# AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB GDDR5



## W1zzard (Sep 22, 2009)

Today AMD launches their new Radeon HD 5800 Series of graphics cards. They are powered by a brand new graphics processor called "Cypress". Our review goes into all the detail about the new HD 5870 flagship, but we also have HD 5850 scores so you can get an idea what to expect.

*Show full review*


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## Arrakis9 (Sep 23, 2009)

FINNALY!!! been waitin for a week now to see this


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## dir_d (Sep 23, 2009)

It seems the 5850 will be the card to get and buy another one when the new Nvida line up comes out


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## DanishDevil (Sep 23, 2009)

The only thing that really impresses me is the idle power consumption. Other than that, this really isn't what it was hyped up to be IMO. Oh, and that it's priced about $100 higher than everybody was thinking.


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## RaPiDo987 (Sep 23, 2009)

DanishDevil said:


> The only thing that really impresses me is the idle power consumption. Other than that, this really isn't what it was hyped up to be IMO. Oh, and that it's priced about $100 higher than everybody was thinking.



+1... Will wait till prices drop until i get one... Will old on to my 4890 for a while... Heck my just get another one and cross fire it....


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Sep 23, 2009)

dugg


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Sep 23, 2009)

PCI-E Power meter, someone has gotten some new tools


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## Anath (Sep 23, 2009)

RaPiDo987 said:


> +1... Will wait till prices drop until i get one... Will old on to my 4890 for a while... Heck my just get another one and cross fire it....



I was thinking the same thing, get 2x4890s which outperform the 5870 wait till nvidia releases their cards and price drops sell the 4890s and pick up two 5870s


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## DanishDevil (Sep 23, 2009)

[I.R.A]_FBi said:


> PCI-E Power meter, someone has gotten some new tools



You don't want to know how much it costs.


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## grunt_408 (Sep 23, 2009)

Sweet


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## From_Nowhere (Sep 23, 2009)

Nice. A bit quicker than the 4870X2, and consumes a lot less power. I might pick a 5870 when I build my computer in December.


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## johnnyfiive (Sep 23, 2009)

Well, looking at it for what it is, a single GPU card that performs like a 4870x2 and a gtx 295 ... its a pretty powerful card. But its still $399 and a 4870x2 is $360ish. Scaling is always an issue, so that fixes the dual GPU vs 5870 argument, but lets not forget... its fricking $400.

The 5870x2 without a doubt will be a beast of a card, but its going to be a beast of a pocket killer.
I'm having mixed feelings about this one....let me end it with this, I'm really glad I waited and got a 4870x2 for $370, I really feel like I got my moneys worth after seeing the results.


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## newtekie1 (Sep 23, 2009)

Very nice card, but I was really hoping for more performance wise.  IMO, the HD5870 cards needed to outperform the GTX295.  I fear these cards won't be competitive for long, and they really don't offer that much over the GTX275 or HD4890.

And as I expected, extremely loud fan is required to keep it cool.  IMO, 80°C is already pushing the edge of what I like to see.  I set all my cards to ramp the fan speed up to 100% at 75°C, which means this card is another leaf blower, just like my HD4890.

Power consumption for the performance is simply amazing though.  Very good showing of what 40nm can do.


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## RaPiDo987 (Sep 23, 2009)

Good JOB W1zzard... Great review!!


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## Steevo (Sep 23, 2009)

I want a 2GB version.


Any chance whatsoever for a quick GTA4 run? please?


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## grunt_408 (Sep 23, 2009)

At least now it is out the hype can stop.  Looks o.k to me though I would love to see it perform on DX11.


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## Solaris17 (Sep 23, 2009)

GTS 250?

im pretty sure it didnt show up on any of the other graphs. and being a 9800GTX im pretty sure it should do better than a 9400GT

this was in the crysis game section.


at anyrate i like the review. Im also imprssed with the rescaled methedology more games diffirent settings new test bed. very impressed.


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## LittleLizard (Sep 23, 2009)

smokin


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## Benetanegia (Sep 23, 2009)

Great review. And great card, although I have to agree with many people here that is not what I was expecting performance wise. The power consumption is excelent though and I do like that a lot, it literally destroys everything else in perf/watt. 

But it has me scratching my head as to why is not faster than the 4870 X2. Their specs are the same more or less, but the HD5870 runs 100 Mhz faster and doesn't suffer any Crossfire scaling problem. I would like to see a 2GB HD5870 benched, to see if that is the problem. Otherwise I can only think about the dispatch processor being slow to handle all those SPs, something that some experts said it was one minor flaw in GT200 chips too. A better optimization can fix that to an extent, so hypothetically we can expect significant improvements with futre driver releases. More than what is normal or average I mean. GT200 did increase performance more than what was usual with other cards.

PD. Wizzard, you did posted your review at 6:00:01 AM CET as you said.


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## Apocolypse007 (Sep 23, 2009)

Im loving that idle power consumption. The error fixing for the gddr5 is awesome too, but makes overclocking a little trickier.

I wonder how far this can overclock with some extra voltage.

Also, for those complaining about the price: remember that the hd4870 was about the same price when it was released, and now it can be had for about 130-150 new. Prices will drop soon, and definitely after the GTX 300 is released. ATI loves to undercut Nvidia, as evidenced by the last generation's war.


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## shevanel (Sep 23, 2009)

4sale now an option at newegg. its ready.

now its back to auto-notify


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## francis511 (Sep 23, 2009)

Little bit disappointing. I was going to wait for one of these , now I`m glad I didn`t. Anyone have any idea when Nvidia`s new line-up is coming out ?

Of course the 5870x2 would be a giant-killer on the other hand


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## Cuzza (Sep 23, 2009)

So W1zz, the red holes at the end of the card don't actually do anything for airflow - they are just there to look pretty? How ridiculous.


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## Benetanegia (Sep 23, 2009)

Apocolypse007 said:


> Im loving that idle power consumption. The error fixing for the gddr5 is awesome too, but makes overclocking a little trickier.
> 
> I wonder how far this can overclock with some extra voltage.
> 
> Also, for those complaining about the price: remember that the hd4870 was about the same price when it was released, and now it can be had for about 130-150 new. Prices will drop soon, and definitely after the GTX 300 is released. ATI loves to undercut Nvidia, as evidenced by the last generation's war.



I don't like the error fixing thing actually. I mean is a good feature in theory, but in practice it can make many people have their cards overclocked more than what is safe and will definately be a problem in overheating situations. Non-techie people with bad case ventilation could have these cards overheating forever without noticing it, specially considering this card's performance. It could be suffering a 25% decrease in performance due to error correction and you wouldn't notice it.

Also the HD4870 was released for $300 IIRC and people were expecting the same.



Cuzza said:


> So W1zz, the red holes at the end of the card don't actually do anything for airflow - they are just there to look pretty? How ridiculous.



Actually, it would be even more ridiculous if they were holes. The radial fan would suck in cold air and directly throw half of it through those holes. Unless the card had some insane cooling requirements on the VRMs and those were placed in a row in that end of the card, you just don't want to waste half your airflow.


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## kid41212003 (Sep 23, 2009)

Wow, this is a really HUGE performance step from the last series, we gonna see some huge price drop from NVIDIA, especially the GTX285.


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## dir_d (Sep 23, 2009)

shevanel said:


> 4sale now an option at newegg. its ready.
> 
> now its back to auto-notify



Thank You sir i got my HIS 5870 $441 with tax plus Overnight shipping from Fed Ex


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## Cuzza (Sep 23, 2009)

@ Benetanegia, good point, it would make it worse! I thought maybe there was some ducting that took air from the red things to underneath the fan, ie to feed it from both sides. But no.


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## air_ii (Sep 23, 2009)

Thanks for the review. I wish you'd overclock just memory and see what gains it gives, if the board is bw starved...

And one more thing:



			
				Review said:
			
		

> DirectX 11 won't be relevant for quite a while



How do you know and more importantly - how is that a downside of the card?


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## LaidLawJones (Sep 23, 2009)

Anybody think there is a chance of some decent,10%+, gains with driver re-writes?


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## nazaropeth (Sep 23, 2009)

I'm very disapoint... Byt why the hell tests were taken on Catalyst 9.6!? WTF?
Everyone knows that first driver that suppor new card does not utilize them very well.


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## 1Kurgan1 (Sep 23, 2009)

Awesome review, I'm glad to see I hit the performance guesses pretty much right on with it hanging with the best dual GPU single slot cards.

Also I'm assuming on the 2GB cards that backplate will actually help cool them since the memory will be on the back of the card?


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## KainXS (Sep 23, 2009)

good performance for now, newer drivers should boost performance though(remember it took a few months for the HD3K and 4K series to show what they were really capable of)

now everyone can stop saying that the cooler is sh*t now though, under 80C overclocked is good for stock cooling, changing the thermal paste would also drop the temps

I think its a respectable card for now

the backplate is probably just to reduce the chance of the card being damaged and to cool the memory if its there

I'm waiting for the prices of cards to drop now so i can probably snag something cheap now though


since you didn't push the card harder overclocking with software voltage tweaks wiz, do you have to send the card back to them when your done, I thought you kept your cards.


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## tkpenalty (Sep 23, 2009)

This card is being held back by driver issues, since they've delayed the release of the 5870X2 because of driver issues so naturally this card would have similar problems.... 

Once it actually comes out hopefully the card will have better drivers.


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## grunt_408 (Sep 23, 2009)

tkpenalty said:


> This card is being held back by driver issues, since they've delayed the release of the 5870X2 because of driver issues so naturally this card would have similar problems....
> 
> Once it actually comes out hopefully the card will have better drivers.



Amen to that. In the past ATI's stuff gets better as the drivers mature. I am going to get a 5870


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## tkpenalty (Sep 23, 2009)

Craigleberry said:


> Amen to that. In the past ATI's stuff gets better as the drivers mature. I am going to get a 5870



Definately. My 4570 got a literal 20% boost across all games from the 9.8 drivers  Hope we can see the same with this. Generally pre-release drivers sent to the reviewers are outdated.


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## aj28 (Sep 23, 2009)

I would like to direct your attention to the following, related article... http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3643

Mr. Smith seems to believe these cards are being launched at $379 and $259, and uses these numbers throughout his review. Is he really bad with a keyboard? Did he miss the press release? Are we... Actually going to get them for such a paltry sum?


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Sep 23, 2009)

5870 is $380 on newegg right now.


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## RaPiDo987 (Sep 23, 2009)

Hey, this might be a stupid question, but when is the 5850 coming out?


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## TooFast (Sep 23, 2009)

I would have hopped for more... but its not really fair to compare the gtx295/4870x2.
the 5870 smoked the gtx 285 with crappy drivers...
It is the new king of gpus.


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## kid41212003 (Sep 23, 2009)

I believe the drivers Wizzard used in this review is recommended by AMD, and that's mean it's the best performer atm, of course, expect more updates/optimize in the future.


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## TooFast (Sep 23, 2009)

kid41212003 said:


> I believe the drivers Wizzard used in this review is recommended by AMD, and that's mean it's the best performer atm, of course, expect more updates/optimize in the future.



At least look forward to 10-15% in the next few months.


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## Paintface (Sep 23, 2009)

i dont understand the criticism, 5870 is faster than the gtx295 many times while being 100 bucks cheaper, if money isnt an issue for you simple crossfire them if you want to get high benches.


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## TooFast (Sep 23, 2009)

Thats right, slap in 2 of these and nothing will come close.


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## TooFast (Sep 23, 2009)

crossfire review at toms..http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5870,2422-12.html

wow! it smokes the gtx295! in crossfire!


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## Kitkat (Sep 23, 2009)

i cant wait to see what the 5870 x2 does!!!  2nd you know the cards gonna get shorter.


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## laszlo (Sep 23, 2009)

this review was what i'm waiting for not pictures and presentations...

so older cards are still in game and even is a powerful card they destroy all the prices,even their which is good for us;older cards will drop in price much faster and who give a s...t about dx11 in a few weeks will have bargain prices for upgrade


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 23, 2009)

Well there are people out there that do give a shit and will pick up a 5800 board shortly.


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## mtosev (Sep 23, 2009)

does anyone have an idea how much will the 5870 X2 cost in Europe/EU?


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## MoonPig (Sep 23, 2009)

Wow... this is good, and as soon as the initial price drops it'll be even better. 

Suppose the pre-release Benchmarks (of it beating GTX295's etc. by 50%+) were abit off ... lol.

The 5850 looks like a more realistic buy, two of them would be awesome.

Also, looks like we're still waiting for a single card to play Crysis over 60FPS


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## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

Nice review! I'm specifically interested in the HD5850 numbers and you explained pretty well how you got them without using an actual 5850 

Only thing (but I might just need to read more reviews here on TPU) is I was looking my ass off for temperature results. Took me quite a while to find them. My suggestion is to rename that page from "Overclocking" to "Overclocking, Temperatures".


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## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2009)

i just grabbed latest pricing from newegg for all cards and updated 58xx to use their new pricing as well, and remade the perf/$ graphs


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## adrianx (Sep 23, 2009)

nice.... 

I wait the X2 or.... X3 version


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## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

Would be nice if those graphs are made again in a few months, after the initial price drops are done.

BTW those performance per dollar/watt graphs are based on the average of all your benchmarks, correct?


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## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2009)

Thrackan said:


> BTW those performance per dollar/watt graphs are based on the average of all your benchmarks, correct?



yes


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## Animalpak (Sep 23, 2009)

Great review, as always on TPU

Very nice card, but I expected more in terms of performance...

When we talked about 40nm at the beginning of the year everyone thought to a dramatic increase in performance that one GPU would be enough for any game and that the solutions with dual GPU on a single card would become extinct.

But it is not the double GPU's card are still the spearhead of performance.

Is to appreciate they work on consumption and temperatures of these new graphics cards all to the delight of environmentalists, but certainly not for enthusiasts who do not care for consumption, but more about 'temperatures.

Well done ATI ... Now we will see what will make the green team, predict earthquakes he he...


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## cool_recep (Sep 23, 2009)

W1z, I tought you would use Windows 7 64 Bit as AMD did while testing the card.

Why use Windows Vista 32-bit SP2 with 6 GB RAM?


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## qubit (Sep 23, 2009)

I'm disappointed with the performance. I expected the 5870 to beat the dual GPU cards. Looks like the low memory bandwidth (less than the duals) is what crippled it. Looking at the benchies, I don't think it would have been all that hard to equal or better them with a few tweaks here and there.

I'm gonna wait to see what nvidia offers before I make a buying decision. Mind you, it's sorta made up for me, if I want to keep using my 3D Vision glasses. 

Oh, great review as ever, W!zz.


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## gumpty (Sep 23, 2009)

Cheers for the review.

Bit underwhelmed though, unfortunately. I was hoping it'd be a clear winner over the 4870X2. Sadly not. Mind you, it'll be interesting to see how it pans out with more mature drivers etc.

Now the wait begins for Nvidia's GT300 and the inevitable price wars.

Come on Nvidia ... your turn.


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## tzitzibp (Sep 23, 2009)

cool_recep said:


> W1z, I tought you would use Windows 7 64 Bit as AMD did while testing the card.
> 
> Why use Windows Vista 32-bit SP2 with 6 GB RAM?



I also have the same question....

Nevertheless, Great review, as always, man!


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## wahdangun (Sep 23, 2009)

great review wizzz now i can sleep well


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## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

*Conclusions of a casual gamer*

I am a rather casual gamer. I want performance when I need it, and I want to have a quiet, low power and low temp card. Quiet being more important when I'm not gaming, when I'm gaming I don't mind a little fan noise. I'm aiming for a 5850 in the near future.

Based on this review I can say at least the following:

*1. Power consumption / temps*
Load temps under 80C for a high end card are, imo, to be classified as *good*.
An idle power consumption of 27w is very nice since I spend much more time on desktop (2D clocks) than I do in-game.
A power draw of around 150w in-game, even at the most intense games on the market today, is something I can very well deal with. Extreme benchmarks drawing over 200w might be a little over the top but that's 5870 results whereas I'm aiming for a 5850. A review on a "real" 5850 will be able to provide me with this intel and I want to see that before I buy one.

*2. Performance*
Per dollar, performance is still a bit less than expected. I take note that the initial sales price will go down in a couple of months though. When the 5850 hits the $200 mark, I expect it to be one of the best in bang-for-buck.

Per watt, as I said above about power consumption, I am impressed. Very impressed. The figures for the 5850 are bound to be even a little more positive.

The pure performance level is right up my alley. The 58XX family is right in the league of yesterday's high-end cards, and the simulated 5850 performance is actually better than I expected, being relatively close to the 5870. Performing up and around a GTX285, but with bearable power consumption and heat output, the 5850 looks like the new mid-end blockbuster to me.

*3. Sound*
Sound figures are a little disappointing on the 5870, and I'll have to wait for a 5850 review to see if the reference cards rock my socks even in that department. Of course, fitting a custom cooler is not a big deal as far as I'm concerned, but I'd love to once again see a stock cooler I am actually happy with.

*4. Overclocking*
The thing that hit me most was the overclocking portion of this review. Whereas core clocks can obviously still be increased the same way as usual, tuning the memory clocks by constantly running FPS benchmarks sounds a little awkward to me. Then again, I am a little lazy for an overclocker 

*Conclusion*
The review gives quite a good impression of what to expect from a 5870. I'll be waiting on a review of an actual 5850 to confirm my expectations and I'll be waiting for a price drop before I buy a 5850.

If my GFX would break today, I'd *still* get a second hand card for cheap and wait until the price and information levels are more pleasing. On the other hand, if I would be planning to get a GFX for the holiday season, chances are *very* high I will get one of these babies.


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## SirJangly (Sep 23, 2009)

Why the move to DX11?  Was DX10 used to its maximum potential yet?


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## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2009)

cool_recep said:


> W1z, I tought you would use Windows 7 64 Bit as AMD did while testing the card.
> 
> Why use Windows Vista 32-bit SP2 with 6 GB RAM?



i think you are referring to the thread we had a while ago in comments & feedback where i inquired about a possible future vga testing platform. after the w7 launch, some time in november probably i'll rebench all cards on w7 64


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## Tatty_One (Sep 23, 2009)

Nice improvement over the HD4890 in performance terms, I am too old to get caught up in hype so I never thought (unlike many) that we would see what some were estimating at 100% improvements, in fact in relative terms if you look at the overall performance table, the improvement HD4890 > HD5870 is just about the exact same as the performance improvements we saw going from the 9800GTX > GTX280 (in fact to be precise 1% less improvement for the HD5870) so apart from the die shrink and obvious low idle power consumption..... is this that innovative? we are not getting any more in performance terms than NVidia has given us in the past with it's new architecture.......  having said all that, i will buy one!


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## R_1 (Sep 23, 2009)

Great review.  Although it supported mine mixed feeling about new rv870 generation. Did they worth this premium price, that ATI is asking?


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## Easo (Sep 23, 2009)

Ownage. Its all i can say.
And dont forget final drivers too!!!


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## ShinyG (Sep 23, 2009)

Why are all video card reviews on techpowerup containing "No support for CUDA / PhysX" as a con for ATi/AMD cards?
Have these nVidia solutions become industry standards? No
Are they at least popular enough to influence people away from ATi? Don't thinks so
Why not add "No support for AMD Stream" in every nVidia video card review? (rethorical)
Reading my complaint please ingore the fact that my PC is 100% AMD and only judge my statements. Please refrain from invoking any ad hominem arguments such as "you're an AMD fanboi"!
Getting back to this card: seems like the usual hop from one generation to another. I hope nVidia brings something competitive to the table, so we can have high end DX11 cards for under $250 before Xmas 
Thank you


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## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Sep 23, 2009)

there really is fps scaling on these things eh... just look at the graph.. and the trend.. I knew it was going to be something like that.. they really are milking the fps cow


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Sep 23, 2009)

There are two sites I've seen that used 64 bit Windows 7 and the latest drivers, in one case not yet released drivers. Seemed less impressive in those tests. Dailytech just added a round up of the sites reviewing it. http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=16315

It seems the latest drivers for nvidia added 10 FPS, and the latest from ati add just 5 FPS. So ati actually lost ground...


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## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

First prices popped up in the Netherlands, it seems they actually converted $ to € this time:

HIS 5870: €329
Sapphire 5870: €317
Sapphire 5850: €218

...this might come into desired price range sooner than I expected


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## tzitzibp (Sep 23, 2009)

Thrackan said:


> First prices popped up in the Netherlands, it seems they actually converted $ to € this time:
> 
> HIS 5870: €329
> Sapphire 5870: €317
> ...



LOL...this is a first!


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## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

tzitzibp said:


> LOL...this is a first!



Yeah I was quite amazed  Finally someone learned to convert currency!


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## $ReaPeR$ (Sep 23, 2009)

these are both great cards  the 4850 is within my price range but i will wait for a price drop once Nvidia has released their new gpus


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## $ReaPeR$ (Sep 23, 2009)

Thrackan said:


> Yeah I was quite amazed  Finally someone learned to convert currency!



+1 to that


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## Tatty_One (Sep 23, 2009)

Listed as pre-order items now in some UK etailers............................... £300 equates to around $490 US


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## SteelSix (Sep 23, 2009)

to W1zzard! Tear-down pics make a review so very complete. Worldwide, TPU is the first stop for many. I've quickly come to understand why. Awesome pics to complete an excellent review..


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## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

Tatty_One said:


> Listed as pre-order items now in some UK etailers............................... £300 equates to around $490 US



True, 317 euro's is still 460 dollars, but at least it's not a 1 on 1 conversion.


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## DrunkenMafia (Sep 23, 2009)

love that power consumption  

Would work nicely in a low power gaming rig


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## jagd (Sep 23, 2009)

Compute shader ,tessellation  ,new texture formats (BC6 -BC7) ,multithreading .For more info http://www.elitebastards.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=611&Itemid=29&limit=1


SirJangly said:


> Why the move to DX11?  Was DX10 used to its maximum potential yet?


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## Deleted member 24505 (Sep 23, 2009)

Nice review as always W1zzard.


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## ShadowFold (Sep 23, 2009)

Just _slightly_ disappointed with the performance. Everything else just looks amazing tho. I'm definitely grabbing a HD 5850 when I get a job. I bet the performance will be even better after some good drivers come out for it


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## largon (Sep 23, 2009)

Now, what does a 5870 score in Furmark at default settings (SXGA, no AA/AF)?


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## Aceman.au (Sep 23, 2009)

DanishDevil said:


> The only thing that really impresses me is the idle power consumption. Other than that, this really isn't what it was hyped up to be IMO. Oh, and that it's priced about $100 higher than everybody was thinking.



Hahahahahaha Nvidia fans r in denial... ATI's new series = Winrar!!! The single 5870 comes extremely close to outperforming the 295... and thats 2 cores vs 1


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## Solaris17 (Sep 23, 2009)

l33tGaMeR said:


> Hahahahahaha Nvidia fans r in denial... ATI's new series = Winrar!!! The single 5870 comes extremely close to outperforming the 295... and thats 2 cores vs 1



their is no need to bring fanboi ism into this. this is a review it doesnt need to become an argument. but if you want the god honest truth look at the facts. and if you want more god honest truth if you want the 295 to get more of a lead clock the shaders up the 5870 wont be able to keep up.


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## AsRock (Sep 23, 2009)

Dayum, i think the 5870 does very well my self.  Not as well if you  put it against the 295 but thats a dual GPU card.

For it to beat and come even close to the 295 is some thing real good as when the 5870 x2 comes out it's going be way past the 295.

This card is against the 285 not the 295 and still gives the 295 a run for it's money and $100 cheaper which will change v soon i bet..


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## soryuuha (Sep 23, 2009)

This review will be total awesome IF



> No support for CUDA / PhysX



this thing wasn't in the last page.

W1zz(?) made it like it is all AMD's fault that there is no support CUDA/PhysX for Radeon's card. 

AAaaaaaaah


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## theorw (Sep 23, 2009)

So should i sell my 4850s for like 200 euros (with musashi s on) and grab a 5850?


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## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

theorw said:


> So should i sell my 4850s for like 200 euros (with musashi s on) and grab a 5850?



Depends, what do you do with it?


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## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2009)

soryuuha said:


> This review will be total awesome IF
> 
> 
> 
> ...



if that is your only problem with the whole review then i'm happy and have done my job well.. when i put it there i was aware that there would be a few people complaining about it.

but it is a fact that both technologies can be useful to you, depending on what you plan to use the card for. since i didnt mention it with any word in the text you can imagine how important it is for the general user in my opinion


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## largon (Sep 23, 2009)

Too bad reviews around the web confirm 5870 OCs like crap. No 4770'ish easy 1GHz. <50MHz gain is pathetic. Also, memory error correction is bad for OC'ers. I'll likely skip 5800s and see how G300 does.


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## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2009)

largon said:


> Too bad reviews around the web confirm 5870 OCs like crap. No 4770'ish easy 1GHz. <50MHz gain is pathetic. Also, memory error correction is bad for OC'ers.
> I'll likely skip 5800s.



wait till later today. memory error correction is there and i'm also looking into turning its feature to our [overclockers] advantage


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## Mistral (Sep 23, 2009)

Excellent review, as always. Love the power consumption figures.

Any hints when the 5850 review is coming out. I'd love to see it's temts, noise level, power draw and overclockability.


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## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2009)

Mistral said:


> Excellent review, as always. Love the power consumption figures.
> 
> Any hints when the 5850 review is coming out. I'd love to see it's temts, noise level, power draw and overclockability.



as soon as there are cards. afaik noone has any yet


----------



## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> as soon as there are cards. afaik noone has any yet



Next to the nice review it's also good to see you're right here giving and receiving feedback


----------



## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2009)

i just had an extremely refreshing nap (while the 5870 cf is benching) .. getting up at 6 am to post the review = sucks


----------



## largon (Sep 23, 2009)

What's the stock GPU voltage?


----------



## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> i just had an extremely refreshing nap (while the 5870 cf is benching) .. getting up at 6 am to post the review = sucks



Looking forward to see how well the CF scales. And also, as you mentioned, to the "new" way of memory clocking.

I'm under the impression that some reviewers report the OC results to be bad because they didn't actually notice the error correction kicking in. Plus, imo it's absolutely an added bonus to not brick your card with artifacts when overclocking too wildly.


----------



## [I.R.A]_FBi (Sep 23, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> i just had an extremely refreshing nap (while the 5870 cf is benching) .. getting up at 6 am to post the review = sucks



thank ye


----------



## largon (Sep 23, 2009)

Found a typo: 


> Originally Posted in *the review*
> 
> 
> Basically the card can drive six TMDS signals that can be combined in any way (a dual-link DVI consumes two TM*SD* lines).





Thrackan said:


> I'm under the impression that some reviewers report the OC results to be bad because they didn't actually notice the error correction kicking in.


On the contrary, not noticing EC kicking in would result in a "false OC", where the achieved OC freq is artificially higher, while real throughput is lower compared to a truly stable freq where EC is not active. 





> Plus, imo it's absolutely an added bonus to not brick your card with artifacts when overclocking too wildly.


Dunno what you mean by "brick your card"... 

Fact is, error _correction_ is not good when OC'ing. Unless it's just the freq you're interested in, not the performance. Now, if there's a way to rig an app to report EC events to the user, that would be useful. But as long as the user can't easily know whether EC is active it's just simply a bad feature with no gains, only potential for decreasing performance.


----------



## KainXS (Sep 23, 2009)

largon said:


> Too bad reviews around the web confirm 5870 OCs like crap. No 4770'ish easy 1GHz. <50MHz gain is pathetic. Also, memory error correction is bad for OC'ers. I'll likely skip 5800s and see how G300 does.



they more than likely overclock so badly because ATI probably dropped the vcore and mem volatage to a minimum to keep the temperature in check and didn't want to take chances on the cards release, now since the card supports software voltage control then maybe wiz can push it to its limits . . . .. 


unless he has to send it back to ATI or another reviewer.


----------



## Solaris17 (Sep 23, 2009)

KainXS said:


> they more than likely overclock so badly because ATI probably dropped the vcore and mem volatage to a minimum to keep the temperature in check and didn't want to take chances on the cards release, now since the card supports software voltage control then maybe wiz can push it to its limits . . . ..
> 
> 
> unless he has to send it back to ATI or another reviewer



w1zz has like godlike contracts with these companys he doesnt have to send back or pass anything on because he has the CEO's child in his closet taped up. idk its a sticky situation lots of grey and lawyers with bats and such


----------



## mdm-adph (Sep 23, 2009)

DanishDevil said:


> The only thing that really impresses me is the idle power consumption. Other than that, this really isn't what it was hyped up to be IMO. Oh, and that it's priced about $100 higher than everybody was thinking.



Apparently we've been reading different articles for the past few weeks -- everything that I've seen said the 5870 would be $399 and the 5850 would be $299, so actually these cards are _cheaper_.


----------



## mudkip (Sep 23, 2009)

amd is awesome


----------



## legends84 (Sep 23, 2009)

Wow......


----------



## newtekie1 (Sep 23, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> as soon as there are cards. afaik noone has any yet



How did you get HD5850 performance numbers if you don't have one yet?  Just curious.


----------



## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> How did you get HD5850 performance numbers if you don't have one yet?  Just curious.



He lowered clocks to specification of the HD5850 and disabled some units (don't remember what units). It's mentioned in the review


----------



## Solaris17 (Sep 23, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> How did you get HD5850 performance numbers if you don't have one yet?  Just curious.



he downclocked it and disabled some of the SIMDS


----------



## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2009)

Solaris17 said:


> he downclocked it and disabled some of the SIMDS



which is exactly the same thing amd is doing when they make the hd 5850


----------



## Solaris17 (Sep 23, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> which is exactly the same thing amd is doing when they make the hd 5850



which means their may be a way to flash it like the 4860 ES mistakes?


----------



## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> which is exactly the same thing amd is doing when they make the hd 5850



Might I understand that as an implication that we might be able to "unlock" some HD5850's?


----------



## Solaris17 (Sep 23, 2009)

Thrackan said:


> Might I understand that as an implication that we might be able to "unlock" some HD5850's?



ha i beat you!!!

sorry i was just happy because their are like a million ninja posts in this thread and i already got beat answering newtekie


----------



## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 23, 2009)

The picture is good, NVIDIA toppling over, ATI ruling the checkmate, we will see how long that will last.


----------



## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

I do wonder a tiny bit about the air vents: maybe they are meant to get some air *from* the fan to the parts behind the fan... That would be the only thing I could think of...


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Sep 23, 2009)

Well I see just about what I expected. However I think with a little driver maturity and a few DX11 games these cards will really shine. 

With that being said I think this is a short victory for AMD/ATI. I think the Nvidia camp will blow these out of the water VERY soon. The only thing we can hope/pray for is a major price cut on these babys. When that happens Ill buy one for sure!


----------



## Xajel (Sep 23, 2009)

I used to see folding performance for new gpu's and cards.. why there's no one here ?

I know the HD 5000 may need an update to the GPU client ( ATi side ) duo to the changes in the arch. of shaders, but at least what it will give us using current version of it...

I hope I see it soon


----------



## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Well I see just about what I expected. However I think with a little driver maturity and a few DX11 games these cards will really shine.
> 
> With that being said I think this is a short victory for AMD/ATI. I think the Nvidia camp will blow these out of the water VERY soon. The only thing we can hope/pray for is a major price cut on these babys. When that happens Ill buy one for sure!



On pure performance, the 300 series is bound to blow the crap out of these cards.
Thing is, both the pricing (which will be dropped by the time nVidia answers this) and the power consumption makes these cards very attractive to a certain group.

Afaik, ATi is still doing "sweet spot" marketing, which means not aiming for the ultimate über high-end card whatever the consumption and cost may be, but bringing cards exactly like these: fitting in today's high-end section and tomorrow's mid- to high-end section of the market.


----------



## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 23, 2009)

This card is really not that much improved over last generation, but remember drivers for this card are still in their infancy.


----------



## kid41212003 (Sep 23, 2009)

Thrackan said:


> I do wonder a tiny bit about the air vents: maybe they are meant to get some air *from* the fan to the parts behind the fan... That would be the only thing I could think of...



It houses a pair of Pratt & Whitney F119 low-bypass turbofans.


----------



## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

kid41212003 said:


> It houses a pair of Pratt & Whitney F119 low-bypass turbofans.



I know I'm missing a joke here


----------



## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2009)

Thrackan said:


> Might I understand that as an implication that we might be able to "unlock" some HD5850's?



no, they will make sure it's properly locked. unless they want it to be unlockable


----------



## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> no, they will make sure it's properly locked. unless they want it to be unlockable



Got a point there... Any manufacturer that still doesn't realise users will do everything to their hardware after all this time of overclocking and unlocking madness surely has a thick skull


----------



## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 23, 2009)

Seems to be sold out...  everywhere...


----------



## mdm-adph (Sep 23, 2009)

Thrackan said:


> I do wonder a tiny bit about the air vents: maybe they are meant to get some air *from* the fan to the parts behind the fan... That would be the only thing I could think of...



I hope they do _something_, otherwise, won't the top card overheat in a crossfire setup?


----------



## kid41212003 (Sep 23, 2009)

Thrackan said:


> I know I'm missing a joke here



It allows the card sustained supercruise speeds of up to Mach 1.72


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Sep 23, 2009)

Thrackan said:


> On pure performance, the 300 series is bound to blow the crap out of these cards.
> Thing is, both the pricing (which will be dropped by the time nVidia answers this) and the power consumption makes these cards very attractive to a certain group.
> 
> Afaik, ATi is still doing "sweet spot" marketing, which means not aiming for the ultimate über high-end card whatever the consumption and cost may be, but bringing cards exactly like these: fitting in today's high-end section and tomorrow's mid- to high-end section of the market.



Who gives a crap about power consumption with you're looking for over all performance. That's like trying to get good MPG out of a dragster. I don't care if it takes 800watts to run as long as I'm getting a good deal on 100,000 fps.



kid41212003 said:


> It allows the card sustained supercruise speeds of up to Mach 1.72



I got the joke man


----------



## L|NK|N (Sep 23, 2009)

*Nice job!*

First and foremost, excellent review W1zzard. Thank you for your efforts and for being very thorough. What I am taking from this review is the fact that there is a great deal of progress through design, as opposed to a simple rehash product. The fact that ATI's single GPU high-end offering this round comes within ~2% of the performance of the monster 4870x2 whilst being more efficient all around is an incredible advancement in my opinion. The added useful features warrant the score as well as the price. 4870x2 for ~329 or a 5870 for ~379. It's a no brainer in my opinion. Well done ATI.


----------



## Solaris17 (Sep 23, 2009)

mdm-adph said:


> I hope they do _something_, otherwise, won't the top card overheat in a crossfire setup?



im worried about this also. my GX2's are side by side to allow my other needed slots to be open. and the openings at the top and bottom of the cards (near pci connector and power connectors) are the only things that keep them from nuking.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Sep 23, 2009)

Solaris17 said:


> im worried about this also. my GX2's are side by side to allow my other needed slots to be open. and the openings at the top and bottom of the cards (near pci connector and power connectors) are the only things that keep them from nuking.



Whats the ambient temp in your case man?


----------



## niko084 (Sep 23, 2009)

Meh, fast card, 40nm is nice, but not the mind blowing card that they were claiming it to be.

Now what do I do... 

I wait for Nvidia's answer and see what that does to prices, and hopefully we will see some more power usage drops.

So far a HD4770 very well maybe my next card.....


----------



## mdm-adph (Sep 23, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Who gives a crap about power consumption with you're looking for over all performance. That's like trying to get good MPG out of a dragster. I don't care if it takes 800watts to run as long as I'm getting a good deal on 100,000 fps.



You really shouldn't be surprised that people will find something to bitch about.  If it's not power consumption, it'll be something esoteric like the shader position on the chip.

If not that, then the color of the box that it comes in.


----------



## Solaris17 (Sep 23, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Whats the ambient temp in your case man?



the ambient temp of my room is like 25C the case is around 30-32 (water cooled so heat doent bleed in the case from proc) and with 100% fan speed my cards will load and sustain 95C dont bealive me? ask CP he has 1 GX2 so no side by side config and when me and him were compairing resualts he loaded mid 70's if i remember correctly.


----------



## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

kid41212003 said:


> It allows the card sustained supercruise speeds of up to Mach 1.72



I had to Google it...


----------



## largon (Sep 23, 2009)

PVTCaboose1337 said:


> This card is really not that much improved over last generation, but remember drivers for this card are still in their infancy.


Then again, 
4870 was 1.56× faster than 3870, overall. It was considered a huge gain. 
5870 is 1.59× faster than 4870, overall. 1.37× faster than 4890. For some reason, it doesn't seem that impressive.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Sep 23, 2009)

Solaris17 said:


> the ambient temp of my room is like 25C the case is around 30-32 (water cooled so heat doent bleed in the case from proc) and with 100% fan speed my cards will load and sustain 95C dont bealive me? ask CP he has 1 GX2 so no side by side config and when me and him were compairing resualts he loaded mid 70's if i remember correctly.



Wow thats hot. But if it makes you feel any better I had a reference 4850 that ran 92c at idle!  You know what? That F#$KiING card is rock solid stable. I say run them SLI and see what happens.



largon said:


> Then again,
> 4870 was 1.56× faster than 3870, overall. It was considered a huge gain.
> 5870 is 1.59× faster than 4870, overall. 1.37× faster than 4890. For some reason, it doesn't seem that impressive.



Over hyping something has that effect. I for one am very satiisfyed with the outcome. I just think they are over priced.


----------



## Solaris17 (Sep 23, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Wow thats hot. But if it makes you feel any better I had a reference 4850 that ran 92c at idle!  You know what? That F#$KiING card is rock solid stable. I say run them SLI and see what happens.
> 
> 
> 
> Over hyping something has that effect. I for one am very satiisfyed with the outcome. I just think they are over priced.



o i run them sli their pretty hot most i ever saw it at before i got scared was like 101c loaded they idle in the 60's which isnt bad considering their config but when i hit 101 overvolting and clocking i was like DONE and stopped...ill only ever let them run that high when benching i dont oc or ov that far when i game with the TS guys its not needed given that the games dont need that much to make me happy and at 100c i just refuse to let them run at that for prolonged amounts of time.


----------



## newtekie1 (Sep 23, 2009)

Thrackan said:


> Might I understand that as an implication that we might be able to "unlock" some HD5850's?



Both sides have master the disabling of part of the core, they've been doing it for long enough to know better.  Though I thought the same was true in the CPU world, and AMD released a bunch of CPUs with disabled features that could be unlocked...



Thrackan said:


> I do wonder a tiny bit about the air vents: maybe they are meant to get some air *from* the fan to the parts behind the fan... That would be the only thing I could think of...



There is nothing behind the fan that requires cooling.  In fact, the end of the PCB almost exactly lines up with the back of the fan.  Everything beyond that on the cooler overhangs the PCB.  They litterally serve no function.



mdm-adph said:


> I hope they do _something_, otherwise, won't the top card overheat in a crossfire setup?



It would only overheat as much as the current cards do.  Ideally, there would be PCI slot width between the cards, allowing for enough air to be brought in through the fan openning.  If the two(or three/four) cards are right next to eachother, there will likely be problems, but that has always been an issue, and will continue to be an issue.


----------



## Tatty_One (Sep 23, 2009)

AsRock said:


> Dayum, i think the 5870 does very well my self.  Not as well if you  put it against the 295 but thats a dual GPU card.
> 
> For it to beat and come even close to the 295 is some thing real good as when the 5870 x2 comes out it's going be way past the 295.
> 
> This card is against the 285 not the 295 and still gives the 295 a run for it's money and $100 cheaper which will change v soon i bet..



Agreed, the performance charts show that the 5870 across the board is 17% quicker than the 285, but working on the theory that the 5870 is initially going to be lets say $380 from newegg and from them you can get a 285 for $296 after rebate that makes the 285 22% cheaper than the 5870..... all in all not bad 22% cheaper but only 17% slower....HOWEVER...... that suggests to me that NVidia actually does not have a huge amount to fear from the 5870 BUT in the case of the 5850 they should be very worried, certainly before GT300 or whatever it's called arrives.


----------



## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> ...
> 
> There is nothing behind the fan that requires cooling.  In fact, the end of the PCB almost exactly lines up with the back of the fan.  Everything beyond that on the cooler overhangs the PCB.  They litterally serve no function.
> 
> ...



Then I'd say it would be beneficial to shut them vents, in order to let the radial fan blow everything across the sink.


----------



## Solaris17 (Sep 23, 2009)

Thrackan said:


> Then I'd say it would be beneficial to shut them vents, in order to let the radial fan blow everything across the sink.



well looking at the fan and maybe im a little to tired to be noticing things correctly but i bealive that the fan blades are a little crooked pulling from the rear and pushing through the sink so their is probably little leakage through the rear intake vents.


----------



## newtekie1 (Sep 23, 2009)

Thrackan said:


> Then I'd say it would be beneficial to shut them vents, in order to let the radial fan blow everything across the sink.



It already does, the fan has plastic all the way around it, preventing air from going anywhere but over the heatsink.

The only thing might be that the little holes at the bottom of the radial fan housing, that were cut out to make room for components on the PCB, might let a little air be sucking in through those vents, but I doubt it would make any real difference.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Sep 23, 2009)

Wizz from your professional opinion do you think the 5870 would have benefited from a 512bit bus or would that just jack up the price with no real performance increase?


----------



## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2009)

Solaris17 said:


> well looking at the fan and maybe im a little to tired to be noticing things correctly but i bealive that the fan blades are a little crooked pulling from the rear and pushing through the sink so their is probably little leakage through the rear intake vents.



i tried with a thin paper towel and i couldnt see any any airflow around the vents


----------



## Solaris17 (Sep 23, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> i tried with a thin paper towel and i couldnt see any any airflow around the vents



either way its not harmfull (no air escaping) so the fans effectively doing the best it can do with pushing air over the sink.....i also just realized in a config were the cards are side by side perhaps it will create a vacuum effect and pull air in the vents in the back...(perhaps you could test in the CF setup?)


----------



## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 23, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> i tried with a thin paper towel and i couldnt see any any airflow around the vents



Can you do a windtunnel like test?  Just light a cigarette, and let the smoke go though and see what it does?


----------



## Solaris17 (Sep 23, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Wizz from your professional opinion do you think the 5870 would have benefited from a 512bit bus or would that just jack up the price with no real performance increase?



if i may interject b4 getting pwn3d by him id say with the traces needed to be implimented maybe the extra layer of pcb...the chip adjustments...the marketing value..i could see at least an extra $50 on the price...as for perfomance at 5ghz effective..i can only imagine double the bus would add a ludecrous amount of extra bandwidth.


----------



## Benetanegia (Sep 23, 2009)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Wizz from your professional opinion do you think the 5870 would have benefited from a 512bit bus or would that just jack up the price with no real performance increase?



512 bit would be overkill but, more than 256 bit might not, the card could actually be bottlenecked by the memory. That's easy to find IMO, just underclock the core while leaving the memory as is. If the core underclock does not affect performance you have memory bottleneck there...

@Solaris

When you are saying $50 you are talking about the final price or production costs? IMO it wouldn't add nowhere near $50 to production costs, purely based on the fact that 448 bit GTX260 cards sell for $150 and are not much simpler than 512 bit, and the 512 bit HD2900 ended up really cheap in a time when 512bits were not as usual as today. IMO more traces > higher price is something that is vastly exagerated. It does add to the price but not as much as most think. IMO Ati has not made them 512 bit because they want the HD5850 to finish their life under the $100 mark and down there it does matter some few $. That being said, I'll wait the answer from Wizz.


----------



## Sihastru (Sep 23, 2009)

I am not really impressed. I am actually _disappointed_. My crystal ball said to me we'll get 25%-40% more performance, seems the ball was overly-positive in it's prediction. The leaked performance graphs told us to expect "up to 100%" more performance... we're not there.

There is one thing that is impressive. Idle power consumption. Explainable by the 100MHz frequency...

It's true that the 5870 smokes the GTX285. But this is just it's temporary enemy. In a few months, there will be a new sheriff in town, with green alligator boots. There will be a shootout. Some of the bullets could be seen as "more expensive" but a kill is a kill.

One more problem is that it supports DX11, but it's about the only thing that supports DX11 (apart from Windows 7). There are no games. There are no applications. We'll have to wait around 6 months for DX11 titles. It's not really their fault, lazy developers make up for it. nVidia won't have this problem.

They say it has so much power, lightnings strike inside out from your case. 2.7 TFLOPS of power. How does it do in F@H (the thing that's integrated in their Catalyst drivers)? Does it fold like it has 2.7 TFLOPS?

Final nail in the coffin: ATI has this chance to sell as many cards as possible in these few months. Unfortunately news around this thing called the interweb is that Dell got an "unfairly" large share of the existing cards, so expect shortages in the next month or so. Retail availability problems equals fixed or rising prices.

Pricing reports from Europe position the 5870 between 4870X2 and GTX295. Exactly where it stands performance wise. Seems expensive for a singe GPU card. Is it not?

nVidia Fanboy Out!


----------



## mdm-adph (Sep 23, 2009)

Sihastru said:


> I am not really impressed. I am actually _disappointed_. My crystal ball said to me we'll get 25%-40% more performance, seems the ball was overly-positive in it's prediction. The leaked performance graphs told us to expect "up to 100%" more performance... we're not there.
> 
> It's true that the 5870 smokes the GTX285. But this is just it's temporary enemy. In a few months, there will be a new sheriff in town, with green alligator boots. There will be a shootout. Some of the bullets could be seen as "more expensive" but a kill is a kill.
> 
> ...



Well, at least you admitted it.    You've got some good points, though.  However:

1)  There's always going to be something faster "a few months down the road."

2)  When the g300 comes out, there's only going to be two DX11 games then.  It's really not much to wait for, no matter what card you have, ATI _or_ nVidia.

The HD 5870's a damn good card -- nobody will be disappointed by it when you buy it.

And furthermore:


----------



## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 23, 2009)

mdm-adph said:


> Well, at least you admitted it.    You've got some good points, though.  However:
> 
> 1)  There's always going to be something faster "a few months down the road."
> 
> ...



O LOL.  What an amazing picture.  I can actually imagine w1z driving it though...  And


----------



## Benetanegia (Sep 23, 2009)

mdm-adph said:


> Well, at least you admitted it.    You've got some good points, though.  However:
> 
> 1)  There's always going to be something faster "a few months down the road."
> 
> ...



 Awesome!! 

Just to say something and not make a spam post.

1) That's true, but official statement is still late November for GT300 AFAIK. Not so official sources apparently kind of confirm it will make it for black friday. That means less than 3 months and it's unlikely that Ati will have anything better until RV970 and that measn that Nvidia will ave the crown again. I honestly don't see them pulling out a RV890 this time, because I'd say the optimizations made for RV790 are already into RV870, it would be dumb not to.


----------



## mdm-adph (Sep 23, 2009)

PVTCaboose1337 said:


> O LOL.  What an amazing picture.  I can actually imagine w1z driving it though...  And



It's from Guru3d, I gotta admit.  

By the way, I wonder why Wiz doesn't test Crysis Warhead?  The 5870 performed a LOT better on that than the old Nvidia-optimised Cyrsis, as I saw from Guru3d.


----------



## ATi > nVidia (Sep 23, 2009)

*omg omg omg omg omg omg omg*

omg omg omg omg omg omg


----------



## mlee49 (Sep 23, 2009)

Nice performance on the 5870.  Awaits performance on the 5830, 56xx, 5xxx and of course more details on the Eyefinity.


----------



## ATi > nVidia (Sep 23, 2009)

ok now thank me for my post bc the nick I picked 4 yrs. ago on this forum is now finally true.


----------



## Nacho_Tyr (Sep 23, 2009)

4830=4850???


----------



## Binge (Sep 23, 2009)

ATi > nVidia said:


> ok now thank me for my post bc the nick I picked 4 yrs. ago on this forum is now finally true.



I don't get it?  Come back to reality.  ATi > = < nVidia to infinity.

Great review Wizz.


----------



## ShogoXT (Sep 23, 2009)

Solaris17 said:


> im worried about this also. my GX2's are side by side to allow my other needed slots to be open. and the openings at the top and bottom of the cards (near pci connector and power connectors) are the only things that keep them from nuking.



This is the current issue I am facing on my Atomic 4890 crossfire setup. They are sandwiched right on each other and the top card starts to artifact and overheat in crossfire... 

Whats your opinion on the new AF and AA features? From what ive seen the AF is awesome, but is supersampling ever going to be used? I hear it just blurs too much.


----------



## Nick89 (Sep 23, 2009)

I don't understand how people can be disappointed with this cards performance. Its twice as fast as a 4870...


----------



## Binge (Sep 23, 2009)

Nick89 said:


> I don't understand how people can be disappointed with this cards performance. Its twice as fast as a 4870...



You're speaking with regard only to ATi's line of cards.  Some of us wanted to see them really really really beat nV, but this isn't enough of a lead for nV to lose face over.


----------



## Sasqui (Sep 23, 2009)

Binge said:


> You're speaking with regard only to ATi's line of cards.  Some of us wanted to see them really really really beat nV, but this isn't enough of a lead for nV to lose face over.



I'm not sure if I'm missing something - but that's comparing to a *Dual *core 295!  Let's see the 5870 XFire numbers!

The idle wattage draw alone makes me want one... I'll be more comfortable leaving my computer on.


----------



## Nick89 (Sep 23, 2009)

Binge said:


> You're speaking with regard only to ATi's line of cards.  Some of us wanted to see them really really really beat nV, but this isn't enough of a lead for nV to lose face over.


But this is only a 5870, its not a 5890 or a 5870 X2. So I still don't see any reason for the disappointment. Its not even the top dog card for ATI's lineup so I don't see a point in comparing it to nvidia's top dog card.


----------



## Assimilator (Sep 23, 2009)

As always, excellent review W1zzard.

Considering that RV870 is essentially 2x upgraded RV790 on one chip with some extra circuitry to make the integration seamless (and of course add DX11 support), I was expecting more. In particular, I was sure it would be able to comfortably beat the 4870 X2, but it seems that the 256-bit bus is somewhat of a limiting factor.

Now it's the green team's turn...


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## erocker (Sep 23, 2009)

Binge said:


> You're speaking with regard only to ATi's line of cards.  Some of us wanted to see them really really really beat nV, but this isn't enough of a lead for nV to lose face over.



It's enough for Nvidia to rethink their pricing stategy. ATi has a single GPU card that thrashes Nvidia's single GPU card. The GTX295 is not the 5870's competition. Either way there will always be people disappointed in anything and everything so all in all it doesn't matter.


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## Binge (Sep 23, 2009)

Sasqui said:


> I'm not sure if I'm missing something - but that's comparing to a *Dual *core 295!  Let's see the 5870 XFire numbers!
> 
> The idle wattage draw alone makes me want one... I'll be more comfortable leaving my computer on.





Nick89 said:


> But this is only a 5870, its not a 5890 or a 5870 X2. So I still don't see any reason for the disappointment. Its not even the top dog card for ATI's lineup so I don't see a point in comparing it to nvidia's top dog card.



In a few months you guys will see what I'm talking about.  Why is it arguable that I want to see ATi make a single GPU that's better than anything both companies have to offer?  That's why I'm disappointed.  Sue me for expecting more out of team red


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## theorw (Sep 23, 2009)

Thrackan said:


> Depends, what do you do with it?



Full HD gaming

So 5850 right?Would be better than 2 4850s that might not scale well,depending on the game!


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## Binge (Sep 23, 2009)

Heh, eRock I understand what ATi was competing with, and I respect the idea people see that.  I thought with the raw power of this card that we'd see some bigger numbers pop out.  It's still an amazing card for power consumption, heat, and power.  I like them.


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## erocker (Sep 23, 2009)

Binge said:


> Heh, eRock I understand what ATi was competing with, and I respect the idea people see that.  I thought with the raw power of this card that we'd see some bigger numbers pop out.  It's still an amazing card for power consumption, heat, and power.  I like them.



Agreed. If the thing was more powerful, I think noise (which may already be an issue to some) and heat would be a big problem with the card. I'd love it, if the 5890 or whatever tweaked 5870 they come out with has a larger memory bus. I'm just still curious how Nvidia is going to pull off a card that trounces the 5870 while keeping die size and heat in check. Excited too!


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## Chewy (Sep 23, 2009)

Sasqui said:


> I'm not sure if I'm missing something - but that's comparing to a *Dual *core 295!  Let's see the 5870 XFire numbers!
> 
> The idle wattage draw alone makes me want one... I'll be more comfortable leaving my computer on.



 True, maybe its all just to the highly anticipated, ati 4870 will blow every current card out of the water false predicaments posted on some sites. In reality I think the 5xxxx series has high potential, possibly furthering its gaps to single gpus with new updates.


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## Agility (Sep 23, 2009)

ATI is now releasing 40nm cards and wants it to be their top-in-line card now. With reduced die shrink and yet double performance of a 4870, it really is alot of work already. And the temperature and watts are like almost half of what its predecessors. I still can't imagine if i've had my 2900XT now. It'll take up 3X more watts then the 5870. 

Still i think the 5870 is a good card. And am 80% sure. This might also forcibly tell NV to bring their cards at a lower price for competition / performance.

Their war is more like a PERFORMANCE VS MONEY issue then PLAIN PERFORMANCE now. That's what i see.


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## thebluebumblebee (Sep 23, 2009)

But, Does it Fold any better than previous generations of ATI cards?


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 23, 2009)

Ok so lets just sum this up:

At the moment, ATI is king because it has DX11 cards, and a faster card overall.  
When NVIDIA released the GT3xx, they will clearly be destroying the ATI cards, and they will be able to charge much less.  

So for everyone who is confused:

SHORT TERM WINNER:  ATI
LONG TERM WINNER: NVIDIA (to be seen but predicted in this thread by all)


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## 15th Warlock (Sep 23, 2009)

Thanks for the review W1z 

A little underwhelming IMHO, but these are all games based on DX9-DX10 tech. Here's hoping the. performance gap will increase when the new games are released. 

So far I see no reason to upgrade my setup, the good thing about these cards is that they will drive down the prices for prev. gen cards (heck it seems even Ati started lowering prices for these cards before they were released after realising the performance gap wasn't as high as promised, at least on current gen games) perhaps it's time to go SLI for me. 

I'm positive 2 GTX285 on SLI will easily beat one of these cards, and DX11 games just aren't here to really justify upgrading to one of these cards. 

Well, I'll wait and see what happens wih the release of the GT300, the green camp has been unusually quiet about their new architecture, and I have to admit my hopes for a much needed revolutionary change for video cards are diminishing with each passing day


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## mdm-adph (Sep 23, 2009)

PVTCaboose1337 said:


> Ok so lets just sum this up:
> 
> At the moment, ATI is king because it has DX11 cards, and a faster card overall.
> When NVIDIA released the GT3xx, they will clearly be destroying the ATI cards, and they will be able to charge much less.
> ...



This is ridiculous.  You can't use a future win to say who "wins."  

What happens when ATI releases a new card that trashes the G300?  This all starts all over again.  

There is no "long term winner" -- only short term winners.

...unless you want to say the long term winner is "the consumer," which would usually be true.  But then, nobody gets to stroke their e-penii.


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## Assimilator (Sep 23, 2009)

Yeah, I want to see how well (or not) these cards do at F@h... with their impressive power draw they'd be perfect for the job.


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## Tatty_One (Sep 23, 2009)

Sasqui said:


> I'm not sure if I'm missing something - but that's comparing to a *Dual *core 295!  Let's see the 5870 XFire numbers!
> 
> The idle wattage draw alone makes me want one... I'll be more comfortable leaving my computer on.



Bottom line is that the 5870 is 17% faster than NVidia's top single GPU, however it is 22% more expensive (priced at newegg) so arent NVidia now in the unfamiliar marketing realm of ATI.... "yes our GPU may be slower but proportionally it's cheaper"...... AKA better bang for buck?  As I said on the previous page, currrently ATI's greatest strength and NVidia's greatest fear should be the 5850, it's faster AND cheaper than the 285.


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## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

Tatty_One said:


> Bottom line is that the 5870 is 17% faster than NVidia's top single GPU, however it is 22% more expensive (priced at newegg) so arent NVidia now in the unfamiliar marketing realm of ATI.... "yes our GPU may be slower but proportionally it's cheaper"...... AKA better bang for buck?  As I said on the previous page, currrently ATI's greatest strength and NVidia's greatest fear should be the 5850, it's faster AND cheaper than the 285.



5850 will be a scare, but also the 5870 will be a scare soon enough... The 285 isn't on launch pricing level anymore, the 5870 is and will thus drop in price. I suspect the pricing plans of ATi to be competitive in the very near future.


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## Reefer86 (Sep 23, 2009)

I personally have a 4890 and seeing the benchy's here and on a few other sites im not that overly impressed with the performance increase that the hype of the release was dictating.
BUT i am really impressed with the new features that the card brings and it is beating the 285 in most benchys and pricing, dx11 and a feature rich card is quite impressive overall. Tbh i write off the 295 as it is a dual core GPU card so i dont take this into my view. 

I think alot of people got eaten up by the hype (and me a little) that it would be a shark in a sea on minnows, I was very sceptical about the performance increase's closer to the release date that the 5800 series would bring, we have all seen the hype surrounding many card releases in the past and been disappointed. 

I have a 4890 so i wont be rushing out to get a 5870 but i am impressed with the 5800 feature rich series. 

Also i agree with Agility that more and more people are looking to Performance vs Price as the market moves faster and faster due to Nvidia and Ati competing.

Weather you are an ATI owner or and Nvidia owner, we all should be glad that this brings competition to the market, which in turn means price drops and more demand for performance from cards.

I personally bought a ******* card for  £350 and within months it was outdated by a card that was cheeper and better performance, so these days i take bang for buck and performance values very seriously.

I dont have £450 - £500 (and tbh would never spend that on one card) but i could maybe push £300 for a very competitive feature rich high performance card. That's how i see it any ways. Im sure if we had all the money in the world we would have 2 nvidia 295's in SLI, but we all don't!

I do own a ATI card now but i had an Nvidia card before that, im no fan boy i just go with whats good for money/performance at the time of my upgrade. Although i always spend a big amount of money to some people so allways go highend.

For me a new system builder should detonately consider this as an option and i doubt they would be disappointed. 

That's my ten cent's anyways

Thanks Reefer


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## WarEagleAU (Sep 23, 2009)

Fastest single gpu card. Cannot wait to see how the GT300 compares and if they finally moved from GDDR3. I was really hoping ATI would go with Shader clocks on this version. Very impressed and lived up to everything I expected and more. Crossfire its the shit, and alone its the shit. Im loving it.

One more thing as Pinchy and a couple others said, driver issues were happening before the launch and they did use an older set. I expect better performance in the next few months. Same thing goes with Nvidia cards. Their performance gets better with the release of newer drivers.


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## lemonadesoda (Sep 23, 2009)

*nVidia WINS with ASUS Mars.*

Now we know why nV was pushing to get the Mars out before the 5xxx series launch.

Shame the MARS performance stats arent in the table: 
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_285_MARS/29.html. You could still add them in?

MARS wins on outright performance but STRUGGLES on performance per $ LOL


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## Nick89 (Sep 23, 2009)

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/ati_radeon_5870_fastest_videocard_ever_ps_its_380

Why does maximumPC get 500+ diggs but TPU does a better review and gets 10.....

1250 digg's now...


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## W1zzard (Sep 23, 2009)

Nick89 said:


> http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/ati_radeon_5870_fastest_videocard_ever_ps_its_380
> 
> Why does maximumPC get 500+ diggs but TPU does a better review and gets 10.....



because they have trained hordes of people to digg their stuff .. nobody does it for tpu


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## Thrackan (Sep 23, 2009)

At least those 10 diggs are from the heart.


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 23, 2009)

mdm-adph said:


> This is ridiculous.  You can't use a future win to say who "wins."
> 
> What happens when ATI releases a new card that trashes the G300?  This all starts all over again.
> 
> ...



There is always a long term winner...  long term is not forever though.  Long term is defined as more than average, short term as less than average.  Therefore, since ATI will rule for less than average time, then it is a short term winner.


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## Steevo (Sep 23, 2009)

I dig for GTA4........



much love long time.


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 23, 2009)

I could not resist.  (If you saw this picture you must push the Digg button on the first page!)


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## Benetanegia (Sep 23, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> because they have trained hordes of people to digg their stuff .. nobody does it for tpu



Dugg. 

Anyway, I think that the digg it icon placement has a lot to do too. I didn't even know it was there...


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## El Fiendo (Sep 24, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> because they have trained hordes of people to digg their stuff .. nobody does it for tpu



I'll go register on digg specifically to become the first of your legion of trainees.

Btw, excellent work getting 3 reviews done for today. Thanks.


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## troyrae360 (Sep 24, 2009)

i've regersterd and dugg


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## scope54 (Sep 24, 2009)

Battleforge was updated to DX11 maybe update the review with the newest patch (if using win7 to bench)?
And it seems MSI has newer ATI drivers RC7: http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33952980


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## imperialreign (Sep 24, 2009)

I'm curious, as this kinda just dawned on me . . .

For the STALKER: Clear Sky benchmarks - are those performed in DX9 or DX10(.1) render?

Y'know, if it's not too much of an issue, I'd recommend benching new hardware in such games in both DX renders, as there's usually a major performance difference between the two.  CS is notorious for this performance hit, as well as Crysis.

Just a suggestion I'd throw out.

Otherwise, another excellent review, w1zz!  I'm quite shocked by these new beasts from ATI's den, and defi looking forward to the reviews of the 70x2s!


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## wolf (Sep 24, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> But (at least for now) AMD has done away with calling their GPUs by the Ryxxx codenames



RVxxx methinks?

In any case dude kickass review.

Price performance is skewed but they will try and sell as many of these cards for as much as possible before Nvidia have a chance to fight back.

and good on them!


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## ArmoredCavalry (Sep 24, 2009)

Dang, I have to say I am pretty impressed by the 5850 benchmarks. Especially since it is selling for $260-$280.

Also, after looking at the size comparison (very helpful ty W1zzard), I know the 5870 will not be fitting in my case.

So, as soon as newegg gets some Sapphire 5850's in stock, I think I know what I will be buying.  (maybe)


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## DeeJay (Sep 24, 2009)

Does anyone know if the cooler on this card has a detachable core? My 4780 has a cooler which allows the copper with the heatpipes to be removed. I installed a watercooler instead. I am just using the metal frame of the cooler to passively cool the memory and some other parts. I want to do the same with this one.


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## wolf (Sep 25, 2009)

DeeJay said:


> Does anyone know if the cooler on this card has a detachable core? My 4780 has a cooler which allows the copper with the heatpipes to be removed. I installed a watercooler instead. I am just using the metal frame of the cooler to passively cool the memory and some other parts. I want to do the same with this one.



I did the exact same on my 4870, worked a treat, no idea bout this card tho.


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## Thrackan (Sep 25, 2009)

DeeJay said:


> Does anyone know if the cooler on this card has a detachable core? My 4780 has a cooler which allows the copper with the heatpipes to be removed. I installed a watercooler instead. I am just using the metal frame of the cooler to passively cool the memory and some other parts. I want to do the same with this one.



I did that with my 4850, but that required dremeling


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## Milky (Sep 25, 2009)

I am very impressed particularly by power consumption which is important for me, but @ that price i think i might just get another 4870 instead....


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## DeeJay (Sep 25, 2009)

The 4870 and 4850 are based off the same design as the 4780. But since the 5870 is a completely new design I am afraid I have to dig through all the reviews hoping that one of them says something about this.


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## Makaveli (Sep 25, 2009)

I don't agree with everyone complaining about the performance. This card is using very early drivers. And I think it 3-4 months with driver updates it will beat the 4870X2 on a regular and will either close the gap or tie the 295 in the benchmarks it lost and continue to beat it on the ones it was already winning.

My only concern with this card is its length and what will happen with aftermarket coolers. Overall I think its a great product and the price is good considering. Those of you expecting it to be released at a 250-300 price point were seriously mistaken, and I think its current price is fine. If I had to choose between this card and the 4870x2 I will take a single card over Xfire or SLI anyday!!!


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## DeeJay (Sep 25, 2009)

> I will take a single card over Xfire or SLI anyday!!!



I agree. It saves a PCI-e slot an a lot of power.


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## RejZoR (Sep 27, 2009)

> No support for CUDA / PhysX



This is hardly an AMD fault. It's propertiary technology and as such we cannot blame AMD for not supporting it. It would be like blaming NVIDIA back then for not supporting 3dfx Glide. They just can't because NVIDIA doesn't want them to support it. They want it to be exclusive to GeForce cards.


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## Deleted member 67555 (Sep 27, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> because they have trained hordes of people to digg their stuff .. nobody does it for tpu


I didn't Digg the Maximum Pc review and i must say TPU did a much better review(as always love the graphs)....But I'm not going to Digg any review That doesn't have an AMD Test setup, period..Yes i want to see the Intel test but there is no Brand comparison to go by here..These results only tell me this card rocks in a setup that's not similar to mine. If you do a review with an AMD setup I promise I'll digg it then..
Not to mention it would be nice to see a Stock clock to Oc comparison


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## Fatal (Sep 27, 2009)

jmcslob said:


> I didn't Digg the Maximum Pc review and i must say TPU did a much better review(as always love the graphs)....But I'm not going to Digg any review That doesn't have an AMD Test setup, period..Yes i want to see the Intel test but there is no Brand comparison to go by here..These results only tell me this card rocks in a setup that's not similar to mine. If you do a review with an AMD setup I promise I'll digg it then..
> Not to mention it would be nice to see a Stock clock to Oc comparison



Would be nice to see what the power of 3 can do  See if it really does gel together well.


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## D4S4 (Sep 28, 2009)

QUOTE: 
Overclocking the memory on these cards is quite different from any other card so far. Normally you'd expect rendering errors or crashes, but not with these cards. Thanks to the new error correction algorithm in the memory controller, every memory error is just retransmitted until everything is fine. So once you exceed the "stable" clock frequency, memory errors will appear more often, get retransmitted, but the rendered output will still look perfectly fine. The only difference is that performance drops, the further you increase the clocks, the lower the performance gets. As a result a normal "artifact scanning" approach to memory overclocking on the HD 5800 Series will not work. You have to manually increase the clocks and observe the framerate until you find the point where performance drops.



So, you get a card with flawed memory and you don't even know it?


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## Benetanegia (Sep 28, 2009)

D4S4 said:


> So, you get a card with flawed memory and you don't even know it?



Good catch, I had thought about the card overheating, or getting some current leakage, but I didn't thought about that. Certainly I don't know how would you know if it was working properly without something to compare and what's worse how would you demostrate in the store that is not working at it should in order to have a replacement.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 28, 2009)

RejZoR said:


> This is hardly an AMD fault. It's propertiary technology and as such we cannot blame AMD for not supporting it. It would be like blaming NVIDIA back then for not supporting 3dfx Glide. They just can't because NVIDIA doesn't want them to support it. They want it to be exclusive to GeForce cards.



"Since the release of the 186 ForceWare drivers PhysX hardware acceleration is disabled when a non-NVIDIA graphics card is used. This decision has caused a backlash from the community"

http://www.ngohq.com/graphic-cards/16223-nvidia-disables-physx-when-ati-card-is-present.html


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## wolf (Sep 28, 2009)

Benetanegia said:


> Good catch, I had thought about the card overheating, or getting some current leakage, but I didn't thought about that. Certainly I don't know how would you know if it was working properly without something to compare and what's worse how would you demostrate in the store that is not working at it should in order to have a replacement.



you'd hope that is the kind of testing done on each complete card before it is packaged and dispatched.... we can only hope, or consumers will need a standardized test (application) so they know their 5870 is in perfect working order.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 28, 2009)

it dont matter what card it is, its a matter that usually initial production will have some flaws, they have QA for a reason.


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## suraswami (Sep 28, 2009)

great review W1z.  Thanks.

Question:  Is there a way to select say 2 video cards to compare results, like say 4850 and 5850?  I will be going from 4850 to 5850 for sure and don't want to keep searching the cards in the ever growing list lol.


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## mechtech (Sep 30, 2009)

Eagerly awaiting the 5850 review with power consumtion and noise specs.....................zomg hurry


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## Thrackan (Sep 30, 2009)

Check the 5XXX discussion thread, some review links were posted on the last couple of pages.


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## Benetanegia (Sep 30, 2009)

wolf said:


> you'd hope that is the kind of testing done on each complete card before it is packaged and dispatched.... we can only hope, or consumers will need a standardized test (application) so they know their 5870 is in perfect working order.



All the cards are tested, but every now and then someone gets a defective card, with defective memory. That's unavoidable. It's normally easy to spot because you get artifacts when the memory is having errors, but error correction actively corrects those artifacts so you would be unable to discern, unless you knew exactly how a healthy card performed in your PC. It's not a very big problem for overclocking if you pay attention, but if it's bad out of the box...


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## RoutedScripter (Oct 6, 2009)

This would be , a general talk so to speak , not a response to anybody here,  nor the review author.

I don't think high noise is a big factor for a minus sign , calling the card bad just by the noise and therefore the lower score.

People always seem to expect perfect stuff, but normal logic tells you that at that performance there's surely much heat , and having to have a quieter card with 85C is just not reasonable , first , I am not some fancy reviewer but this is just a standard here, it's not better if it's quieter for everyone , it's just that people are not used to such noise (read> mainstream people) and that the importance of temperatures is far greater than your spoiled ears. As a matter of fact , people who are not used to the noise , isn't it obvious , they're surely not long in the PC and gaming market or been working with it ... I don't know but I hate to see many people around other review sties on the web making this stupid noise buzz such a pain in the butt problem, They need to get used to it.

The biggest mistake is , why is review done with !DEFAULT? sethings , where the manual fan speed is not set , the automatic temp-speed will always not be enough to assure needs of every customer.

I do know there are people who find noise so bad, thus the reviews are pointing out towards this, but again , I don't see those people real PC gamers , maybe something more like weekend players , if they would actually know anything about CONFIGURING.

What is for certain , this noise buzz exploded a few years ago , when a lot of 12-16 year "wannabe gamer" newbies started using PCs in the 21 century. Spoiled children from today can afford a PC very early than I was able. Althought , I don't actually know what caused this noise boom , I am not amused by it definately.
 A stupid one would not buy the card for JUST the noise. Noise is something least important in the industry and I don't know who the heck bring this EXCUSE up. Just to call a card bad?




This review , is well , much better than guru3d , and does , to me have very objective approach which is excelent , those noise remarks are okay , minor , a minus sign indeed , I'll comment on that an a few others , the noise mention is fairly reasonable and there seem to be a big deal in the review , the noise buzz and wprrying  is far more heavy elsewhere(that's actually what is above about).

Cool , as I said , that minus points(cons) the card received , are well and truly fixable from instant you set your OWN config , but , have to say , I have never seen a review done just that , to explain just this , never mentioned,  nor anything similar.
The point is , that cards receive bad points from a lot of SMALL and fixable problems these days, that's just how I feel , for the explanation I will use this review as an example.

So ,  in this case , we have:

    * Not the best price/performance !
    * Tends to be noisy under load #
    * Not much overclocking potential on our sample ! 
    * Long card, might not fit all cases #
    * DirectX 11 won't be relevant for quite a while !
    * No support for CUDA / PhysX  #

! > are facts, those this are real and are very reasonable, yes DX 11 won't be so important for a while(but the green side was hit anyway ) , also the "not best price/preformance" is also correct , basics define that you can't give a minus cause of price, better just costs more and it will not be vice versa. The other is also reasonable.

While the # marked are , to me somewhat unnecessary bad points, first of all , CUDA and Physx is Nvidia only , so I think this was , maybe written before it became nvidia-only stuff...
Long Card that might not fit in all cases , that is true and it will not fit into MANY cases afaik , however there is still a way , HECK not a mainstream one(that's the point) , just re-position your HDD higher ,then chop , cut , saw , whatever that part of HDD cage away so the card would fit ; You think I would buy a card , and at home would notice it doesn't fit, return it lol , and wait again, you're kidding , I would definitely make sure about everything blocking Her way. If you are more than mainstream , then you need to know how to improvise.
Noisy at load, yeah it is , it must be , but again , there is a so called ADVANCED way to force the fan to spin how you like , either faster , or slower , you should achieve maximum cooling and blowing your ears(sarcasm) , or maximum quietness deluxe and risk your hardware blowing up(not joke this time) 

Hmh , will not blow anything , but what is the definitive fact , that when it's hotter it will always perform less and so is the lifetime. Basics , card won't last as long if being always around 70-80C. 




Now ask your self, why would the card have to be warmer, why would they have to satisfy newbies while the hardware would not withstand the circumstances. 85C is a very high temp. I never get beyond 65. and the fan on the HD4870 is only at 35%-40% , crysis for example , I don't even hear the fan while playing , so that busts the "noise problem" right from the first place. The fan on the 5870 would just be even faster ,and it is , thus even louder.  What did everybody expect?

Even basics of physics define this , 
More Performance > More power needed
More Power > More Heat
More Heat > More cooling needed
More cooling needed > More noise if Air cooling used
The more noise > those who are noobs , cry , while the gamers play the game.

Well anyways , I explained a whole lot on a small problem hah, but for the sake of it, it's just my opinion ; small like a mouse , but irritating as an elephant.


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## Thrackan (Oct 6, 2009)

RuskiSnajper said:


> -big story about fan noise-



For me, fan noise *is* a downer.
First off, a dual-slot cooler should be plenty enough to cool a card like this.
Second, a dual-slot cooler allows for placement of bigger (in this case thicker) fans than a single-slot cooler, which makes it possible to move more air at the same RPM.
Third, it's not so much the load noise, even though I don't like a jet engine next to me when I'm gaming. It's the noise the fan produces when you're at your desktop, watching a video or listening to music. A PC should be near-quiet in operation when I'm doing that.

Shoving the "blame" for noiseless computing to gamers is absolutely not true. If anything, it's due to the HTPC trend and mainly just people who want to do more with their PC than just game.

Then, you talk about reviews done at default settings. *Of course* they are done at default settings! Those are the settings each and every buyer of such a card will get when they plug it in and let 'er rip!

Sure, I know how to configure (plus, why would you have to be a "real gamer" to do that?) but still, when I know what the default settings are, I know from where I can start tweaking.

As for the negative points issue, I believe you take them too seriously. These are points someone should take into consideration before buying this card. If you put "good" against "bad", you won't get to a score of 9.5, so that should say something about the importance of those bad points.


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## W1zzard (Oct 6, 2009)

Thrackan said:


> As for the negative points issue, I believe you take them too seriously. These are points someone should take into consideration before buying this card. If you put "good" against "bad", you won't get to a score of 9.5, so that should say something about the importance of those bad points.



exactly. the key word is consideration here. if it doesnt matter for you then ignore it.


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## Tatty_One (Oct 6, 2009)

@ Thracken...... agree totally, lets not forget here, these GPU's are a smaller fabrication process therefore SHOULD run cooler, apart from that, I actually think that ATi/NVidia should not have a "reference" cooler for their GPU's, lets stop card manufacturers charging a premium for decent coolers that they design themselves, let them all contest for sales over the quality of their own hopefully innovated cooling designs, Sapphire manage to do it for it's Atomic, Toxic and VaporX cards and they are fantastic coolers so IMO no need to have these leaf blowing "reference" designs.


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## Thrackan (Oct 6, 2009)

Tatty_One said:


> @ Thracken...... agree totally, lets not forget here, these GPU's are a smaller fabrication process therefore SHOULD run cooler, apart from that, I actually think that ATi/NVidia should not have a "reference" cooler for their GPU's, lets stop card manufacturers charging a premium for decent coolers that they design themselves, let them all contest for sales over the quality of their own hopefully innovated cooling designs, Sapphire manage to do it for it's Atomic, Toxic and VaporX cards and they are fantastic coolers so IMO no need to have these leaf blowing "reference" designs.



You have a point there, such a process would be nice and would certainly get some innovative products on the line.
If I remember correctly, at the time I bought my Club3D Geforce 5900XT, there were alot of different coolers on the market on the same card. Memory might fail me though.

But of course it's all about cost. Will you develop your own cooling standard or will you get a quick license from ATI/AMD or nVidia and slap a cooler on there of which you're already sure it will meet the specifications? Too bad that question is holding back several companies to come with better products.


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 6, 2009)

majority of the ref design go into OEM machines, thats why they are produced first, just wait we will have non ref in a few months and TBH these units for the 4890 are good

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048%20106792627%201067947106&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&CompareItemList=N82E16814102852%2CN82E16814150438%2CN82E16814161299


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## RoutedScripter (Oct 6, 2009)

Thrackan said:


> For me, fan noise *is* a downer.
> First off, a dual-slot cooler should be plenty enough to cool a card like this.
> Second, a dual-slot cooler allows for placement of bigger (in this case thicker) fans than a single-slot cooler, which makes it possible to move more air at the same RPM.
> Third, it's not so much the load noise, even though I don't like a jet engine next to me when I'm gaming. It's the noise the fan produces when you're at your desktop, watching a video or listening to music. A PC should be near-quiet in operation when I'm doing that.
> ...





W1zzard said:


> exactly. the key word is consideration here. if it doesnt matter for you then ignore it.





Right , my bad. 

All right , but I wouldn't be so okay with default cooling , as I experienced my self ,  I wanted to test just that, I left my HD 3870 at default when I bought it , and it froze with screen corruption within 30 minutes. The game was not even so hard on it. It wasn't crysis i tested , but it was maxed out. Half of the problem is , default doesn't always keep it cool enough. 

Indeed , for the noise in this example , we blame the reference cooler. Not that the card is bad , you can always upgrade the cooler or buy a vaporx or whatever upgraded stuff they later manufacture.  Because the OEM/reference stuff will never be the best , thus there won't be a card with a score of 10 at release. 

I do however agree with the most you proved and that the review is just a consideration , but you have to know , I think that a lot of people buy stuff how they see reviews at glance , this is bad , usually it's the green side who has a little more fps , but that's not the real "decision maker" practically speaking.


I am pleased with the outcome of this "opinion exchange", there is no need for arguing ,  you see,  what happened , they almost banned me at guru when I commented  that "I don't care about the noise , just an excuse". And clearly noticed that their reviews were slightly biased anyway , thus a violent reaction did prove just that.


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## Thrackan (Oct 6, 2009)

RuskiSnajper said:


> Right , my bad.
> 
> All right , but I wouldn't be so okay with default cooling , as I experienced my self ,  I wanted to test just that, I left my HD 3870 at default when I bought it , and it froze with screen corruption within 30 minutes. The game was not even so hard on it. It wasn't crysis i tested , but it was maxed out. Half of the problem is , default doesn't always keep it cool enough.


If default doesn't keep it cool enough, there's clearly something wrong with the default. Coolers that do not cool well at default are wrong, I agree with you on that 100% and I would return such a card and demand my cash back.


> Indeed , for the noise in this example , we blame the reference cooler. Not that the card is bad , you can always upgrade the cooler or buy a vaporx or whatever upgraded stuff they later manufacture.  Because the OEM/reference stuff will never be the best , thus there won't be a card with a score of 10 at release.


Exactly!


> I do however agree with the most you proved and that the review is just a consideration , but you have to know , I think that a lot of people buy stuff how they see reviews at glance , this is bad , usually it's the green side who has a little more fps , but that's not the real "decision maker" practically speaking.


True, I for one based my choice on power consumption, noise and of course performance.


> I am pleased with the outcome of this "opinion exchange", there is no need for arguing ,  you see,  what happened , they almost banned me at guru when I commented  that "I don't care about the noise , just an excuse". And clearly noticed that their reviews were slightly biased anyway , thus a violent reaction did prove just that.


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## W1zzard (Oct 6, 2009)

look at the +- points from a noob perspective, then read the conclusion. that alone should give you a good impression about the product, many points are not mentioned in the conclusion, while some are emphasized. i think it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what one of my reviews means for him if he doesn't care about fan noise.

it is my firm belief that cards have to be tested how they perform out of the box - not after serious tweaking. 99% of users take the card out of the box, install it in the pc, start using it and dont worry about overclocking, fan control, voltage tweaking and often not even about having the latest [any recent] driver version


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## RoutedScripter (Oct 6, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> look at the +- points from a noob perspective, then read the conclusion. that alone should give you a good impression about the product, many points are not mentioned in the conclusion, while some are emphasized. i think it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what one of my reviews means for him if he doesn't care about fan noise.
> 
> it is my firm belief that cards have to be tested how they perform out of the box - not after serious tweaking. 99% of users take the card out of the box, install it in the pc, start using it and dont worry about overclocking, fan control, voltage tweaking and often not even about having the latest [any recent] driver version



Hands down. 

I can't not to agree. That means I do.


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## Benetanegia (Oct 6, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> it is my firm belief that cards have to be tested how they perform out of the box - not after serious tweaking. *85*% of users take the card out of the box, install it in the pc, start using it and dont worry about overclocking, fan control, voltage tweaking and often not even about having the latest [any recent] driver version



Sorry but I have to correct you there. That's what 99% of users would do if 22.8% of them didn't have a geek friend.


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## handsomerichguy (Oct 21, 2009)

I love this card


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## Anath (Oct 21, 2009)

/agreed


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## kirah (Mar 30, 2010)

Got this card...best GPU ever...still can't wait to Xfire it...


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## Super XP (Mar 31, 2010)

kirah said:


> Got this card...best GPU ever...still can't wait to Xfire it...


Still too pricy here in Canada. It at least $50 to $100 more than the original release price. Perhaps when ATI releases its re-fresh lineup, the HD 5870 will go down in price


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