Sapphire intros HD5850, HD 5870 graphics cards

Sapphire is number two on the list of “partners to issue a release of ATI’s DirectX 11-compatible HD 5800 series.” The packaging and exterior design is different, but the features for Sapphire’s Radeon HD 5870 and HD 5850 are still similar to ATI’s reference design, with support for ATI’s Eyefinity multi-display tech and ATI Stream technology for parallel GPU-CPU processing. Both also come with 1GB of GDDR5 memory and enough processing power to make us feel a little bad about springing for last season’s batch of graphics cards.

Like XFX’s release, Sapphire’s HD 5800 series cards also come with a coupon for a free download of DiRT2, but also adds a free copy of Interactive Entertainment’s Battlestations Pacific.