by Rob Williams on April 14, 2011 in Graphics & Displays
It may seem odd that we’re taking a look at an HD 5850 card in 2011, but Sapphire just released an “Xtreme” edition that’s well worth the look. In addition to great pricing, the card features an improved VRM design, a more efficient cooler, and a shorter PCB. But, in the end, it’s the $150 price tag that makes this card an absolute winner.
Although we generally shun automated gaming benchmarks, we do like to run at least one to see how our GPUs scale when used in a ‘timedemo’-type scenario. Futuremark’s 3DMark 11 is without question the best such test on the market, and it’s a joy to use, and watch. The folks at Futuremark are experts in what they do, and they really know how to push that hardware of yours to its limit.
Similar to a real game, 3DMark 11 offers many configuration options, although many (including us) prefer to stick to the profiles which include Performance, and Extreme. Depending on which one you choose, the graphic options are tweaked accordingly, as well as the resolution. As you’d expect, the better the profile, the more intensive the test. The benchmark doesn’t natively support 2560×1600, so to benchmark with that, we choose the Extreme profile and simply change the resolution.
3DMark 11 goes ahead and backs up the same results we’ve see throughout the rest of our review so far. Sapphire’s Xtreme card is faster than all of its $150 competition, and by a fair margin.