Asus vs Sapphire

Its the same-thing, brands have nothing to do with performance.

However, I do suggest the ASUS for volt-modding, as both cards have fantastic coolers.

Sapphire toxic cards are always way overpriced. They Asus Top card and Sapphire Toxic have the same clocks and upgraded coolers. I'm a fan of ASUS and would suggest them, which will also save you a few buck. (At least from the Newegg prices).

It's not a crappy question at all. I have also gone through the painstaking decision of purchasing one of these two cards. I ended up going with the Sapphire Toxic version simply because it was $315 on amazon for a day or so. I jumped on it as it was $25 cheaper than the asus version. The Toxic version also has very good reviews from anyone who has reviewed it, including Hardware Canucks which is very nvidia biased (the card won a clean sweep of all review awards!). The main benefit the Asus DirectCU version has is the overvolting. Overvolting wasn't very attractive to me because I have a pretty high overclock on my old Q6600 that runs stable, but any increase in case temperature I feel would be unsafe for my CPU to run resulting in lowering my CPU clock. This made the Toxic that much sexier. My Toxic is 100% stable clocked at 900/1200 with temps never going over 60C. If heat isn't a problem for you and you want the highest OC you can get from the card, the ASUS DirectCU is probably the better choice. If you aren't interested in overvolting and want a very solid stable overclocking card, get the Toxic (plus the Toxic looks so hot it's hard to pass up lol!).

Personally though, if I were to have waited one month on my purchase, I probably would have gone with the ASUS DirectCU GTX 460 1GB! It is definitely the best bang for the $! ATI vs nvidia is meaningless to me, I just wanted the best card. Hope this helps!

Thanks alot im going with the Asus card. Although the toxic looks cooler hahaha i have about 4 240mm fans in my case so hopefully it will be enough to keep me cool  
This really bugged me for a while but once again thanx alot.

I actually considered the GTX460 but its alot more expensive than the HD5850 (in South Africa anyway) im the same dont care bout ATI and nVidia just want the best performance overall for my PC

Once again thanx loads

The DirectCU is the best HD5850 you can buy, especially if you will be overclocking. Here is a review;
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1273/1/

Toxic hands down, because it is quieter.

Both cards make a negligible amount of noise according to all the reviews I've seen. If there is a difference it can hardly be compared to an extra 100mhz on the core when OCing.

The cooler on the Asus is a jet engine above 50%.

says who?

heres one review

The customer reviews on Newegg are also full of people mentioning how quiet the card is.

I can't hear the jet with my huge muffs on. haha.

Hahaha nah its fine im still going with Asus all in all.
My final Build for my pc:
Motherboard: ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3
CPU: AMD X4 965 3.2GHZ
Memory: ME-C2G3D16D9x2 – Corsair Dominator DDR3- 1600Mhz
Graphics Card: ASUS EAH5850 DirectCU TOP/2DIS/1GD5

you guys really helped me alot with picking the right parts for my new pc

Looks great, except you either have a typo, or someones trying to sell you a 955 as an 965 XD.

yeah sorry bout that made a typo
AMD X4 965 3.4GHZ, lol my bad


Thanks again

I would just get the 955 if you are going to overclock anyway. The difference is meaningless and you will save some money. Along the same lines there is a version of the DirectCU which doesn't have the factory overclock which, again, is meaningless if you are going to overclock. Going for that one could save you some money as well.

the price difference is not that much besides ill have to save up for decent cooling before im going to OC, so for the while being i can say i have it  

The stock coolers aren't great but they can easily handle an OC large enough that there is no reason to waste $15 extra dollars on the same processor with the same fan because it has what is essentially a factory overclock.

like i said i dont mind really, its just the tought that counts. I know its not going to make a major difference but i just wanted the chip thats all even if its $3 extra

Well, if you really don't mind spending a bit more have you considered a x6 processor?
It isn't much more and that extra money actually will give you a real benefit;
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
It also has a crazy number of combos(300+) to choose from so you may find one that makes it an even better choice.

I did check it out, but nah im happy with my decision, reason why i never push my pc to the max so i wont need it really, i just need a pc if i can install a game or software it will run with no problems. besides the only one we have avalible is the 2.8ghz but the price difference is to much