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.

Read the full review at:
http://www.techspot.com/review/206-his-radeon-hd-5850/

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Great stuff!
Makes me glad to be in the ATI camp again :)

I won't be upgrading anything anytime soon though

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!

Damn that's a hot card! I got my 4890 2 weeks before these cards came out. But damn that is a hot card.

Excellent review - thanks!

This looks like a sweeter card than the 5870!

Question: Can I Crossfire this with an HD 4870 or HD 4850?

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!

Yeaa... Finally, the card that can fit my cheap casing....

I really wish someone had the answer to Moiz's question. what an upgrade path it would be if you could.

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.

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)

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 ;)

Thanks for the reply Steve.

When can we expect the 5770 review?

How long can you stay awake Its not too far away....

The 5850 hits the sweet-spot of price and performance! Would be a lovely card to get.

Eagerly awaiting the HD 5770 review...

Erm, what? :S

I see in addition to spell check....Techspot needs a fact check.