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XFX HD 5850 Black Edition is a great DirectX 11 gaming card that comes factory overclocked and runs about 6% better than reference HD 5850 cards. With the card you’ll get a free Assassin’s Creed game, which although not the latest game to hit the market, should still prove to be a treat.
Although the card is overclocked, XFX decided against changing reference cooling. This was probably a wise move as thermals are very good and comparable to those on the reference card. The fan runs a bit louder in 3D than on the reference card, but it’s far from being too loud, and runs pretty quiet in 2D. Our Black Edition card consumed up to 24W more in 3D, but that’s to be expected from an overclocked card. The card’s GPU comes overclocked by 40MHz and the memory by 125MHz, but that wasn’t the maximum as we managed to push the GPU up to 930MHz without changing voltage or meddling with fan rpm.
For about €260, here, you’ll be treating yourself to the XFX HD 5850 Black Edition DirectX 11-ready gaming card with all the bells and whistles AMD’s techs bring. Nvidia is almost ready with its DirectX 11 hardware, which theoretically could affect HD 5800 pricing, but until we see fixed pricing this is just speculation. Either way, if you’re looking to buy yourself a gaming card, you can’t go wrong with XFX HD 5850 Black Edition card.