Asus HD5870 Matrix is released today and is at Newegg for $520

[Kensek]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...=asus%20matrix

[H2O]

Not bad. If this has the standard Newegg markup, hopefully we will see it drop below $500 soon. It will make for an enticing alternative to the GTX480.

[Blacky]

Reference > that

[BeepBeep2]

Reference > that

That post < epic fail

[Philip_J_Fry]

hmm, 2 x 8pin power connectors ... will it overclock , or even boot if u plug 6 pin + 8 pin??

[Blacky]

That post < epic fail

Any reference could hit 1ghz easily with a bios flash for $100 less I don't see any epic fail there ~

[BeepBeep2]

Any reference could hit 1ghz easily with a bios flash for $100 less I don't see any epic fail there ~

They claim 13% better cooling, probably worth 30 Mhz or so and voltage...

Anyone buying a 5870 isn't really after bang for the buck I don't think...but more performance. The 5770, 5830, and 5850 are there to suit those people imo...?

hmm, 2 x 8pin power connectors ... will it overclock , or even boot if u plug 6 pin + 8 pin??

IIRC the last two pins are just ground/12v sense so you could actually plug in two 6-pin as long as the PSU has enough power on the rails to power it. ...IIRC

[Blacky]

They claim 13% better cooling, probably worth 30 Mhz or so and voltage...

Anyone buying a 5870 isn't really after bang for the buck I don't think...but more performance. The 5770, 5830, and 5850 are there to suit those people imo...?



IIRC the last two pins are just ground/12v sense so you could actually plug in two 6-pin as long as the PSU has enough power on the rails to power it. ...IIRC

Even with that price tag ill rather get a GTX 480, and now even more with latest drivers

[zanzabar]

Any reference could hit 1ghz easily with a bios flash for $100 less I don't see any epic fail there ~

its cheaper than the other 2GB cards that are $530

[slaveondope]

Im quite happy with the $500 I spent on two 5850's imo
If you bench I see that cards purpose.

[Blacky]

its cheaper than the other 2GB cards that are $530

well reviews have proven that an extra GB doesn't adds any significantly to performance, the OC does, so as a personal opinion to me 1gb extra is worthless

[zanzabar]

yah, but if u like gta4 then u need the extra ram, and i could see your point if it was 1GB. they have a 1GB one thats similar thats priced in line with the 1GB ones.

[PaganII]

I paid less for an E6.

[CraptacularOne]

The real benefit of this card is with running eyefinity on 3 monitors. The 2GB of extra RAM will definitely come in handy there. I already have some issues with RAM being used up with my HD5970 at 5040x1050 resolution. In Dirt 2 I have to drop to 4x AA and a few other games or it just chuggs because I'm using all of the available RAM.

[lkiller123]

Even with that price tag ill rather get a GTX 480, and now even more with latest drivers

I don't want my card to stay at 85C when I game... No thanks

I'd take the matrix if the price can drop a bit lower, even from the design, I can see that this card has more potential than the reference card.

[tajoh111]

This is a piss poor price for the card. Compared especially to the gtx 480 and the 5970. Either way your getting close to or twice as much core for a rather insignificant amount in the high end space and a sizable performance boost, especially in the latter case. Was this really the counter to the gtx 480?

I thought a real counter would take back the performance crown, not make existing products seem like value kings in their division. AMD or their partner latest card post gtx 480 have been completely arrogant releases. The recent $499 5870s and $1000 5970s are priced completely out of line for performance and set new negative precedence. $500 dollar for a 3xx mm sized card and cards that are 1000 dollars or more.

[Blacky]

I don't want my card to stay at 85C when I game... No thanks

I'd take the matrix if the price can drop a bit lower, even from the design, I can see that this card has more potential than the reference card.

Change factory TIM, that could help

[Manicdan]

so lets see, were almost in june, and video cards have come down in price? o wait nm, they havnt

[RejZoR]

The main problem is getting reference cooler HD5000 cards. Most of them are aftermarked garbage that can be bought next to milk and bread. I mean i was searching for reference HD5850 and couldn't find any in 3 days. Then i finally managed to find one store that had 1 piece in stock. Thankfully it was MSI OC Edition model with reference cooler which was even cheaper than all aftermarket models.

[halo112358]

The real question here is "does it sound like a hair drier?"

[massman]

Reference > that

It's true, but not a characteristic of the Asus card.

Reference stock cooling is actually very effective cooling, capable of pushing any R5870 core to the maximum clocks on air cooling. From what I've seen, the reference cards clock either equally high or even higher than any of the custom PCBs ... on air cooling.

If you don't care about what your card looks like and only want to use air cooling, I would strongly recommend any reference card. If you are going for liquid nitrogen, the custom cards may be yield you a couple of MHz more. It still mostly depends on the quality of the core that is on the PCB, though.