ASUS EAH5850/2DIS/1GD5 is one of the cards that comes into the market. In fact, till today, we aren't able to find that many Radeon HD 5850 in the local market. As most of you are aware, the ASUS version of this card is actually the original AMD design. Despite it being the original AMD design, ASUS is able to enhance on that by providing a software SmartDoctor for end users to tune up the GPU voltage, CLK speed to boost up the performance of the card. To date, there are a few third party tools and hacked BIOS available but would you want to mess up your card with a wrong flash ?

With SmartDoctor, this is no longer an issue as you do not need to rely on third party tools to overclock it within Windows 7. In our tests, we used the software tool provided in the package and adjusted the voltage to 1.43v (the maximum setting is 1.45v). We managed to run through 3Dmark06, 3DMarkVantage and all the other benchmarks shown in the article with no issues. From 725/1000 to 989/4782, it gave us a performance boost of up to 30% in some benchmarks. In fact, a higher clock speed of 1GHz is achievable but it is not that stable.

Package wise, ASUS provided the very basic for it's hardware and added mostly software enhancements e.g. SmartDoctor that you won't find on other manufacturer's card. This is good for the end consumer if the price tag is on par with other vendor's similar product.

In conclusion, if you intend to purchase a Radeon HD 5870, I think you should seriously reconsider and take a look at what the Radeon HD5850 can offer. It seems that this card is highly overclockable and offers a better price/performance ratio than other mid range to high end cards.

Price from 265 USD (Click the icons on the top and bottom of the page)

Pros

• Game Bundle -Dirt2
• Supports DX11
• CrossFire X support
• Software tools bundled - SmartDoctor, Spendid and GamerOSD

Cons

• NIL

Ratings

Here are my ratings out of 10 stars.