Sapphire’s Radeon HD 5850 Toxic Edition: Our First Fully-Custom 5850
by Ryan Smith on February 18, 2010 10:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Test & Results
Sapphire’s 5850 Toxic edition is clocked at 765MHz/1125MHz, a 5.5%/12.5% overclock on the core and memory respectively. So performance compared to a reference 5850 can be anywhere between no improvement (CPU limited) to a full 12.5% improvement if the bottleneck is memory bandwidth. This of course will vary from game to game.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.33GHz |
| Motherboard: | Intel DX58SO (Intel X58) |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 9.1.1.1015 (Intel) |
| Hard Disk: | Intel X25-M SSD (80GB) |
| Memory: | Patriot Viper DDR3-1333 3 x 2GB (7-7-7-20) |
| Video Cards: |
AMD Radeon HD 5970 AMD Radeon HD 5870 AMD Radeon HD 5850 AMD Radeon HD 5770 AMD Radeon HD 5750 AMD Radeon HD 5670 512MB AMD Radeon HD 4890 AMD Radeon HD 4870 1GB AMD Radeon HD 4850 AMD Radeon HD 3870 AMD Radeon HD 4770 AMD Radeon HD 4670 512MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT |
| Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA ForceWare 190.62 NVIDIA ForceWare 195.62 AMD Catalyst Beta 8.66 AMD Catalyst Beta 8.66.6 AMD Catalyst 9.9 AMD Catalyst Beta 8.69 |
| OS: | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
The difference, as we expected, is varying from game to game. The factory overclock on the 5850 Toxic isn’t enough to significantly shift the performance of the card, but it’s enough for 5-10% better than a stock-clocked 5850.
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Ryan Smith - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
For temperature testing, we use a fully assembled Thermaltake Spedo. So yes, it's a well ventilated case.Being an open-ended cooler, a well-ventilated case is something that's of greater importance than on a reference card. But at the same time, you need a well-ventilated case anyhow just to avoid having negative air pressure in the case, because a reference 5800 card is going to be blowing out quite a bit of air.
Mr Alpha - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
Are we going to get to see new idle power numbers with Catalyst 10.2 at some point?What about the availability of the 5970? In this part of the world I haven't seen a single one yet, and prices have been creeping up and are getting to the €700 mark. Is it turning into vaporware?
Ryan Smith - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
ULPS only impacts the idle power performance of CF setups. It doesn't impact single cards.Calin - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
As it appears in the pictures, it's wrong (Celsius is the correct text, not Celcius as written)Patrick Wolf - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
Well, I'm sold. Where do I sign?NO! Must...wait...for Fermi. Ugh.
phaxmohdem - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
Sign now! By the time Fermi actually gets released, it WILL be in super limited quantities, and I highly doubt we'll see any lower end derivatives than the 470/480 models from the original Fermi series. It is already 6 months or so late, so it is encroaching on Fermi 2's timeline.My way of thinking, HD5K series now, Fermi 2, when nVidia gets their act together and works out the bugs. It's not like we'll see any useful apps that can harness the purported GPGPU power of Fermi before the HD6K/Fusion series and Fermi2 lines are out anyway.
spidey81 - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
I'll have to agree with him on waiting for Fermi. Not that I want a Fermi based card but that I imagine we will see a $20 to $50 price cut off the top and probably $10 to $20 MIRs on the 5850's and 5870's. At the MSRP I would buy a 5870, but not at the market inflated prices that they are at currently.whatthehey - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
Okay, a few things I have to get off my chest:Page 2: "If any significant number of them could go higher, then AMD would have released them as a higher-end bin."
I call bunk! What's far more likely is that AMD doesn't want any overclocked GPUs coming out that will end up being as fast as the inevitable 5890 or whatever the speed bumped version is called.
Second, why are there no power and noise results for the 5870? These really need to be included.
Finally, a grammar rant. You get these enough I'm sure, so feel free to ignore me. Anyway, "in to" versus "into". I don't think you're getting it quite right a lot of the time. I've noticed Ryan never uses "into". There are places to use "in to" (i.e. "I turned in to the driveway." because "turned in" is a phrasal verb), but there are also times where you need to use "into".
Taking something into consideration is a tough call; I prefer "into" and you use "in to", and I'm not sure which is correct. However, I'd say you definitely throw a wrench INTO gears/recommendations, not throw a wrench IN TO recommendations. Into is typically directional in use. But I could be wrong.
At any rate, you should probably read this:
http://grammartips.homestead.com/into.html">http://grammartips.homestead.com/into.html
Here's one source that agrees with "take in to consideration" as correct:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/take+in+to+...">http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/take+in+to+...
But they also say "take into consideration" is correct (and in both cases they list "take into consideration" lower on the page):
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/take+into+c...">http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/take+into+c...
I still don't like "take in to", but maybe it's because I subscribe to this sort of writing philosophy: Use "into" unless it doesn't make sense that way, like turning a paper into your teacher.
http://en.allexperts.com/q/General-Writing-Grammar...">http://en.allexperts.com/q/General-Writing-Grammar...
jajig - Sunday, February 21, 2010 - link
Thanks for the grammar tip.7Enigma - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
Agreed. Ryan, call it like it is. We know with no competetion they do not want to be eroding the price premium of the 5870. You can see with your OC you already almost have parity between the 2 in some games. It's all about money, and with no competition it's their right, no matter how much it stinks.