HD5970 Reviews

[Monstru]

The card was marketed as having a large amount of overclocking potential AT STOCK VOLTS.

Complete Control at stock voltages or higher

Hmm...

[SKYMTL]

Hmm...

Were you part of the actual press presentation / teleconference? If so, please refer to the section where they verbally mention that most users can see 850 - 900Mhz on stock volts and 900+ with the overclocking tools provided by ATI and their board partners. I believe it was during slide 16 as Wiz posted.

I'll upload the audio file that was sent to me once I get approval.

[W1zzard]

Heh, I like the standing red, and knocked down green king in the slide Never noticed it before

you need to visit tpu more often and read my reviews

[Monstru]

Were you part of the actual press presentation / teleconference? If so, please refer to the section where they verbally mention that most users can see 850 - 900Mhz on stock volts and 900+ with the overclocking tools provided by ATI and their board partners. I believe it was during slide 16 as Wiz posted.

I'll upload the audio file that was sent to me once I get approval.

My friend, nobody really cares how ATI is marketing their products TO PRESS. It is your job, or my job, or anybody else that writes articles to filter the marketing BS and have aclean report. Now, why do you keep on repeating over and over again how ATI is lying about their product? Everybody tries to fill our head with BS in teleconferences, that is why I do not participate in this kind of things anymore, even if I am invited. I am tired to hear 45 minutes marketig BS about some technology, and 15 mins about the board itself. I can remember how the conference was for GTX 275....55 mins CUDA and PhysX, 5 minutes GTX 275.

Anyway, our job is to inform our readers in a correct manner. That is why, unlike other sites, you will not find 3-4 pages about DX11, Eyefinity and other stuff like that in one of my ATI articles, and you will also not find 3 pages of CUDA and PhysX and BS in every Nvidia card review I did this year (unlike other sites - If I want to inform readers about PhysX or Cuda or Eyefinity or DX11, I will make a separate article, ONCE, not repeat that in every test for that manufacturer..) So....who is telling the BUYERS that ATI HD 5970 has an enormous OC potential with stock volts? Because ATi sure as hell does not. They tell that to you, not to the audience.

[eric66]

Heh, I like the standing red, and knocked down green king in the slide Never noticed it before

funniest part there is that amd is green also what an irony

[justin.kerr]

I am just happy to see an ATI review from someone that knows how to configure catalyst..

[Manicdan]

you need to visit tpu more often and read my reviews

dude that PCIe scaling review rocks, its scary how little of an improvement there is between 4x on 2.0 and 16x. i was hoping to see atleast 20% drop from 16x to 8x.

im thinking if there is a common link between this and why we dont have 4GB as the standard for cards. since the textures being moved around are so tiny (compared to how much performance has changed in the last few years)

i would like to see something like GTA4 in the same test. or a game with heavily modded textures and effects which should only be run on a top end system

[rouvio]

Newegg had the Asus version available just moments ago http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121357
I missed that as well

[SKYMTL]

My friend, nobody really cares how ATI is marketing their products TO PRESS. *snip*

Man, talking to you is like trying to break through a brick wall with one's own head. If you don't understand what I am saying, just say so. I give up. *facepalm*

[SKYMTL]

dude that PCIe scaling review rocks, its scary how little of an improvement there is between 4x on 2.0 and 16x. i was hoping to see atleast 20% drop from 16x to 8x.

Actually, cards like the HD 5970 can become bandwidth starved at PCI-E 2.0 x8 and PCI-E 1.1 x16 speeds in some games. Far Cry 2 is a prime example of this as is STALKER: CoP. It really makes me wonder when cards will saturate the x16 2.0 interface. 18 months? Less? Considering the raw power of the HD 5970 in its stock form and the fact that there will be dual 8-pin versions pushing 900Mhz+ quite soon, things could get interesting.

Especially considering PCI-E 3.0 with its 128/130 encoding probably won't see the light of day next year either...

[Monstru]

What I don't agree with is how ATI marketed the card to the press and their board partners.

That is what I am reffering to. You are bashing them for some BS marketing to press. Well, everybody delivers BS marketing to press, what is the problem as long as they don't try to BS the buyers?

[Heinz68]

Were you part of the actual press presentation / teleconference? If so, please refer to the section where they verbally mention that most users can see 850 - 900Mhz on stock volts and 900+ with the overclocking tools provided by ATI and their board partners. I believe it was during slide 16 as Wiz posted.

I'll upload the audio file that was sent to me once I get approval.

This looks like AMD HD 5970 press presentation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhTb2DRPUoI

Off course it might not be the same you talk about.

Anyway the slide 16 starts at about 14 min and there is nothing in the presentation that the 850 - 900Mhz can be done on stock volts. In fact in that presentation the slide didn't even reach 900MHz. Plus right on the slide is "Complete Control - at stock voltages or higher"

I did see some reviews with 900MHz OC including the LegionHardware review which claim the 900 MHz was stable. If I can get that with stock cooler with adjusted voltage I'll be very happy.

Off course first I have to get the card. I ordered the card from NCIX Canada on November 18 when the card was in stock, the order was confirmed and CC debited but never shipped.

[safan80]

Were you part of the actual press presentation / teleconference? If so, please refer to the section where they verbally mention that most users can see 850 - 900Mhz on stock volts and 900+ with the overclocking tools provided by ATI and their board partners. I believe it was during slide 16 as Wiz posted.

I'll upload the audio file that was sent to me once I get approval.

Isn't the stock voltage for the 5970 lower than the 5870? So how can you expect to hit anywhere near 900? Besides overclocking on stock voltage is overrated.

[SKYMTL]

This looks like AMD HD 5970 press presentation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhTb2DRPUoI.

Nope. That wasn't the one.

I did see some reviews with 900MHz OC including the LegionHardware review which claim the 900 MHz was stable. If I can get that with stock cooler with adjusted voltage I'll be very happy.

Yes, and then they posted THIS.

Anyways, overclocking or not it should be interesting to see what the next step will be.

[orangekiwii]

Oh snap. I was probably going to get the 5970, but after reading about the throttling even at STOCK... i'll wait even longer to see how Fermi compares

[NapalmV5]

and theres no easy fix thanks to the 3-phase/gpu pwm

5970 should sport min 4-phase/gpu pwm.. 5870 does and its single gpu

in order to keep up to 5870 stock clocks: 4-phase/gpu
in order to run dual 1ghz core stable and throttle free: 5-phase/gpu

why did amd go with 3-phase/gpu ?? a 4-phase/gpu 5970 would be in my system right now

[Oupavoc]

great review, too bad there out of stock every time I check.

[LordEC911]

and theres no easy fix thanks to the 3-phase/gpu pwm

5970 should sport min 4-phase/gpu pwm.. 5870 does and its single gpu

in order to keep up to 5870 stock clocks: 4-phase/gpu
in order to run dual 1ghz core stable and throttle free: 5-phase/gpu

why did amd go with 3-phase/gpu ?? a 4-phase/gpu 5970 would be in my system right now

Power consumption...

[orangekiwii]

would custom pcb 5970s fix this?

if so by the time they come out fermi should also be out... great timing lol

[Manicdan]

Oh snap. I was probably going to get the 5970, but after reading about the throttling even at STOCK... i'll wait even longer to see how Fermi compares

it only throttled due to using a synthetic benchmark known to crash ATI cards, not prove their stability. notice they didnt test with a single game in that review

[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

[Decami]

lol at pcper. The cards are getting a 100fps average on world in conflict and for some reason they turn off water reflecting clouds, lol, idk, seems funny.

then in the screenshot of the game benchmark you see whatever is beeing tested getting 16fps yet this number fails to show up on any of the graphs.

[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.