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AMD have been releasing new products at a faster than ever rate recently, and this has clearly caused some issues for their partners. It is not often that Sapphire would re-release several models from a previous generation but punters on a budget can end up with a very capable and cheap gaming system. Sapphire told us before publication that the HD5830 Xtreme will retail for £80 inc vat and the HD5850 Xtreme £100 inc vat. Building a CrossfireX gaming system for £160 or £200, capable of taking on a GTX580 is certainly not to be sniffed at.
As the testing has highlighted, CrossfireX scaling is very good indeed, the HD5830 is generally faster than the newer HD6790. Considering the HD5830 Xtreme will be retailing for £40 less than ATI's latest and greatest, it seems like a very good buy to us.
The HD5850 was always a firm favourite in the KitGuru labs, even when it was retailing for £230 last year. With the Sapphire price drop including the new low noise, high performance cooler, this is a tough one to ignore. Two of these cards in CrossfireX can often beat the nVidia GTX580, which is twice the price (£400). The only negative we can mention is that the cooler on the HD5830 has three heatpipes, while the HD5850 is a slightly weaker version with a dual heatpipe layout.
The HD5830 was never a favourite of mine because the pricing was always wrong. When this card was released it cost over £210, and at the time it was one of the worst mid range purchases on the market, Nvidia's hardware at the time was faster and cheaper. Because it was never meant to be sold for £80 however it is a completely different story today. There is no other card at this price with the same performance, and you can literally double it later, for a minor investment.
While there will be a certain stigma involved with purchasing older hardware, in this case it seems like a really good deal to us. If you are on a tight budget, then these cards from Sapphire are really hard to beat.
Pros:
- price points are literally less than half the original price
- coolers are great
- noise emissions are low
Cons:
- buying a ‘last' generation card might be hard to swallow for some people
KitGuru says: Sapphire have just launched a ‘get them while you can deal'. They are still great cards, especially with the current pricing.
Interesting idea, but nothing wrong with the 5 series, especially the 5850.
The pricing is insane, who would want a 6790 now?
Well I wasnt expecting this. I wonder if AMD like the idea of their partners releasing older series cards. Maybe its to clear a huge backlog of inventory.
6790 never really impressed me much, seemed almost identical to 5770. the 5850 at £100 is a no brainer.
I am definitely ordering two 5850s at this price. I never bought them first time around as I was a struggling student. £200 for GTX580 beating performance? yes, please.
holy crap £99 for a brand new modified HD5850? give me this any day over a HD6790!
IT makes sense but I think AMD might not be too happy. Its totally killing their HD6790 launch! to be honest, the HD5850 is a much better card, but as the author says, it was always meant to be sold for £200+ not £100. I can see these cards selling really quick once word get out.
AMD release too many cards, HD5850 had plenty of life in it, if they dropped the price to £120, instead of releasing the HD6790 which is a lesser card.
lol I can see this confusing a lot of people. far too many cards out now, especially if they are rebadging old ones.
for the public however this is a good deal, but its weird to see new, yet old cards on the market.
I think this is a great idea. I always rated the 5850, for this price there is nothing on the market to touch it. imagine if Sapphire could give it a dual crossfire connector.
Two if them can beat a GTX580, imagine what four could do for £400? !!
5830 for £80? wow, I always thought it was decent but MASSIVELY overpriced at £200, for 80 is a steal. I already just bought a new card, but if I hadn’t id be looking at two of these, for sure.
I really liked this review, but im shocked they would put the ‘lesser’ cooler on the higher spec card. was it due to the PCB design on some level? the physical size for instance?
for those who have asked. the cards are available from OCUK – then other stores a week later.
There is nothing wrong with buying older hardware (in particular when old and new are still manufactured in 40nm process). And if you get performance like that at 50% discount when compared to previous value, then it is absolute no-brainer.
Unless you have multi-display setup and hammering for ultimate performance, 2×5850 will serve you well for many years to come. I never bought original 5850, but at this price point I will certainly consider it over gtx580.
OCUK, blergh. That being said the cheapest 5850 is £108 at the moment, not a hundred 🙁
Yes, it appears the £100 price point has been raised a little. I can only go on what I am told at the time, but its not a huge price increase. I would watch what other stores do next week.
a little mistake on the 15 page with the homefront test “6850” instead of “5850” 😀
Seth : “I really liked this review, but im shocked they would put the ‘lesser’ cooler on the higher spec card. was it due to the PCB design on some level? the physical size for instance?”
I think it’s simply because 5830 have a 800Mhz GPU frequency and a TDP of 175W, and 5850 have a 725Mhz GPU and a TDP of 151W.
But why the 5850 is less cadenced than the 5830… i absolutly don’t know, maybe simply a “commercial” thing from AMD…
Thanks www. surprised it was only one. I had to do a ‘find and replace’ for 6850 and 6830 at the end 🙂
very disappointed. trixxx not support xtreme 5850, 5830 voltage over!
Hi, apparently TRIXX 4 does…..
I almost ordered 2×5850 from OCUK, but than I saw similar sales for Asus 6850 in my local shop… so for 20 euros less I have ordered 2×6850 😀
Hi there, just got myself 2 x 5830 mentionned in this test.
Since I was in a hurry I didn’t look at the package content and was a bit surprised when I discovered no crossfire bridge was included in it, shame on me for jumping on the benchmark pages too fast ^^
Question is: do I need 1 or 2 crossfire bridges to link these cards ?
Thx guys :]
Just one is needed …
Thanks, browsed a few forums where some would say one, others would say two.
Great review btw =)
Hi
where can I find these cards for sale?. I cant find it anywhere. Has to be in europe at least to the mentioned price.
Please just mail me an url to a shop with it:
Many thanks!
@Richard: Sorry to say that you might be disappointed. Sapphire did some special purchases back in March to make this product possible. When the review went live, there were Xtreme cards in the market, but we believe that a fixed number were made. Maybe around 80,000 of the 5850s. If you can’t find one – then they may well have sold out. The 5850 is really similar in terms of performance to a 1GB GTX460, so you might want to consider that around the £100 mark.
I just bought 3 5850 xtreme without seeing that I cannot use 3 5850 xtreme in CrossfireX
Can I put 2 5850 xtreme with 1 5870 in CrossfireX?