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The Bundle
Current video cards are not much enjoying much of a bundle anymore but we have to hand it to ASUS, the packaging is kind of classy and the accessories suffice to satisfy everybody's immediate needs short of an HDMI or DisplayPort cable. What is included comprises a VGA to DVI-I adapter, the crossfire bridge and a dual Molex-to-PCie power connector, just in case there is a shortage of the latter on the PSU. Further included are the (by law) mandatory quick setup guide telling you how to insert a card into the appropriate slot, in print and electronic format with the pdf centering on the driver installation and further featuring a guide to the different software options included with ASUS graphics cards. What is really missing, however, from any of the graphics cards we have gone through in the last years is a detailed description of the particular model at hand including the utilization of the different ports such as HDMI setup descriptions etc. On the other hand, whatever is included does suffice for the initial installation, the rest is up to Google and Wikipedia.
Never has a corrugated cardboard box been so classy, courtesy of the gold-embossed ASUS logo on black background!
Features at One Glance
- GPU: ATI Radeon™ 5850 (Cypress Pro)
- Bus Type: PCI-Express X16 (PCI Express 2.0)
- Dynamic power management with ATI PowerPlay technology
- 1 GB GDDR5 memory
- ATI Eyefinity technology
- ATI Avivo HD video and display technology
- ATI Stream technology
- API Support: DirectX® 9.0 and 10.0, 10.1, 11.0 Open GL3.2
- Display Formats: Two Dual Link DVI + HDMI* + DisplayPort**
- ATI CrossfireX multi-GPU
*HDMI:
High Definition Media Interface
**DisplayPort:
The DisplayPort connector supports 1, 2, or 4 data pairs in a Main Link that also carries clock and optional audio signals, each with a symbol rate of 1.62 or 2.7 Gbit/s. The video signal path supports 6 to 16 bits per color channel. A bi-directional auxiliary channel (at a constant 1 Mbit/s) carries management and device control data for the Main Link using VESA EDID and VESA MCCS standards. The video signal is not compatible with DVI or HDMI, but a DisplayPort connector can pass these signals through. While DVI and HDMI require separate clock signals, DisplayPort embeds the clock in the data signal. The data transmission protocol in DisplayPort is based on micro packets and is extensible for future feature additions, whereas DVI/HDMI transmission protocol is a Serial Data Stream at a multiple of 10 of the pixel clock rate. Finally, unlike the separate DVI/HDMI and LVDS standards, DisplayPort supports both external (box-to-box) and internal (laptop LCD panel) display connections.DisplayPort currently supports a maximum of 8.64 Gbit/s data rate over a 2 meter cable. (Source: Wikipedia)
Test configuration
Our testbed comprised the following components:
- Motherboard: ASUS M4A79T
- Memory: OCZ3ALVE16004GK
- CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 620 / 630
- Cooler: OCZ Vendetta 2
- HDD: HDD: WD 1500ADFD (Raptor)
- SSD: Intel SSDSA2MH080G15E (80 GB)
- Optical Drive: HP dvd1070i-H01 6 Multiformat DVD writer
- PSU: OCZ EvoStream (720W)
- Graphics Card: ASUS RADEON EAH5850, PowerColor RADEON HD 4890 (CF), MSI RADEON 4870, Diamond MM RADEON 4870 X2, BFG GeForce GTX280
- Monitor: Acer H233H
Without dismantling the cooler, all it takes is a look at the back of the card to determine that the ASUS RADEON EAH5850 is a single GPU solution.
All benchmarks were run under Windows7 Ultimate Edition RTM (Build 7600, all updates installed) at 1920 x 1080 with the exception of 3DMark Vantage which was run at the default setting of 1280 x 1024.
Our benchmark suite comprised:
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Graphics 
