HD5970 Reviews

[rouvio]

Diamond 5970 is in stock @ Amazon :
http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Radeon...9083121&sr=8-1

[eleeter]

...but the majority of HD 5970 cards ARE very poor overclockers at their stock voltage and above.

You've tested the majority of them?

[SKYMTL]

You've tested the majority of them?

Don't mince words.

I have three. I had four. All failed to overclock more than between 5-7%. Other sites have reported the same. Other users have reported the same. 'nuff said.

[InCredible]

Don't mince words.

I have three. I had four. All failed to overclock more than between 5-7%. Other sites have reported the same. Other users have reported the same. 'nuff said.

..just because some people don't know how to really push these cards, doesn't mean they are bad overclockers, it simply means that some people don't know what they are doing..
when the 4870x2 came out..most all review sites i saw where under 800mhz for the cores..usually 780..30mhz over stock..but when u put the card into hands of people that know what they are doing..800mhz seems like the minimum and ive seen 830(usual) to 900(xtreme)..me personally at 850core..

so ill take review sites and overclocking with a grain of salt

EDIT: i do see u understand it takes more voltage to get anything nice from the cores..but its to be expected with this card since its under clocked and volted to meet the 300w tdp

[jaredpace]

I had four. All failed to overclock more than between 5-7%.

I believe it. ~780mhz @ 1.09v, ~850mhz @ 1.16v, and ~1000mhz @ ~1.3v with air cooling.

Can't wait to see Shamino run one at ~1400mhz

[onethreehill]

Radeon 5970 Overclocking: The VRM Temperature Bottleneck
In our Radeon HD 5970 review, we ran in to some issues when trying to overclock the card to 5870 speeds of 850MHz/1200MHz. At the time this is something we attributed to the VRMs, meanwhile AMD suggested that it was cooling related, and that we should manually increase the fan speed.

As it turns out, we were both right, we just didn’t have the tools at the time to properly identify and isolate the issue. Late last week we got our hands on a beta version of Everest Ultimate, which added preliminary support for the 5970. With that, we could read and log the voltages and temperatures of the various components of the 5970, and properly isolate the issue.

From that, we’ve discovered a few interesting things about the 5970.........

http://anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=657

[SKYMTL]

http://anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=657

And there we go. Very interesting investigation on their part.

[Manicdan]

And there we go. Very interesting investigation on their part.

yup

i could see new CATs being built to throttle that Dnet program.

its also a great indicator that the VRMs need real cooling, not just that black plate unisink thing.

[ajaidev]

And there we go. Very interesting investigation on their part.

ammm... you were talking about stock voltage and max clock, they talk about max voltage max clock and the impact of this on the VRM's...

You concluded AMD lied and 5870 freq are not achievable they said 5970 can achive 5870 speeds but better accurate voltage tool is required.

[SKYMTL]

ammm... you were talking about stock voltage and max clock, they talk about max voltage max clock and the impact of this on the VRM's...

You concluded AMD lied and 5870 freq are not achievable they said 5970 can achive 5870 speeds but better accurate voltage tool is required.

No. The Dnet client can begin throttling at STOCK. It doesn't take much (as Ryan noted) to push the VRMs up that additional 19°C. It bodes extremely ill for other GPGPU apps which may push things beyond what DNet does.

Part of their conclusion:

but based on how the 5970 was promoted and presented the fact of the matter is that the card can’t meet its advertised capabilities

This has been my point for the last few pages...

[-Sweeper_]

Diamond 5970 is in stock @ Amazon :
http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Radeon...9083121&sr=8-1

Usually ships within 3 to 6 weeks.