Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 OC 2GB Graphics Card Review

The beginning of March saw the launch of the 7800 series from AMD, and as a general rule of thumb from AMD, we see nothing more than a paper launch as described in the industry. There were a couple of reference samples floating around, but it was made clear that retail channel stock and custom cards will not be arriving until a couple of weeks later.

Now while we are keen to get our hands on anything that’s thrown our way, a reference card doesn’t exactly get our excitement going, and you’ll more frequently see us taking a look at custom cards with factory overclocks or custom coolers and more frequently than ever, cards that incorporate both.

When it comes to AMD and custom cards, the main name that springs to mind is Sapphire, as they are simply renowned the world over for making extremist cards that push past the boundaries past stock speeds and also utilise a more efficient cooler that keeps temperatures lower, while keeping noise levels and power consumption to a minimum.

One of the key aspects of the 7800 series is the balance between price and performance and from a first glance, it seems to offer an amazing bang for buck based on the performance on offer. Sapphire are hoping to harness this selling point by offering even more with their Radeon 7850 OC Edition which incorporates a custom cooler design and faster clock speed.

With an interesting card on hand, lets get straight into looking at what’s on offer inside the packaging, before we take a look at the card aesthetically, and then jump straight into seeing how this card compares against other similar cards on the market to see if it can take that bang for buck award, or even better; Editor’s Choice.

Specifications