Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 Xtreme 1GB Review

Of all the games we test, it might be this one that needs no introduction. Back in 1998, Blizzard unleashed what was soon to be one of the most successful RTS titles on the planet, and even as of today, the original is still heavily played all around the world – even in actual competitions. StarCraft II of course had a lot of hype to live up to, and it did, thanks to its intense gameplay and superb graphics.

Manual Run-through: The portion of the game we use for testing is part of the Zero Hour mission, which has us holding fort until we’re able to evacuate. Our saved game starts us in the middle of the mission, and from the get-go, we build a couple of buildings and concurrently move our main units up and around the map. Total playtime lasts about two minutes.

I dislike StarCraft II more as a benchmark the more I use it, but even with its sporadic minimum frame rates, Sapphire’s card still surpassed the other cards in its price-range – and even surpassed the $230 GTX 560 Ti. Given the major boost between the last time we benched the HD 5850 and now, it’s clear that AMD has made some major improvements in its driver… the gain is much more stark than in the other games we’ve tested.