Sapphire HD6850 Toxic
- Details
- Category: Video Cards
- Published: Thursday, 18 November 2010 18:22
Only a few weeks ago AMD introduced their 6800 series cards featuring both the 6850 and 6870. We covered the 6870 with both Single and Dual card reviews. It didn’t take long to see non-reference designs coming from Sapphire with their Toxic HD6850 being announced today. We have had the pleasure of putting the card through its paces to see how it compares to the 6870 in both price and performance. With the GPU being clocked at 820MHz over the stock 775MHz and a memory frequency bump of 400MHz, from 4000Mhz to 4400MHz it should perform well. But with a few less shaders, compaired to the HD6870, will it hold its own? How will it compaire to Nvidia's offerings?
Shortly after working on our original review of the HD 6870, I was surprised by the FedEx guy showing up late Wednesday evening with a HD 6870 from Sapphire in hand. Who needs sleep right? I didn’t waste any time firing our test bench back up to put the card to the test. The best part? Because I happened to have two cards sitting here I went ahead and threw them together in Crossfire for a little multi-card action. Of course you have to click the link below to find out how both performed.
Earlier this week the rumors of an upcoming AMD video card line was finally confirmed with their HD 6800 series. They will be starting things off with both the HD6870 and HD6850. This time around the x800 cards are AMD’s “sweet spot” cards, with a flagship card to follow. Today we will be taking a look at the HD6870, specifically Diamond Multimedia’s Overclocked version. How will the HD6870 hold up? I can’t contain myself anymore, let’s jump in!
Having taken a look at the GTX 460 only a few weeks ago, I was left impressed with its performance as it overpowered the HD 5770’s that we have always recommended. My only complaint was that NVidia’s lowest Direct X11 card would not run in my Shuttles because of the dual 6 pin connectors. With their newest addition we finally have a NVidia solution that not only has just one 6 pin, but comes in at just under 130 bucks.· Today we will be taking a peak at Gigabytes version of the GTS450 along with the reference card from NVidia to see both the difference between the two and the GTS 450’s SLI performance.
As much fun as it might be to play on three monitors using Eyefinity, the biggest hurdle to cost is the cost of three monitors, an Eyefinity enabled video card, and an active display port to DVI adapter. Two weeks ago I took a look at the 
Although we have reviewed countless ATI cards recently, we weren’t deaf to the recent release of NVidia’s GTX460. With people calling it the best mid-range gaming card on the market, I had to get my hands on one. After a few emails, Sparkle was nice enough to send one out to us to take a look. Using the reference design, we should get a good idea of their overall performance while also being able to compare it to my current favorite, the HD5770.
With a bump from the original DDR2 and DDR3 to GDDR5 on both its HD5550 and HD5570 cards ATI obviously hasn’t forgotten about its budget models. We have taken a look at their HD5550 twice before with both the 
Over the past few months I haven’t hidden the fact that my favorite video card for a gamer on a budget is ATI’s HD5770. You even have the ability to run Eyefinity! The problem is, Eyefinity requires that you pick up an active adapter unless you are lucky enough to have a monitor with a display port connection. An active adapter can run you up to $100 unless you decide to go with a VGA model. Sapphire has introduced a cure for those budget minded gamers looking for their triple monitor goodness. The cure is their HD5770 Flex, let’s take a look at it.
There is no disputing ATI’s HD5770 is one of the best buys right now for both pure gaming value. Of course some manufactures don’t leave well enough alone and love to tweak a little more performance out of their cards. Today we are taking a look at Gigabytes HD5770 SOC, SOC standing for Super Over Clock. With a 50MHz bump over the standard offering we are curious how much of a performance boost you will see. The only way to find out is to toss it in our test rig and use it as an excuse to play a few games. Let’s jump in!
ATI has been sure to cover every possible price and performance range with its HD5000 series cards. We have taken a look at Sapphire’s HD5550 Ultimate with a full gig of ram and today we have the chance to look a little closer at Sapphires HD5550 OC. With an overclock of just over 18% on the GPU, Sapphire is trying to give this sub $100 card the performance of it's faster siblings.
The “Ultimate” product line from Sapphire covers more than just the 5550 that we recently took a look at. Today we are taking a look at their HD5670 Ultimate that sports a similar heatsink design as the HD5550 but with the obvious performance increase from the faster 5670 lineup. The HD5670 line is touching on budget gaming performance more than the limited performance we saw out of the HD5550. With Crossfire and Eyefinity capability it could be a hidden gem, the only way we can find out is to put it to the test. Let’s jump in.
Having already tested out the 5770 recently, I was excited to find out that we had a 5870 coming in to try out. The 5770’s performance was impressive; imagine what the 5870 can do. This is also a chance to try out Eyefinity, multiple monitors finally being used for gaming! The 5870 is from PowerColor with their PCS+ cooling solution. Let’s find out how it performs!
When putting together a gaming rig, unless you’re rolling in the dough you have to make compromises with every part of the build. If we didn’t everyone would be running around with systems like 
It wasn't too long ago that multiple displays were considered to be a pure enthusiast sport. Nowadays, with both hardware and software becoming more multi-task friendly, even the average user can find themselves short of desktop area. If you have the luxury of built-in dual outputs on your video card, that's great. But what if you don't or what if you find yourself craving a third what do you do? And what about laptops, for that matter? Diamond Multimedia has developed an adapter to help in all those situations and more, and has sent us one to see for ourselves.
*Our 200th Review!* Most video card manufactures stick to the reference design’s from Nvidia and ATI. Sparkle and international graphics card manufacture that has been pushing into the US recently has a product line called Calibre. The Calibre line is perfect for enthusiasts who are looking for better overclocking and/or quieter video cards. Today I have the chance to take a look at the Sparkle Calibre X265, a GeForce 260 with a slick looking cooling solution and a performance bump.