ATi Radeon HD5830 1GB vs. HD4830 review

The purpose of this review

We know what the HD5830 is all about, its considered a lame duck with partial credit for this. The purpose in me busting out my review skills is to settle whether this card is as bad as all the reviews say, or if the HD5830 deserves more credit than it has been given. In this review I will address as many aspects as possible, while perhaps most importantly, using Catalyst 10.3 drivers to see if ATi have made any driver specific optimisations for the HD5830.

Introduction

I don't think I need to go into too much detail here. We know what the HD5830 is supposed to do, which is to say, bridge the ATi lineup gap between the value champion Radeon HD5770, and the bang for buck champion Radeon HD5850.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ket/specs1.jpg
On paper the HD5830 seems like it could be a nice bit of kit - but is it?

Looking at the specification what must be the first thing that pokes you in the eyes about the HD5830 is how its Fillrate and Z-Stencil buffer are actually inferior to the HD5770. Shocking, but understandable given the lower GPU clock. Nothing too crippling there then. The next thing that stands out is the ROP count. With only 16 ROPs the HD5830 has certainly been on a muscle diet. We will see how this impacts the card later with Catalyst 10.3 drivers. Finally, power consumption. At 175w maximum board power, the HD5830 certainly likes to be a bit of a power guzzler. In comparison to nVidias latest crop of cards though, its not too bad albiet a little disappointing of ATi.

Packaging & Accessories

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/boxfront.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../packaging.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ccessories.jpg

Theres really not much to say here. Standard packaging and accessories bundle. It was a little disappointing to not find a HDMI cable in with the accessories, though.

The card - Closeup

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../cardfront.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/cardside.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../cardside1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../cardangle.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/cardback.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../cardports.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v187/bizket/naked.jpg

Now this is more like it, something interesting to look at. On first glance the PCB looked like it was non reference, but perhaps it is after all. The memory fitted to this card is Samsung K4G10325FE-HC04. This stuff is rated for a jaw-dropping 5000MHz! Overclocking should be fun with this card :D

Overclocking

So it begins.. man vs. machine, epeen vs. who gives a crap, and so on and so on..

Overclocking with the HD5830 proved to be very rewarding. In exchange for a little of my time I managed to increase GPU and memory clocks very respectably. Contrary to the GPU-Z \ Overdrive shots I was able to get all the way up to 975 / 5600. However at these clocks the card would randomly lock up, no artifacts, just lock up. Once RBE fully supports the HD5830 I hope I can play around with voltages a little and get the uppermost limits stable. In the meantime, 950 / 5200 is certainly nothing to turn your nose up at.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v187/bizket/OC.jpg

Eagle eyes may notice GPU-Z reporting the SAPPHIRE card as a ASUS card. This is not a bug, but rather a result of some vBIOS "tinkering" I did. Allow me to explain. On first installing this card the CCC Overdrive limits offered by the Sapphire vBIOS were very crummy. 875 for the GPU and 1200 for the memory, rubbish. So I done a little sniffing around and ended up yanking out the signature from a Asus vBIOS, which allowed upper GPU and vRAM limits of 1200 / 1400 respectively. Whilst I was at it I tweaked 2D GPU speeds to 250MHz and set my own thermal paramaters. The results are as you see in the above screenshot.

Test System

Asus Maximus 2 Formula w\ smBIOS 2302
C2Q 8400 @ 3.6GHz 480FSB
OCZ Platinum PC9200 (black PCB) @ 1156MHz 5-5-5-15
Asus Xonar DX 7.1
WD Black 640GB SATA2, 32MB Cache
Chipset drivers: 9.1.1.1025
Audio drivers: 7.12.8.1780
PhysX (3D Vantage): 9.10.0129
Catalyst: 10.3
DirectX: June 2010 release

Benchmarks

For todays benchmarks I'll be using the following;

Stalker COP benchmark
Crysis Warhead benchmark
3D Mark Vantage
Unigine 2.1
Final Fantasy XIV
AvP benchmark

For comparison I have run these benchmarks on a HD4830 512MB clocked @ 710/2100. This is quite deliberate on my part. You see, everybody loved the HD4830 with good reason, can the HD5830 be compared in a similar light? Well, thats up to you to look at the numbers and decide for yourselves.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...stalkercop.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/crysis-1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/Vantage1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../unigine10.jpg

These results are a bit puzzling. Why the HD5830 has such a poor minimum FPS is a complete unknow, but it must be driver related. Unigine will be restested when Catalyst 10.7 are available.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../unigine11.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v187/bizket/FFXIV.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v187/bizket/AvP.jpg

Conclusion

Well, with the review all said and done what are we left with? Is the HD5830 a dog? Who should buy one and why? These are all questions I've asked myself over and over. The performance of the HD5830 neither blew me away nor did it particularly disappoint. ATi wanted to create a filler card between the HD5770 and the HD5850, and that they did with the HD5830. One way to look at the HD5830 is that it is two HD4830s glued together. Consistently the HD5830 was twice as fast as the HD4830. Quality settings with the HD5830 were also good. Not once did I witness the cards performance with AA enabled start to come crashing down like a meteor. However, this does come with a footnote. Tessellation performance in Heaven 2.1 could be considered somewhat poor. If ATi focus on driver level tessellation performance improvements then this will not be a issue.

Ultimately, if your willing to overclock the HD5830 you will find it to be quite a rewarding card especially at £140. Typically Cypress cores clock to around 925MHz and memory around 1250MHz (5000Mhz) on average. If you don't want to overclock, then look elsewhere as the stock performance of the HD5830 is very unimspiring.

Highs;

- Overclocks well
- Runs cool
- Not too loud (below 55% fanspeed)
- Cheap

Lows;

- Poor stock performance
- Questionable tessellation performance
- Very long card
- Needs 2x 6 pin PCI-E connectors
- No HDMI cable included

Final Verdict: 7/10. Good but no cigar.

Product Link

Ati Radeon HD5830 1GB £140

Attached for 5830 owners convenience is the beginnings of my HD5830 BIOS archive. I hope to add to this in the future but I can't do so without your help! I'm looking for all manufacturers HD5830 BIOS I don't already have :up:

The question I have to ask... who are B4UDirect and are they ok? I've never heard of them.

Like the 2D low volts idea... been considering modding my 24/7 card in a similar way

I've never used them before prior to this, but they must be safe as they utilise Mastercard securecode payment among other safe paying security features. Can you upload a BIOS dump from your card please? :)

Oh... my 24/7 card isn't a 5830, just meant in general- it's a great idea to lower power consumption :)

Ah ok. I'm looking to try different HD5830 BIOSes as well. Maybe even a couple 5850 BIOSes if the PCB is completely reference like it should be. Just for shts and giggles.

very nice! please push it to the max, im curious how much it ocs and how well it performs compared to a 5850/470...
ie, can it reach the same performance levels of an oced 460... :)

Oh she will be pushed indeed :up: I get the feeling the HD5830 isn't as bad as its been made out to be, certainly not at £140. The card should arrive Tuesday or Wednesday So I'll get pictures up then with benchmarks shortly after.

Small update adding the HD4830 for comparison. I got word just 20 mins ago the 5830 has been shipped so should be with me soon - as will the results of the 5830 :up: I know I know, my graph making skillz are 1337 l33t :p:

5830 has arrived, taking pictures now. Alas, its not a ATi 5830 I'v been sent, its a Sapphire 5830 so no reference PCB (dho). Pics will be uploaded soon :up:

Review is all finished. Well, with the exception of Warhead results as theres a speedbump to do with securom there. Results will be up when the securom retardedness is sorted out.

Could you provide results using both FFXIV Benchmark?

Edit:
Can you clarify normal/extreme tessellation for Unigine Heaven Benchmark?

Unigine DX11 was with normal tessellation. I'll get on to the FF benchmarks in a few mins :up:

ED - added warhead benchmarks and updated vantage results to include stock 5830 performance. By OCing, the vantage GPU score climbed a rather impressive 2000 points.

Added FF XIV benchmark to the review.

Thanks for the update, I would like for you to try the AvP benchmark but you need this tool so you can use the GUI to select options (4xAA, 16xAF and other max settings).

I'm assuming as you want all these extra benchmarks done the 5830 is performing much better than everybody thought?

ED - links are dead for the AvP GUI

Hate to boast but the Samsung ram on my Sapphire cards are great as well. I've had them @ 5.8 Ghz (1445) through benches :P

This card just needs more juice. Even in 3D the GPU is only fed 1.068v. Anyone help with tracking down a link for the AvP GUI that isn't dead?

Thanks. x86 will do for some preliminary numbers :up:

ED - x86 is a no go. App scans the registry, which is of course no good on a x64 platform.

He updated the links in the other thread.

Done and done. Uploading AvP results now. Bare in mind readers the AvP results are still with Cats 10.3 and there will likely be a fair improvement with newer drivers. Again, something that will be tested when Cats 10.7 come out.

Thanks for the results. I'm still not sure about the unigine heaven's level of tessellations though (IE: normal, extreme, etc).

The AvP results are a tad low for 1680 at that OC IMO. It's as if the card is throttling. Try this, run the card at 95% to cool it off a bit then return it back to it's normal fan speed. Then
re-bench it to see if the results are the same or not. But thanks for the information none the less.

Edit:
Yeah, I checked and honestly don't think there is a profile for this benchmark. However, AvP_DX11.exe wasn't added until around Cat 10.4.

I stuck with normal tessellation in unigine because extreme wasn't just overuse of tessellation, it didn't even look like something a game would realistically use. I think extreme tessellation in unigine is just there for the sake of it. As I said with the AvP results, they come from Cats 10.3 so performance is bound to be slightly off vs. new drivers, which is why unigine and AvP benches will be redone when cats 10.7 arrive :up:

FYI update, I will be rerunning unigine and AvP benchmarks tomorrow. I installed Cats 10.6 even though their not good drivers for 24/7 use and lets just say I saw a BIG improvement in a quick test I ran ;)

As promised, for the hell of it I tried a 5850 BIOS on the 5830. No dice with the BIOS I tried so its fairly safe to assume no 5830 will unlock. If you believe the chinese whispers though, rumor has it some 5830s can unlock to 5850s.