Sapphire HD5830 Xtreme & HD5850 Xtreme Review

Introduction:

Are you looking to refresh the graphics power of your gaming setup? Maybe you have been putting off a graphics card upgrade for quite some time now, waiting for some of the next generation technologies to come down in price. Whatever your reason for looking into a new graphics card for your system; Sapphire has just launched their latest pair of cards, the Sapphire HD5830 and HD5850 Xtreme editions. These cards are going to give you full DirectX 11.0 and ShaderModel 5.0 support while giving you the ability to upgrade at a future time to a CrossFireX setup. Maybe you are looking for the perfect card to grab so you can get your feet wet with an Eyefinity setup as both of these cards are going to give you the ability to hook up three monitors on each card without the addition of a secondary graphics card installed in your system. Without any further delay, it is time to take a look at these two cards and see exactly how well they are going to compare to some of the other cards that are in their weight class, I am excited to see how well they will perform.

Closer Look:

Taking a look at the packaging for both the Sapphire HD5830 Xtreme and the Sapphire HD5850, you are going to notice that they have both close similarities as well as a wide range of differences. Both of the packages feature the same image of a warrior woman on the front; this seems to be the new image that Sapphire is placing on their packages. When I look at this woman, she gives me the impression that the card is going to be able to give you some good looking graphics while still being ready to battle it out with the competitor's cards. Sapphire's HD5830 Xtreme is the first package that I want to look at, this package has the Sapphire Logo printed in the top left hand corner with the 1GB of GDDR5 memory badge printed in the top right hand corner. There is the model name Radeon HD5830 Xtreme located in the center of the front of the package with a quick list of the main features located at the bottom of the front. These main features include ATI Eyefinity Multi-Display, onboard HDMI and DisplayPort, CrossFireX Ready, 40nm process low power badges as well as the Microsoft DirectX 11, PCI Express 2.1, and Superfast memory text printed at the bottom. When you take a look at the back of the package, you are going to get a more detailed list of features with descriptions, such as Microsoft DirectX 11, ATI Eyefinty, ATI CrossFIreX, Advanced Memory, HDMI and Audio support, as well as ATI Stream technology. Sapphire's HD5850 packaging is very similar to the HD5830 package, however it is much smaller in size. You are still going to see the Sapphire logo in the top left hand corner as well as the 1GB of GDDR5 memory badge in the upper right hand corner. The ATI Eyefinity Multi-Display, Onboard HDMI and DisplayPort, CrossFireX Ready, and 2+ TeraFLOPS Processing Power badges located at the bottom of the package. On the reverse of the package you will also still find a larger and more detailed list of more features of the card; such as Microsoft DirectX 11, ATI Eyefinity Multi-Display, ATI CrossFireX, Advanced Memory, HDMI and Audio Support, More than 2 teraFLOPS, and ATI Stream technology.

When you open up the packaging for the Sapphire HD5830 graphics card, you are going to find a large cardboard box that has the HD5830 in an anti-static bag that is protected with bubble wrap keeping the card in place and safe from any sort of damages that may occur during the shipping process. Sapphire decided to go with a more compact package for the HD5850, however you are still going to get a cardboard box with a piece of protective foam keeping the card from moving around inside the package while it is being shipped and the card is once again wrapped up in a protective anti-static bag that also features bubble wrapping protection. Inside each of the packages, you will find identical parts. Both packages have a drivers CD, an installation manual, an invitation to the Sapphire Select Club, two 4 pin molex to 6 pin PCI-E power adapters and a DVI to analog monitor adapter.

Now that we have both of the packages examined, it is time to take a closer look at both the Sapphire HD5830 Xtreme and the Sapphire HD5850 Xtreme and see what each of the cards look like.