Sapphire HD 5850 Review

Testing:

What would testing be if you did not show both sides of the fence? In this test, PhysX was set to low, while leaving the remaining settings intact. You have seen time and again where the ATI cards suffer when PhysX is enabled. Mirror's Edge and Cryostasis are two prime examples. Darkest of Days is no different. What happens in this test shows that, although the game can be played by cards from the red team, the video effects and quality are diminished.

Game Settings:

• 4x Anti-Aliasing
• 16x Anisotrophic Filtering
• PhysX: Low
• Ambient Occlusion: On
• Quality: High
• Resolution: 1280x1024 - 2560x1600

Higher is Better

The HD 5850 performs above the GTX 285 in all four resolutions but the advantage shrinks to 2 FPS at 2560x1600. The advantage over ATI's and Nvidia's last gen cards is evident through all the resolutions tested.