HD5870 and HD5850 Reviews

[JohnZS]

I am hoping drivers will improve the performance of the cards slightly, however I think that Crossfire is yet again a cause for concern, unless the X2 is the highly touted "MultiCore" card which "Le Fud", "Teh Inq" and "SemiAccurate" have been touting the HD5870X2 is going to be the most buggy GPU we have seen for sometime. (7800GX2 ring any bells?)
Having said that I am pretty sure ATi will have their drivers sorted out for AAA titles and the applications/games reviewers usually use in time for launch.

Reading the comments above, it suggests that unless the GT300 is ~10% or so faster than the GTX295 it is an "Epic Fail"!
John

[TheVaLVe]

Hahaha this will be a great new card for me. Great single card perfomance which is matching dual cards, IQ, low wattage, eyefinity and great price ~350€ here in germany. Should be cheaper in 1 month.

[btarunr]

One more to add: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...870_CrossFire/

(it will include HD 5850 CrossFire and HD 5870 CrossFire @ PCI-E 2.0 x8 in a while).

[fornowagain]

Techpowerup's review shows that PCI-E x4, x8, x16 doesn't have much difference in performance.

It shows a single card gimped on an x58 - PCI-e 2.0. Not quite the same thing as two cards sharing the controller on a Lynnfield.

[Calmatory]

to be fair.. a pcie x4 (gen2) is actually a pcie 8x (gen1) so even on older mobo's with support your only losing between 1~5% depending on the res and if its 8x and not 16x

It matters quite much if the FPS drop is most significant in min FPS, rather than in avg or max FPS. 5% drop in avg FPS could mean 50 % in min FPS, and that would matter, alot. Hopefully not so.

[jmke]

1. crysis and crysis warhead are the same, its like calling hl2 ep1 and ep2 diferent games :P

not quite, Crysis Warhead is tougher on your GFX

[kgk]

It matters quite much if the FPS drop is most significant in min FPS, rather than in avg or max FPS. 5% drop in avg FPS could mean 50 % in min FPS, and that would matter, alot. Hopefully not so.

Exactly. That's where the 5870 seems to absolutely demolish the gtx 295. The minimum FPS.

[jaredpace]

PC Per Eyefinity Video Review:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujf6P...e=channel_page

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eghSP..._embedded#t=14

Wow, that is awesome! Thanks.

[Carfax]

Overall, I think AMD did a good job with this chip. If you've got a 24 inch monitor, the HD 5870 offers great performance in practically every title; even Crysis and Stalker CS.

However, I'm disappointed with the 2560x1600 results, but I cannot say this was unexpected. As powerful as this card may be, it has less bandwidth than my overclocked GTX 285, so my dream of playing Crysis at 30 FPS @ 2560x1600 maxed out settings will have to wait until either the 5870x2 or the GT300..

[Jamesrt2004]

Overall, I think AMD did a good job with this chip. If you've got a 24 inch monitor, the HD 5870 offers great performance in practically every title; even Crysis and Stalker CS.

However, I'm disappointed with the 2560x1600 results, but I cannot say this was unexpected. As powerful as this card may be, it has less bandwidth than my overclocked GTX 285, so my dream of playing Crysis at 30 FPS @ 2560x1600 maxed out settings will have to wait until either the 5870x2 or the GT300..

im waiting to see how the 2gb variant fairs, what monitor do you have?

edit:nvm Samsung 305t

[Bodkin]

Looks like a nice card. Sadly I am stuck with NV after winning a 3d vision set which I cant live without now! Is GT300 expected before Christmas? Wiki says Q3 2010 but that has to be wroung

[Manicdan]

is that a black PCB i see?

[Jamesrt2004]

Looks like a nice card. Sadly I am stuck with NV after winning a 3d vision set which I cant live without now! Is GT300 expected before Christmas? Wiki says Q3 2010 but that has to be wroung

wiki is fail lol all the stuff on there is wrong, general consesus seems to be just before xmas at the VERY least and thats lookign unlikely so more Q1 im hoping for before Feb but we will see :/

[Andrea deluxe]

is that a black PCB i see?

yes!

reference pcb

[Bodkin]

wiki is fail lol all the stuff on there is wrong, general consesus seems to be just before xmas at the VERY least and thats lookign unlikely so more Q1 im hoping for before Feb but we will see :/

Damn, hate having to save money from Christmas

[LAMB OF GOD]

AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB @ Bjorn3D – AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB @ DriverHeaven – AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB @ Guru3d.com – Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GB @ HardwareCanucks – AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB @ Hardwareluxx (de) – AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB @ Hexus – Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GB CrossFireX @ Hexus – AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB @ HotHardware – AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB vs. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 @ InsideHW – AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB @ LegitReviews – AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB @ Overclock3D.net – AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB @ Tech Report – AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB and Radeon HD 5850 Performance @ techPowerUp! – AMD Radeon HD 5870 PCI-Express Performance Scaling @ techPowerUp! – AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB @ TechSpot – Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GB @ Tweaktown – Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GB CrossFireX @ Tweaktown

what the hell .. every one is testing 5870 ...

[***Deimos***]

No doubt AMD did "good" job with 5870. Afterall, its here and it works.
But, to reiterate anandtech and echo what others are saying... its just not enough to push GTX and 4890 owners to upgrade - rather, the games to make it happen aren't here yet.

[zerazax]

Again I bring up RV770. The only known feature about that chip (just before and during launch) was its 2.5x increase in ALU count. Impressive in its own right, however it brought more than a 2.5x performance increase over R600 and RV670.

Also I was comparing the jump from R700 (2xRV770) not 2xRV790. In this light (2xRV790), Cypress looks even more unimpressive, with an average 1.6x increase over RV790 (they share the same core clocks, so it's quite fair to compare the two architectures).

Somehow, a 40% theoretical performance advantage was lost during the 100% increase in specifications count.

As I said in my original drivers, it could just be the beta drivers not showing Cypress' fullest potential. But given that R600, RV770 and Cypress share the same underlying base architecture, I don't think there's too much to be squeezed out of new drivers. Still, I could be surprised...

To be fair, the 4870 over the 3870 wasn't exactly 2x the performance at release. Drivers improved performance greatly.

Add on the fact that a lot of those "2.5x" were with AA on... which if we can remember, the 38xx's were HORRIBLE with AA.

It appears that the 58xx's have already maxed out possible AA performance + AF performance so if the rest of the card isn't being utilized (shaders), then of course u won't see that performance boost.

Not to mention that they changed its scheduler and how shaders are ordered, so driver/programming changes will affect how the card works.

IMO, check back in a few months with new titles and drivers, and I bet u will see a huge difference. Heck, look at [H]'s Arma II section.... the game actually was able to utilize the card fully.

[marten_larsson]

No doubt AMD did "good" job with 5870. Afterall, its here and it works.
But, to reiterate anandtech and echo what others are saying... its just not enough to push GTX and 4890 owners to upgrade - rather, the games to make it happen aren't here yet.

To some there might be something worth considering and that's Eyefinity. If they get CF to work with it I'm definitely on it and I just recently bought my first TFT... With CF the performance should be there to run it decently at 3x1680x1050 at least.

[Confused_User]

The most impressive thing about these cards is the power consumption (idle power is particularly impressive), IMO. It's nice to see that AMD is considering the amount of performance per watt on these cards.

[JoeBar]

My 4870X2 has earned quite a few months lifetime...

Thanks ATI...

[jam2k]

Just until Hemlock arrives

[Calmatory]

Not to mention that they changed its scheduler and how shaders are ordered, so driver/programming changes will affect how the card works.

Actually the scheduler change was mandatory to co-op with the increased amount of SPs. Basically scheduler arranges and assigns the tasks for SPs, hence when there are more SPs it is crucial to have more advanced and complex scheduler to keep the SPs occupied.

So, the RV870 scheduler shouldn't be that much of an improvement over RV770, around the same effectiviness.

[mrmonk]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...870_CrossFire/

Iit is a beast at high rez

[zerazax]

If the CrossFire numbers are any indication... the 5870X2 should be a beast!

Actually the scheduler change was mandatory to co-op with the increased amount of SPs. Basically scheduler arranges and assigns the tasks for SPs, hence when there are more SPs it is crucial to have more advanced and complex scheduler to keep the SPs occupied.

So, the RV870 scheduler shouldn't be that much of an improvement over RV770, around the same effectiviness.

Right, which is why I'm saying that we should wait and see what drivers and future games bring. The 4870 at release was definitely faster than the 3870, but over time as newer game designs + driver improvements came out, it really began to blow it away