches applied
Fraps Professional
Catalyst 10.4a driver

Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp

Resident Evil 5
Batman Arkham Asylum
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat
Left 4 Dead 2
Colin McRae Dirt 2
Crysis Warhead
3dMark Vantage

All the latest bios updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru test all games across five closely matched runs and average out the results to get an accurate median figure.

Become a Patron!