AMD went all in with the launch of the Radeon HD 5800 series and flagship Radeon HD 5870. With the fastest GPU on the market it could easily dominate the benchmarks. The only cards that could threaten AMD's new top model where those with two graphics circuits, Radeon HD 4870X2 and GeForce GTX 295. The performance bar was raised substantially, but the price may have been a bit steep for some.
Even if Radeon HD 5870 delivers for the price, far from everyone can afford it, near $400 is a lot to spend on a graphics card. Of course, AMD knows this and therefore it has now launched Radeon HD 5850 with the same GPU, AMD Cypress, but with toned down performance and a much lower price.
We presented Radeon HD 5850 back in our presentation of the Evergreen family and the new Radeon HD 5800 series, but now the first samples have appeared and with them the first reviews. We are working on our reviews of Radeon HD 5850 but until then we have gathered some interesting articles below.
Radeon HD 5850 is on average 10-15% slower than big brother, but costs close to 30% less, making it a very affordable alternative for those who are hunting DirectX 11 or Eyefinity support.
Radeon HD 5850 reviews:
- Anandtech - PCPerspective - HotHardware - Firingsquad - TechReport -
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Radeon HD 5850, the more affordable DirectX 11 alternative
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