Sapphire To Produce Super Radeon HD 5850 Card

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Graphics card manufacturer Sapphire recently released a bunch of entry-level low-cost Radeon HD 5000-series cards, but now they’re aiming for the high-end with a new “Toxic-series” Radeon HD 5850 card that will feature overclocked memory and processor speeds, along with a non-stock cooler. The overclocked card will surpass ATI’s reference card for the Radeon HD 5850 GPU.

The most notable thing about the upcoming Toxic 5850 is that it’s built on a custom-blue PCB board. It also features the aforementioned dual slot Vapor Chamber cooler for keeping the overclocked parts cool. Sapphire says that the Vapor Chamber cooler will run 10 dBs quieter than the stock card, and 15 degrees cooler. Sapphire has overclocked the GPU to 765MHz, compared to the 725MHz of the stock reference card. The 1GB of VRAM is overclocked to 4500MHz while the stock card has it running at 4000MHz.

Needless to say, it’s a pretty impressive overclock, considering that manufacturers like Sapphire rarely deviate from the specs provided by the reference card. However, this isn’t unheard of and Sapphire is likely trying to differentiate themselves in the market of Radeon HD 5850 graphics cards.

Like the reference card, it will still have 1440 steam processors and a 256-bit memory interface. Like all of ATI’s Radeon HD 5000-series card, it’ll still give you the CrossfireX, Eyefinity and DirectX 11 features. The card was set to be released on February 15th, but it has been delayed indefinitely. UK eRetailers are listing the card for pre-order a price of £270 ($404).