Sapphire HD 5850 Toxic Quiet card with great performance

Author: Jouni 'Jipa' Vasama Published: 11.05.2010 Manufacturer: Sapphire Product Group: Graphics cards In English Suomeksi

5750 vs. 5850

For size comparison we had the earlier reviewed HD 5750. The difference in the length of these cards is pretty massive with the 5750 measuring very reasonable 18,5 cm whereas the HD5850 Toxic is 25,5 cm. The PCI-e power connectors will add some length, but even so the 5850 will still fit into most cases.

Power

Talking of power connectors, there are two six-pin connectors in the rear. This isn't really anything new as also the previous generation higher-end single GPU cards had the same power setup, with some even having a single six and another eight pin connectors. The ATI's specified power usages for this card are 27 watts at idle and 151 watts under load, but we'll see later on how the Toxic version does on this front.

Cooling

With the cooler off, one can see the Cypress core and the eight memory chips. For the GPU-cooling there was a huge amount of thermal paste and for memory chips Sapphire used thermal pads. There's also a separate heatsink on the voltage regulators. The memory chips are made by Samsung and are specified at 0,4 ns.

Without the huge shroud the cooler isn't actually all that big. There are three heatpipes carrying the heat away from the GPU and into the aluminum fins. The fan is specified at 0,48 amps, but thankfully never really runs at full speed.

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