Home › News › TechSpot

HIS Radeon HD 5850 Review

in-house feature

October 9, 2009, 1:19 PM EST

Having just recently reviewed the ATI Radeon HD 5870 and bearing witness to its power, we were keen to get our hands on the cheaper, cut-down version known as the Radeon HD 5850. Though both cards were announced last September 23rd, AMD waited an extra week until the Radeon HD 5850 could be showcased. And now - admittedly a bit late - we have finally dug up a production model from HIS to put to the test.

The more affordable HD 5850 shares the same technological advances as its higher-end sibling. That includes support for DirectX 11, HDMI bitstreaming, Eyefinity, angle-independent anisotropic filtering, and supersample anti-aliasing. A slightly toned down configuration, however, allows it to sell for just $260.

At this price the Radeon HD 5850 is not much more expensive than the HD 4890 or Nvidia's GeForce GTX 275, and it is considerably cheaper than the GeForce GTX 285. It's also about $120 more affordable than the Radeon HD 5870, which currently holds the fastest single-GPU graphics card crown.

Read the complete review.

Related Stories

HIS Radeon HD 6850 IceQ X & Radeon HD 6870 IceQ X Turbo Crossfire Graphics Cards Reviewed

No tags on this story

Next: 123456 Was the most common Hotmail password in phishing attack

30 comments

User Comments (30)

Post a comment

Nirkon on October 9, 2009 7:17 AM	Great stuff! Makes me glad to be in the ATI camp again I won't be upgrading anything anytime soon though Reply \| Quote
burty117 on October 9, 2009 7:38 AM	I maybe an Nvidia fan (but I am also an AMD Proccessor fan) I have to give it this much that, that is a pretty impressive bit of kit, plus its size is also a god send for some of the guys I know. Overall, I think I may have to convert to ATI! Reply \| Quote
Reloader2 on October 9, 2009 9:33 AM	Damn that's a hot card! I got my 4890 2 weeks before these cards came out. But damn that is a hot card. Reply \| Quote
TomSEA on October 9, 2009 10:33 AM	Excellent review - thanks! Reply \| Quote
Rage_3K_Moiz on October 9, 2009 12:02 PM	This looks like a sweeter card than the 5870! Question: Can I Crossfire this with an HD 4870 or HD 4850? Reply \| Quote
Guest on October 9, 2009 2:11 PM	What about Supreme Commander? Am I the only one who noticed that they listed it in the benchmark info, but didn't bench it? Reply \| Quote
Steve on October 9, 2009 4:29 PM	Guest said: What about Supreme Commander? Am I the only one who noticed that they listed it in the benchmark info, but didn't bench it? Supreme Commander has been dropped and the list is updated! Reply \| Quote
Guest on October 9, 2009 8:21 PM	Yeaa... Finally, the card that can fit my cheap casing.... Reply \| Quote
red1776 on October 11, 2009 10:52 PM	Rage_3K_Moiz said: This looks like a sweeter card than the 5870! Question: Can I Crossfire this with an HD 4870 or HD 4850? I really wish someone had the answer to Moiz's question. what an upgrade path it would be if you could. Reply \| Quote
9Nails on October 11, 2009 11:04 PM	I'm thinking about this for my holiday wish list. Looks like a good deal at a good price. My only problem is that it still isn't creamy smooth in Crysis and my 8800 GTX OC is preforming well enough. I'd hope for triple digits in Crysis after waiting 2 years for a new GPU. Crysis is my most watched benchmark - when a card can play that game smooth on a 22" in full quality I'll be most likely able to play anything really well at full quality. For the past 3 card series (2xxx, 3xxx, 4xxx series / R600, R700, R800 GPU's), has prices come down but performance stayed about the same? Reply \| Quote
red1776 on October 11, 2009 11:30 PM	I'm thinking about this for my holiday wish list. Looks like a good deal at a good price. My only problem is that it still isn't creamy smooth in Crysis and my 8800 GTX OC is preforming well enough. I'd hope for triple digits in Crysis after waiting 2 years for a new GPU. Crysis is my most watched benchmark - when a card can play that game smooth on a 22" in full quality I'll be most likely able to play anything really well at full quality. For the past 3 card series (2xxx, 3xxx, 4xxx series / R600, R700, R800 GPU's), has prices come down but performance stayed about the same? ummm, boy its hard to know where to start with that 9. firstly, "creamy smooth" starts well before 100+ FPS, your eye cant detect anything over 60 FPS, secondly, if you really cant see the difference between the 2xxx series and the 5xxx series, maybe you should stick with your 8800 GTX, because its not getting anywhere near 35 FPS on high in crysis at 1680x1050 or 1920x1020. and if you purchased your card back then....you paid more for it then the 5850. Reply \| Quote
Julio on October 11, 2009 11:59 PM	Performance has definitely improved across the board in newer generation cards, but perhaps even more relevant than that, you can get a very fast card for less money today. The Radeon 5750 is a great example of this, but this wave of uber-fast mainstream cards started with the last generation of GPUs. As for Crysis performance, sure it's a good benchmark because it remains one (if not the most) demanding PC game out there. But at the same time PC developers have shifted their focus and today 99% of new game releases can do with less horsepower than Crysis, a two year old game. Reply \| Quote
red1776 on October 12, 2009 12:22 AM	Performance has definitely improved across the board in newer generation cards, but perhaps even more relevant than that, you can get a very fast card for less money today. The Radeon 5750 is a great example of this, but this wave of uber-fast mainstream cards started with the last generation of GPUs. As for Crysis performance, sure it's a good benchmark because it remains one (if not the most) demanding PC game out there. But at the same time PC developers have shifted their focus and today 99% of new game releases can do with less horsepower than Crysis, a two year old game. not to mention that Crysis code is very inefficiently written. (i think that's what Julio just said) Reply \| Quote
Steve on October 12, 2009 5:15 AM	red1776 said: Rage_3K_Moiz said: This looks like a sweeter card than the 5870! Question: Can I Crossfire this with an HD 4870 or HD 4850? I really wish someone had the answer to Moiz's question. what an upgrade path it would be if you could. Someone would have sooner but someone was super busy testing the Radeon HD 5770. Anyway I just tried to Crossfire the two cards but it wouldn’t work, at least not with current drivers. You could use either card of course but not both together in Crossfire mode. I will keep looking into this when I have some free time Reply \| Quote
Rage_3K_Moiz on October 12, 2009 7:42 AM	Thanks for the reply Steve. When can we expect the 5770 review? Reply \| Quote
Steve on October 12, 2009 8:07 AM	Thanks for the reply Steve. When can we expect the 5770 review? How long can you stay awake Its not too far away.... Reply \| Quote
Ritwik7 on October 12, 2009 1:53 PM	The 5850 hits the sweet-spot of price and performance! Would be a lovely card to get. Eagerly awaiting the HD 5770 review... Reply \| Quote
Rage_3K_Moiz on November 1, 2009 10:14 AM	Erm, what? :S Reply \| Quote
red1776 on November 1, 2009 10:21 AM	ati grarphic card always driver problem. ati always use "HD" as marketing. nividia the gretest graphic devolepes not just for game other like architreture ,medical science,designing and etc. just earn bit more money in your graphic card and buy ' msi N275GTX Lightning ". better,best and mind blowing. I see in addition to spell check....Techspot needs a fact check. Reply \| Quote
mailpup on November 1, 2009 1:37 PM	A grammar, syntax, punctuation and capitalization check wouldn't hurt either but no one is perfect. Reply \| Quote
Guest on November 9, 2009 9:04 PM	I was just wondering, what cpu heatsink are they using here? looks very nice Reply \| Quote
Steve on November 10, 2009 10:33 PM	Its the Noctua NH-C12P.... [link] Reply \| Quote
Guest on November 11, 2009 2:40 PM	Thank you very much Reply \| Quote
Guest on November 15, 2009 2:47 PM	Are you on crack? The GTX295 clearly won almost every test you threw at it. Why does your conclusion state that the 5850 wins everything? Did you just phone the conclusion in? Reply \| Quote
Rage_3K_Moiz on November 15, 2009 3:10 PM	When you pay $500, you do expect it to be faster than every other card that's tested. The fact that a card half the price comes even close is a marvel in itself IMO. Reply \| Quote