ATI's Radeon HD 5850 hit the streets, the HD 5870, shook up the graphics card market in mid-September. Regardless of the late arrival, HD 5850 is gaining the reputation as a mid-priced power-house and probably the highest value anywhere. Read on to discover what's under the hood. Important things first : Any member of ATI's new 5800 family is going to be something special. After some launch delays and plenty of hype, ATI popped the cork on the 1st line of graphics cards with DirectX eleven supports. In fact, the "Evergreen" line of GPU's with the new RV870 design was the 1st truly new development to hit the graphics card market in a considerable time, one that will doubtless leave Nvidia running to meet the challenge with something really new - not rehashed -- by the vacations.

HD 5850 is over 100 USD cheaper the HD 5870 and occupies about 1" less property -- about 9.5". Launched at approximately $260, the HD 5850 yields 2.15 bln transistors plus 1GB of GDDR5 with a memory clock tripping the radar at 1000MHz. The core clock thrill along at 725MHz, and gives 1440 Stream Processing Units. Adding AMD Eyefinity as well as DirectX eleven support opens the door to a new generation of gaming. Cutting to the chase, we are speaking about a major game-players card at a fantastic price --one that is sure to come down by spring.
The reviews are coming in less than a week after the HD 5850 hit the shelves.

Over at Newegg ratings are holding steady at Fantastic while the review at Computer Point of view concludes, "the new Radeon HD 5850 is certainly the best card you can get in the $250 price range today and I believe it is my best overall pick for all gamers." TechReport weighs in with "the Radeon HD 5850 manages to outshine the speediest single-GPU GeForce card overall while costing less, drawing less power, and manufacturing less noise." It's new, it's keenly priced, it's attractive, and folk adore it.

So what are you waiting for? ATI Radeon HD 5850 Nuts and

Core Clock: 725MHz Memory: 1GB GDDR5
Transistors: 2.15 bn.
Resolution: 2560x1600
Memory Clock: 1000MHz.