Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 Xtreme 1GB Graphics Card Review

A Closer LookThe card has a familiar cooler on top which includes a black plastic design with silver accents. There is also a large Sapphire branded gloss black fan situated just off centre.

The cooler sits just below the height of the twin expansion bracket and covers the majority of the cards PCB from edge to edge. Under the black plastic casing the card has a aluminum fin-based heatsink with copper heatpipes passing through the middle.

The card has an 80mm fan which is gloss black and therefore has a reflective surface with the Sapphire logo in the middle. It sits off centre to the card and runs very quietly and efficiently.

The back of the card shows us the PCB using a typical design with a few mounting clips and screws scattered accross the card and the bulk of the cooler being clamped down in the middle of the card.

The card is powered by two 6-pin PCI-Express connectors which are on the end of the card, though we prefer having power connections on the top of cards though due to the size of the card you shouldn’t be faced with any issues of your cables reaching or any problems with clearance.

Along the top in typical fashion we see a single CrossFire connector, which we know hooking up two 5850’s in CrossFire gives some fantastic results that can rival some of the most current cards on the market.

Looking at the connectivity on this card we have a DisplayPort connector, HDMI and a single DVI port which allows for multiple connectivity options and appeals to a big market by using three different type connectors.