Microsoft Windows 7 will deliver DirectX 11 visual quality like never seen before, and ATI has endowed gamers with an unparalleled graphics solution in the Radeon HD 5870. While the Radeon 5800-series is a onumental feat for AMD over the unprepared competition, not everyone can fit the absolute best video card available into their budge. Armed with 1440 shader cores, the 40nm Cypress GPU HD5850 is positioned to offer an excellent value for the upper mid-range and hits the sweet-spot for DirectX 11 gamers. In this article, Benchmark Reviews compares the Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 video card, model 21162-00-50R, against a cross-section of modern graphics accelerators.