The Radeon HD 5850 is ATI's video card of choice for the gamer on a budget. It takes over where last generation's price to performance darling, the Radeon HD 4850, left off. It's also happens to be in the highest echelon of AMD's new Vision platform initiative, where it's paired with AMD 890FX based motherboards and Phenom II X6 processors. While an standard Radeon HD 5850 board is exciting enough to get us perked up and paying attention, ASUS has brought its special sauce to the table with a special edition called the TOP DirectCu. Speeds aren't the only thing which ASUS changed, however they have done a great rework on the cooling solution and some serious upfront component screening. - PCStats

ASUS Extreme AH5850 TOP DirectCu Styling Preview

One of the differences ASUS mentions between this specific graphics card and the standard Radeon HD 5850 is that the TOP DirectCu version comes with an specially screened graphics chipset and Samsung chips, both of which are pre-overclocked right out of the box. Their GPU has been bumped up from the default to 765MHz, and the memory up to 4500MHz thanks to quad pumping. ASUS has also fitted this PCI Express card with a custom thermal solution that places two 8mm diameter copper heatpipes in direct contact with the Radeon HD 5850 silicon. It's the same approach many top-notch CPU coolers use these days.

The Radeon HD 5850 is an winner for both ATI and enthusiasts. It's the rare video card that manages to balance price, 3D performance, features and power usage, resulting in a total package that will satisfy almost any gaming enthusiast. ATI's RV870 chipset is powerful enough to play pretty much any game you throw at it without breaking a sweat. So even Crysis was smooth at widescreen resolutions with detail settings turned up maximum and the anti-aliasing cranked up. While ASUS has factory overclocked this card up to 765/4500MHz, and if this particular sample is any indication it has a substantial amount of overclocking headroom.

Now we were able to push this particular card to 945/5260MHz, some twentyfive percent faster than an stock Radeon HD 5850. While even the entry-level video cards within these series support DirectX 11, it takes a board in the class of the Radeon HD 5850 to actually make good use of these new features. This card is powerful enough that you can activate features like tessellation and compute shading in DirectX 11 compatible games and still maintain a decent frame rate. With a street price of around $315, the Extreme AH5850 TOP DirectCu edition is an excellent value for the enthusiast and certainly something to keep in mind.

It has performance to spare for running today's games, and support for DirectX 11 features that will make it into tomorrow's gaming titles. The only real difficulty will be finding one, since these Radeon HD 5850's are in such an high demand that manufacturers and retailers have had difficult keeping them in supply, and with cards like the ASUS Eextreme AH5850 TOP DirectCu it's easy to see why.