So only a few months ago AMD released their newest Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics cards which quickly became a big success simply due to the numerous improvements made over previous generations. Up to recently all cards available from all manufacturers were reference design boards which means they were all made to the same specifications, using the same components and then a sticker was added on the cooler depending on the brand. Now we are seeing more and more custom designed Radeon HD 5850 cards that use a non reference cooler and PCB design. While this allows for considerable production optimizations and reduction in cost, it also risks that it might not work as optimally. - techPowerUp

ASUS Extreme AH5850 TOP DirectCu Version Review

With this card ASUS is introducing a new cooler concept called DirectCu. The basic design princicle is that the cooler's heatpipes make direct contact with the GPU die, without any cooling baseplate in between. According to ASUS the new cooler delivers better cooling performance at less fan noise than the reference design. ASUS has also increased the clock speeds to 765/4500MHz, which is a decent, but not spectacular increase over the reference values. When comparing this video card to the ASUS Extreme AH5830 DirectCu version that we reviewed recently, the only difference is the GPU core and the red stripes on the cooler.

Now ASUS is using a new cooler that is designed to combine low fan noise and cooling performance at an affordable price. You can immediately see the copper heatpipes coming out of the thermal assembly, conveying an feeling of cooling power. ASUS is one of the first companies to adapt such direct touch heatpipes system on a graphics cooler. Just like the reference design, the DirectCu edition uses two slots in your system. And also CrossFire configurations are supported to improve performance even further. The GDDR5 memory chips used are made by Samsung, and they are specified to run at 5000MHz effective speed.

We can only applaud ASUS for their implementation of their Extreme AH5850 TOP DirectCu edition. The board performed flawlessly in almost all our tests. The included overclock out of the box can give the card a performance boost of about 3% which is justified considering the price increase of $10. This is actually the first overclocked card that reaches a better price to performance score than the non overclocked products. However, such a small difference will rather be barely noticable in gaming. Though an major improvement over the reference design is the cooling solution, it delivers extremely low noise levels, especially under load.

Overall the ASUS Extreme AH5850 TOP DirectCu graphics card is an excellent alternative to a reference Radeon HD 5850 card purchase, especially since the price increase is rather small and the added benefits clearly outweight the cost.