# HIS Radeon HD 5850 1 GB



## W1zzard (Oct 1, 2009)

The HIS Radeon HD 5850 is based on AMD's reference design and delivers amazing rendering performance at a much more affordable price than the HD 5870. It comes with an impressing low power consumption and the lack of fan noise is also very enjoyable. Overall it seems like this will be the best high end card available this year.

*Show full review*


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## Zehnsucht (Oct 2, 2009)

Oh my. The power efficiency is FANTASTIC! fanATIcs rejoice!
Imma wait until single 6-pin cards are released and buy two 

Great review as always!


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## pantherx12 (Oct 2, 2009)

Heads up
This page seems to be the one from the 5870 review 
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_5850/5.html


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## sapetto (Oct 2, 2009)

OMG i will not have to change my PSU 5850 power consumptions is almost as the 4850


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## KainXS (Oct 2, 2009)

whoa, it beat the GTX285 in nearly every test and is like100 dollars cheaper  and it can reach 1Ghz on stock cooling O.O


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 2, 2009)

cant wait until the non ref parts appear


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## pantherx12 (Oct 2, 2009)

When my money is even again think I'll grab one of these rather then a 870, the price difference is to much for performance gains that I'm not to bothered by.

Think I might wait for a single 8 pin version or something : ]


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## btarunr (Oct 2, 2009)

pantherx12 said:


> Heads up
> This page seems to be the one from the 5870 review
> http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_5850/5.html



Fixed, thanks.


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## mdm-adph (Oct 2, 2009)

In before the nVidia apologists!  That's okay, I'll fill in for them.

The yields for this card are going to be low.

The presence of two power connectors even though it only needs one is a sure sign of poor planning at ATI.

The G300 is going to be faster.

Sometimes using more power is better if you're cold in the winter and need a heat source -- this card would likely kill you if you used it in Antarctic environments as your main heat source.

I like the color green better than red.

Did I mention the G300?


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## btarunr (Oct 2, 2009)

There will be plenty of these for xmas, don't play the 'yields' card. Every new type of accelerator faced a few initial problems that ironed out in weeks.


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## Disparia (Oct 2, 2009)

Nice.

Same length as my 4870, but without the power connectors on-end. I'll be able to fit more than one in my case.


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 2, 2009)

btarunr said:


> There will be plenty of these for xmas, don't play the 'yields' card. Every new type of accelerator faced a few initial problems that ironed out in weeks.



He is being sarcastic as people will come in and bitch that the cards are not good etc.


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## cbupdd (Oct 2, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> To read this review go to: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_5850/
> 
> Please Digg the review to help us promote it.



Thanks for the review! Could u post a gpuz screenshoot at 1ghz please?


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## W1zzard (Oct 2, 2009)

cbupdd said:


> Thanks for the review! Could u post a gpuz screenshoot at 1ghz please?



let me get that for you .. after my döner kebab


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## pantherx12 (Oct 2, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> let me get that for you .. after my döner kebab



A man with his priorities in order, enjoy your kebab


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## rpsgc (Oct 2, 2009)

Ahh... the HD5850: ~17% slower* but ~41% less power hungry and ~48% cheaper than an HD5870. And it's 9.5"! What's not to like? Alas it will have to wait, my HD4870 is still plenty fast for me, I'm not made of money 

_* nothing a little OC won't solve._



eidairaman1 said:


> cant wait until the non ref parts appear



+1


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## jaredpace (Oct 2, 2009)

The 5850 amazes me in all ways except one.  The up-side-down oriented fansink's 2 heat-pipes and convoluted airflow design.  I would just rip that whole bitch apart and mount a TRUE copper right on the die with twin 200CFM deltas.

Oh, btw, good review W1zzard.


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## newtekie1 (Oct 2, 2009)

Hot damn, simply amazing card.  Hopefully this drives the prices down on nVidia's high end offerings.  They won't have a choice but to lower prices, this thing is faster and $100 cheaper than a GTX285.

I was still hoping for the HD5870 topping the GTX295 though, but it looks like we are stuck with insane pricing on that still until ATi can't manage to release a product that can compete.


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## selway89 (Oct 2, 2009)

Fantastic review W1zz! 
Was the 1GHz using stock cooling? And what kind of temps did that have?
This just makes me want mine to arrive at the door right now!


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## W1zzard (Oct 2, 2009)

added gpuz 1 ghz. temps in the high 80s, stock cooler of course


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## selway89 (Oct 2, 2009)

Hmm interesting! I'll be having some tinkering time when it arrives then.


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## ShRoOmAlIsTiC (Oct 2, 2009)

exact model I ordered,  I hope mine comes close to it OC wise.  thats A perfect review W1zz.  Thank you so much.


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## W1zzard (Oct 2, 2009)

rpsgc said:


> And it's 9.5"!



it's 9.7 actually. what kept me from giving a 10? it's not the best price/perf wise, the fan could be quieter, it could be available in masses and the shaders unlockable. neither of these is impossible or unrealistic.


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## Silverel (Oct 2, 2009)

I think it was the power consumption numbers that sold me. I'll likely be replacing both my 4830's to get one of these... Half the idle W, same load W, more performance... Mmm nom nom nom...


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## HousERaT (Oct 2, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> let me get that for you .. after my döner kebab


Thanks for the review and the info W1zzard.  While you're at it could you tell us what the max clocks are in CCC?  A screenie would be nice.  This card might be deadly in the hands of a bencher.

Thanks
The RaT


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## mdm-adph (Oct 2, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> it's 9.7 actually. what kept me from giving a 10? it's not the best price/perf wise, the fan could be quieter, it could be available in masses and the shaders unlockable. neither of these is impossible or unrealistic.



Where would it have to be on this chart for you to consider it one of the best price/perf wise?







As good as a 4770, at least?

I think that'd be around $180 or so -- the perfect sweet spot for a 5850.


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## rpsgc (Oct 2, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> it's 9.7 actually.



Lies!!!11one~


but they're the same size here


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## Apocolypse007 (Oct 2, 2009)

mdm-adph said:


> Where would it have to be on this chart for you to consider it one of the best price/perf wise?
> 
> 
> As good as a 4770, at least?
> ...



They won't go near that price until ATI can flush out their 4000 series stock. They would have to seriously discount their 4850's and 4870's for example. Great for consumers, but not realistic profitwise for the company.


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## W1zzard (Oct 2, 2009)

mdm-adph said:


> I think that'd be around $180 or so -- the perfect sweet spot for a 5850.



yep something like that


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## newtekie1 (Oct 2, 2009)

mdm-adph said:


> Where would it have to be on this chart for you to consider it one of the best price/perf wise?
> 
> http://tpucdn.com/reviews/HIS/HD_5850/images/perfdollar.gif
> 
> ...



Well, there are 22 cards in that chart, so I would say at least 11th spot or higher is a good spot to be considered one of the best.


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## cbupdd (Oct 2, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> added gpuz 1 ghz. temps in the high 80s, stock cooler of course



Oh, thank you! this card rocks


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## zCexVe (Oct 2, 2009)

Nice review W1zz,As always.
Can't wait till a card arrive with a non-reference cooler and a single 6 pin connector. And  Ihope there will be a price cut on this thing


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## OneCool (Oct 2, 2009)

W1zzard,I didnt like your review.Please send me a 5850 to test for myself 



Really looks to be a solid card.Could be cheaper but that will come.


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## HTC (Oct 3, 2009)

Great review: *awesome*!


I assume you only have 1 5850 @ your disposal, @ the moment, unfortunately 

I would really like to know crossfire performance as well as temps. If @ all possible, i also would like to know if 2 5850s next to each other and 2 5850s as separated as possible in the motherboard have different temps and, if so, how much.

Is there a crossfire review for 5850s planned? If so, any chance you could also include trifire or even quadfire?


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## trt740 (Oct 3, 2009)

W1zzard is there any advantage besides Dx11 to owning this card over a 280 gtx /285 gtx if you already have one. I'm talking over clocked.


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## DaMulta (Oct 3, 2009)

Printable review look is broke......

This card is epic kool, and I wonder how the 5850x2 will turn out to be.


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## jaredpace (Oct 3, 2009)

trt740 said:


> W1zzard is there any advantage besides Dx11 to owning this card over a 280 gtx /285 gtx if you already have one. I'm talking over clocked.



mostly just slightly more performance, cooler temps, more overclocking headroom, eyefinity, better AF, faster 8xAA, and it costs less (but you already have the 285).  If you could get $300 for your gtx285 on ebay or something, then you could upgrade and save money.


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## troyrae360 (Oct 3, 2009)

Ive noticed that no one is reviewing these cards with 8xAA i wonder if theres a reson for this,
The first actual revew of the 5870 i read was benching at 8xAA and it was absolutley smashing other cards


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## glenboy (Oct 3, 2009)

thanks wizzard, the review of the 5850's is just what i've been waiting for and the card overclocks as i expected and hoped and with having the same memory chip as its bigger brother makes it even better and i've just ordered 3 on the strength of your review, shame the extra shaders can't be unlocked, but i think with leaving the rops the same as the 5870 when overclocked i think the difference in 3d scores will be negligible apart from at a very high resolution, but i think overclocked with 3 of these babies it won't make much difference, 

whens the brilliant gputool going to be publically available 

thanks wizz


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## WarEagleAU (Oct 3, 2009)

I agree with the power consumption, it is kick ass on that. Love the overclocks too. I wish they would unlock their shaders, this really seems to be one area in which Nvidia excels and AMD could learn to use it.


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## btarunr (Oct 3, 2009)

WarEagleAU said:


> I agree with the power consumption, it is kick ass on that. Love the overclocks too. I wish they would unlock their shaders, this really seems to be one area in which Nvidia excels and AMD could learn to use it.



 NVIDIA excels at unlocking shaders? Teach me how to turn my GTX 260 into a GTX 275.


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## kylzer (Oct 3, 2009)

I ordered just based off this review so it better be good


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## chaotic_uk (Oct 3, 2009)

why do ati/amd rate the card @ 188w when this review says 144w for the 5870 ?

edit : whoops wrong review lol


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## Scrizz (Oct 3, 2009)

awesome,
I'll get a pair to replace my 4850s   

anyone interested in 4850s?


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## wolf (Oct 3, 2009)

Scrizz said:


> awesome,
> I'll get a pair to replace my 4850s
> 
> anyone interested in 4850s?



Thats exactly what I was thinking, and Like I thought, IMO its well worth getting these over 5870's, as the memory is the same and should clock to ~1250mhz, and the core with extra volts will do 1ghz, have seen this in a few places now..... I want so bad!


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## newtekie1 (Oct 3, 2009)

btarunr said:


> NVIDIA excels at unlocking shaders? Teach me how to turn my GTX 260 into a GTX 275.



I believe he meant unlock the power of their shaders, as in having 1600 getting beat by 512...(or 800 getting beat by 240 if you want a comparision that is guaranteed)

Of course, he also might have meant unlock the shader clock from the core clock...

I don't think he meant unlock in the way you are using the term unlock.


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## Velvet Wafer (Oct 3, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> let me get that for you .. after my döner kebab



how can you eat that? i had a severe döner intoxication a few years ago, and since then, cant eat any turkish spices anymore. i want to puke instantly

i believe in ati architecture, you have to clock the shaders and the rops equally, the high amount of shaders is needed to operate useable at low clocks


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## cbupdd (Oct 3, 2009)

Currently I have an ati x300se 
I want a 5850 but the price in Europe is 290€ -> 425 USD This hurts... 
I will need a favor from someone in US..


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## wolf (Oct 3, 2009)

Hey W1z, any chance we can get some overclocked performance numbers @ 1ghz core/1250 memory?


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## Zehnsucht (Oct 3, 2009)

cbupdd said:


> Currently I have an ati x300se
> I want a 5850 but the price in Europe is 290€ -> 425 USD This hurts...
> I will need a favor from someone in US..



Wow that is expensive, where do you live? 
Here it's at 225€, which is pretty nice, but I'll wait until it drops to 177€ which should happen in a reasonable timeframe.


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## Velvet Wafer (Oct 3, 2009)

Zehnsucht said:


> Wow that is expensive, where do you live?
> Here it's at 225€, which is pretty nice, but I'll wait until it drops to 177€ which should happen in a reasonable timeframe.



230-200 here,Germany


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## LaidLawJones (Oct 3, 2009)

I hope no one minds a post from another site. Here is a comparison of 5870(s) and 5850(s) vs all other contenders.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5850,2433.html


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## Deleted member 24505 (Oct 3, 2009)

Its about 216 euro/£198 in the uk.


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## cbupdd (Oct 3, 2009)

Zehnsucht said:


> Wow that is expensive, where do you live?
> Here it's at 225€, which is pretty nice, but I'll wait until it drops to 177€ which should happen in a reasonable timeframe.



Mmm.. interesting. 
I'm from Bcn, Spain. I found the hd5850 at 250€ (without shippment) on alteranate.es But is still expensive for me.. I can pay as much as 200€ (~300Usd)


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## TheMailMan78 (Oct 3, 2009)

@ Wizz. Why do you use windows 32-bit and 9.6 drivers?

Also I wanna say two things.

1. Thank you for the review.
2. I love your reviews man.


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## Mussels (Oct 4, 2009)

nice.

one 5850 pretty much matches the performance of a 4870x2, which means i can swap two cards for one - same performance, lower power and heat.

i'm sure as drivers improve (and with OCing) that 5-15% deficit will level out, leaving it with a pretty even match (4870x2 or 4870 crossfire vs one 5850)


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## wolf (Oct 4, 2009)

Mussels said:


> nice.
> 
> one 5850 pretty much matches the performance of a 4870x2, which means i can swap two cards for one - same performance, lower power and heat.
> 
> i'm sure as drivers improve (and with OCing) that 5-15% deficit will level out, leaving it with a pretty even match (4870x2 or 4870 crossfire vs one 5850)



auspcmarket has 5850's apparently in stock for a hair over $400, seems a bit rich to me.

I'll wait for the price to come down but the more I think about it the more I want one or two of these babies.


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## Mussels (Oct 4, 2009)

wolf said:


> auspcmarket has 5850's apparently in stock for a hair over $400, seems a bit rich to me.
> 
> I'll wait for the price to come down but the more I think about it the more I want one or two of these babies.



i'll wait til around the $300 mark - and then there'll be a bargain for some 4870's with S1's


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## inferKNOX (Oct 4, 2009)

I'm having a 5850 ordered for me tomorrow, but the XFX version from Amazon since there's free shipping and it's all they have listed ATM. Look forward to it, but will only be seeing it in Nov despite an early order coz it's delivered elsewhere.
Hmph, I gave up hoping to win it from PowerColor (check the sig) because of the rampant cheating. I think I may have won it if wasn't for the cheats. Anyway, I never win anything anyway.


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## BraveSoul (Oct 4, 2009)

digg it ppl   ,,gpu-z would be nice  with 1ghz core


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## rpsgc (Oct 4, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> added gpuz 1 ghz. temps in the high 80s, stock cooler of course



Would it be possible to achieve, say, 880/900MHz without increasing the voltage so much as the 1000MHz overclock? Less than 1,3V. On the other hand factory-overclocked versions ought to take care of that


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## inferKNOX (Oct 5, 2009)

I hope to OC it to about the same on stock V.


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## Relayer (Oct 5, 2009)

Any chance of seeing some numbers for how the 5850 (and/or 5870) performs with 3D applications like Max, C4D, Softimage, etc.? Not all of us can afford/justify the price premium for pro cards and these are supposed to be better in OpenGL than previous consumer cards. 

Thanks


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## btarunr (Oct 5, 2009)

Our VGA reviews are gamer/overclocker-specific than graphics professional-specific. That's one of the reasons why we don't review NVIDIA Quadro or ATI FirePro.


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## Mussels (Oct 5, 2009)

btarunr said:


> Our VGA reviews are gamer/overclocker-specific than graphics professional-specific. That's one of the reasons why we don't review NVIDIA Quadro or ATI FirePro.



still, i get his point. it'd be nice for someone to do a one-off article, comparing Geforce to quadro and radeon to fireGl - with w1zzards unique "performance per $" graphs


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## W1zzard (Oct 5, 2009)

make a new thread in comments & feedback and teach me how to benchmark professional stuff and i'll add this


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## Delta6326 (Oct 5, 2009)

Awesome review as always i love to just go on TPU and start to look at sweet cards like these. Sadly ima stay with my 2x 4850 probable till 68*0 or 78*0. 
But also i did a have a ? why do you use Windows Vista 32-bit SP2? with 3x 2048 MB ? but im happy you went with the new i7 and x58 i was hoping you would


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## niko084 (Oct 5, 2009)

Heh, now after seeing these results this looks like it will quite probably be my next card!

Lower power consumption than my 4850 with a pretty nice boost in performance, now we are talking, little fan tweaking and clock movement it will probably even do better.


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## niko084 (Oct 5, 2009)

Relayer said:


> Any chance of seeing some numbers for how the 5850 (and/or 5870) performs with 3D applications like Max, C4D, Softimage, etc.? Not all of us can afford/justify the price premium for pro cards and these are supposed to be better in OpenGL than previous consumer cards.
> 
> Thanks



Would be nice to see, but honestly a lot of these cards simply don't do the work because the drivers are not built for it and the software looks for very specific drivers and cards. Some pieces of software will revert to software rendering if they don't find compatible hardware. 

Best bet generally is if you don't have the money to throw at the pro card, you may want to look into cross flashing, there are still a few cards out that can do it, and probably more new ones to come, it can be a pain but I do it for some of my better customers on occasion.


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## mdm-adph (Oct 5, 2009)

WarEagleAU said:


> I agree with the power consumption, it is kick ass on that. Love the overclocks too. I wish they would unlock their shaders, this really seems to be one area in which Nvidia excels and AMD could learn to use it.





btarunr said:


> NVIDIA excels at unlocking shaders? Teach me how to turn my GTX 260 into a GTX 275.





newtekie1 said:


> I believe he meant unlock the power of their shaders, as in having 1600 getting beat by 512...(or 800 getting beat by 240 if you want a comparision that is guaranteed)
> 
> Of course, he also might have meant unlock the shader clock from the core clock...
> 
> I don't think he meant unlock in the way you are using the term unlock.



Aye -- WarEagle means more of a "decoupling" of the shader speeds from the core speed.

Although, I wouldn't argue that Nvidia "excels" at it and ATI doesn't -- it's just something that ATI can't/won't do right now.


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## W1zzard (Oct 5, 2009)

Delta6326 said:


> why do you use Windows Vista 32-bit SP2? with 3x 2048 MB ? but im happy you went with the new i7 and x58 i was hoping you would



because when i setup this bench rig vista 64 wasnt mature enough imo. yet i wanted to run triple channel, i had only a 3x 2 gb kit. next bench system will have w7 64 (will change around november time)


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## Relayer (Oct 6, 2009)

W1zzard said:


> make a new thread in comments & feedback and teach me how to benchmark professional stuff and i'll add this



I'll try and do that. There are benchmark utilities for these apps. I'll do a search and make a list. 

Thanks for considering it.


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## Relayer (Oct 6, 2009)

btarunr said:


> Our VGA reviews are gamer/overclocker-specific than graphics professional-specific. That's one of the reasons why we don't review NVIDIA Quadro or ATI FirePro.



Living in New Zealand most of the pro cards aren't even available, ATI Firpro for instance aren't available at all. The price premium is way over the top on the Nvidea Quardo because of limited supply too.

FX-3700 = $789.99 @ comp USA. (Not exactly a discount retailer).

FX-3700 = $2100 to $2500 in NZ. 

At current currency conversion rates it would be $1,083.00 NZD @ comp USA price. You'd really be doing a service to see if consumer cards could be pushed into service. 

I appreciate what you are saying, and as a general rule, I agree with your position. Previous generation cards flat out suck running 3D apps. I'm under the impression that the 5800 series might be different and are capable cards for this use. Maybe not. It would be nice to know though.


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## troyrae360 (Oct 6, 2009)

Relayer said:


> Living in New Zealand most of the pro cards aren't even available, ATI Firpro for instance aren't available at all. The price premium is way over the top on the Nvidea Quardo because of limited supply too.
> 
> FX-3700 = $789.99 @ comp USA. (Not exactly a discount retailer).
> 
> ...



Lol, Check this out:
"Leadtek Quadro FX 5600 G80GL 1563MB DDR3 16x PCI E 2xDVI Card" found at NotebookCity for $7299.62 including gst on 6th Oct 04:33, $6488.55 excluding gst.

I would definitly like to see benchmark with these type of cards up against Gaming cards.
I know Alot of what gose on is at driver level and if you soft mod a Geforce card and install a Quadro Driver then you can expect around the same results, Most 3D Design tools are using Open GL so Im sure the new ATI 5870 would hold its own with the right driver etc...

Also there is a benchmarking Suite for testing 3ds Max, Maya and others but it requires you to have full versions of the product installed (that would cost a small fortune to do) Heres the link http://spec.it.miami.edu/gwpg/apc.static/max9info.html


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Oct 6, 2009)

wolf said:


> Hey W1z, any chance we can get some overclocked performance numbers @ 1ghz core/1250 memory?



That would be nice..


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## Scrizz (Oct 6, 2009)

FireGL/Firepro is where it's at


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## bangolange (Oct 6, 2009)

how do you mod the voltage on the 5850?


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## Ghiltanas (Oct 7, 2009)

Someone has information about the 5850 sapphire vapor-x?


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## freesoul27 (Oct 7, 2009)

Great review, i can't wait to buy this card


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## Ghiltanas (Oct 7, 2009)

yeah great card. Great performance and excellent idle consumption , for me it's the best buy actually, also at high resolutions as 1920*1080. I'm only disappointed we can't see any test with dx11 game ..

Here in italy it's hard to find in the shop actually, how is the situation in other countries?


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## Mussels (Oct 7, 2009)

http://staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/search.cgi?q=radeon+5870&spos=3


seem to be well stocked here in AU


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## ShRoOmAlIsTiC (Oct 8, 2009)

how come my his didnt come with the tool kit,  I WANT MY TOOL KIT!!


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## dir_d (Oct 8, 2009)

ShRoOmAlIsTiC said:


> how come my his didnt come with the tool kit,  I WANT MY TOOL KIT!!



Mine didnt either...i feel jipped


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## glenboy (Oct 8, 2009)

i've noticed theres no 5850 bios on the vga bios collection tried to submit mine but there is no 5850 tab, so here it is anyway
the card is a standard powercolor 5850 1gb
http://www.gbwatches.com/Cypress.bin


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## trt740 (Oct 9, 2009)

Mine appears slightly better than yours W1z it does 850/1250 at default, but it doesn't like extra voltage at all.


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## Entropy (Oct 9, 2009)

Thanks for the review W1zzard. Excellent spread of games and settings, as usual, and your power measurements at different levels (not just idle and furmark for instance) is particularly useful.

My plan for this card is probably a bit unusual - I aim to replace my HD4770 with the HD5850 and *under*volt it, in order to bring its typical in use power draw down to HD4770 levels, and then (if necessary) modify fan profiles using your tools. Idle power draw is excellent for the HD5850 as is.

However, I wasn't successful trying to modify voltages using RBE on the HD4770, and so I wonder first what tools are available (I'm only aware of ASUS's voltage tweak), and second if these tools allow lowering voltage as well as increasing it.

If anyone could help me, I would be grateful, and I promise to report my results "from the other end" so to speak.


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## sideeffect (Oct 12, 2009)

Entropy said:


> Thanks for the review W1zzard. Excellent spread of games and settings, as usual, and your power measurements at different levels (not just idle and furmark for instance) is particularly useful.
> 
> My plan for this card is probably a bit unusual - I aim to replace my HD4770 with the HD5850 and *under*volt it, in order to bring its typical in use power draw down to HD4770 levels, and then (if necessary) modify fan profiles using your tools. Idle power draw is excellent for the HD5850 as is.
> 
> ...



RBE did allow for adjusting the voltages within defined limits on the 4850.  The minimum was 0.892 volts maximum was 1.158.  This did work for my card I guess they changed some regulators with the 4770 series or support was just not added to RBE.

The 5800 series has a much more configurable voltage regulator and support is apparantly being added to the new version of RBE now so undervolting won't be a problem i'm sure.

Your probably better off with a first generation ATI reference design like my 4850 was and all the current 5850's and 5870's are because these versions generally have better support from 3rd party software.  Second generation cards often have changes made that can prevent voltage modding or lack support in software.

Edit - ATI tray tools also allows voltage changes for the 4800 series as well as creating profiles but support for the new series would depend on when the creator can gain access to a card.  It is worth checking out his beta forum though he has just released a version with better support for the 4770 and you might want to test it on your current card. http://cid-a50350ea7a969f0c.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/attsetup.exe.


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## cbupdd (Oct 12, 2009)

mmm


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## DonInKansas (Oct 12, 2009)

TRT, your avatar is making me wonder if the 5850 and the batmobile were separated at birth.


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## Entropy (Oct 12, 2009)

sideeffect said:


> RBE did allow for adjusting the voltages within defined limits on the 4850.  The minimum was 0.892 volts maximum was 1.158.  This did work for my card I guess they changed some regulators with the 4770 series or support was just not added to RBE.
> 
> The 5800 series has a much more configurable voltage regulator and support is apparantly being added to the new version of RBE now so undervolting won't be a problem i'm sure.
> 
> ...



Thanks alot!
W1zzard doesn't mention voltages in his reviews of the 5870 and 5850. But working through the numbers, I would assume that the reasons that the 5850 gets substantially lower power draw could be that they shut down 10% of their chip and downclocked it to 725 MHz. This would yield (10/9)*(850/725)=1.303 or 30% higher power draw for the 5870. W1zzards review show 144/108=1.33 or 122/92=1.326 in the two non-synthetic load scenarios. 

Why do I care? Because this suggests that the GPU voltage could be untouched between the two, and if so there could be considerable space to undervolt the 5850 chip, and still maintain stability at stock clocks. And it doesn't take all *that* much to drop the power draw drastically, as power typically scales with voltage^2 with these kinds of commercial chips. If you could go from, say 1.1 to 0.9 V that would yield (1.1/0.9)^2=1.494. And incidentally, if you again refer to the review, HD5850/HD4770 is 108/69=1.56 and 92/62=1.484 

First conclusion is that there exist people nerdy enough to actually *use* the data that W1z provides.  Second conclusion is that it may well be possible to for a 5850 to get within spitting distance of a 4770 at load, and at default clocks. And if so, there it would enjoy twice the caculational power and bandwidth, and a far better cooler that exhausts the hot air outside the cabinet. And lower idle power.

Said and done. I already have a buyer for the 4770. Now I just have to order the 5850.
Wish me luck guys.


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## ArmoredCavalry (Oct 16, 2009)

A little offtopic, but I just got an email this morning saying I won a 5850 from the 5k a day giveaway (Sapphire). Apparently it is the last day of contest, so I am pretty darn excited right now (thus me posting here). This is the first thing I have actually won on the internet I think....


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## W1zzard (Oct 16, 2009)

Entropy said:


> First conclusion is that there exist people nerdy enough to actually *use* the data that W1z provides.



i always knew that, otherwise i'd have wasted my time


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## cbupdd (Oct 27, 2009)

It will be interesting to see 5850 @ 850/1200 vs stock 5870. In two weeks i will get mine, and if anyone is interested, I can make a scaling volts/mhz, mhz/performance chart.
Any news on soft vmods for mem?


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## rpsgc (Oct 27, 2009)

A 5850 @ 850/1200 will not beat a stock 5870. A 5850 @ 870/1400 on the other hand, will.

815/1350MHz and 878/1400MHz (benchmarked) overclock using AMD GPU Clock Tool. So not all cards overclock the same, sadly. No mention of increasing voltage.
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_hd_5850_performance_preview/page19.asp


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## cbupdd (Oct 27, 2009)

rpsgc said:


> A 5850 @ 850/1200 will not beat a stock 5870. A 5850 @ 870/1400 on the other hand, will.
> 
> 815/1350MHz and 878/1400MHz (benchmarked) overclock using AMD GPU Clock Tool. So not all cards overclock the same, sadly. No mention of increasing voltage.
> http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_hd_5850_performance_preview/page19.asp



Oh, when I meant 5850 @ 850/1200 vs 5870, I wanted to see if 160 shaders make the difference.but good review anyway. 5850 @ 1000/1400 will be a monster, any performance numbers on that?


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## rpsgc (Oct 27, 2009)

cbupdd said:


> Oh, when I meant 5850 @ 850/1200 vs 5870, I wanted to see if 160 shaders make the difference.but good review anyway. 5850 @ 1000/1400 will be a monster, any performance numbers on that?



No, sorry. What I'm really interested in is maximum overclock numbers without increasing voltage.


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## cbupdd (Oct 27, 2009)

Oh, 870/1400 seems pretty high on stock volts. As I had seen, memory at 1300+ cause perfomance droop. But, all you need is luck on the core.. some cards can't pass the 800+
I would like to see a hynix gddr5 version


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## rpsgc (Oct 27, 2009)

cbupdd said:


> Oh, 870/1400 seems pretty high on stock volts.



Oh, no. I wasn't saying it was on stock volts, I don't know, the review didn't specify. I was just making a separate statement 

But I don't think it's really needed to increase the memory beyond 1200MHz (the same as the 5870), unless they like to brag


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## cbupdd (Oct 27, 2009)

Jaja, thanks to memory error correction, we can put this mems higher than 6ghz.. just for a gpuz screenshoot. But I would like to see the perfomance droop 
Also, memory bandwidth bottlenecks 5870, here is a chart:






Numbers from here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=235181

PB. Another here


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## Scrizz (Oct 27, 2009)

that is sooo exagerated..


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## rpsgc (Oct 27, 2009)

On another note, does anyone here actually owns the card? People say it's pretty quiet, but then again I have a different definition of what is "quiet" 
I'm torn between buying a reference card now or waiting for custom cards to come out. Sapphire's Vapor-X is usually quiet enough.


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Oct 27, 2009)

its an increase nonetheless, and a linear one


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## wolf (Oct 27, 2009)

The notion of the memory holding the card back makes me want to sit on this one for a while without adding another or whatever X2 variant there is for Trifire and wait on something with 2gb of memory and some SERIOUS bandwidth, I'm sure some company was talking big about 7gb/s GDDR5 in Q4 last year, here we are a year later and stock clocks are 4.8 gb/s.

I bought one anyway because the performance is pretty darn nice for a single GPU, but I honestly expected more, I mean at least 5.5-6gb/s given what I just mentioned.

EDIT: here's one link - http://www.multicoreinfo.com/2008/11/hynix-worlds-fastest-gddr5/ - but I'm pretty sure it made a news story here on TPU.

Second EDIT: BAM - http://www.techpowerup.com/77290/Hynix_7GT_s_GDDR5_Chip_to_Make_it_to_Major_SKUs_R700_Included.html


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## cbupdd (Oct 28, 2009)

wolf said:


> The notion of the memory holding the card back makes me want to sit on this one for a while without adding another or whatever X2 variant there is for Trifire and wait on something with 2gb of memory and some SERIOUS bandwidth, I'm sure some company was talking big about 7gb/s GDDR5 in Q4 last year, here we are a year later and stock clocks are 4.8 gb/s.
> 
> I bought one anyway because the performance is pretty darn nice for a single GPU, but I honestly expected more, I mean at least 5.5-6gb/s given what I just mentioned.
> 
> ...




You can expect in April a new radeon hd '5890' with this mem. or a 384bits bus.. Just with 950mhz core and some more bandwidth, like 4870->4890.. and then some non-reference at 1ghz core. 1/2 year left...


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## Scrizz (Oct 29, 2009)

still a mighty fine card
I want a 6-monitor edition


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## vagxtr (Oct 29, 2009)

rpsgc said:


> On another note, does anyone here actually owns the card? People say it's pretty quiet, but then again I have a different definition of what is "quiet"



It's all closed up so you could claim it's quiet 

Anyway it's probably much quieter than few claimed silent (ultrasilent) ones that have in a row from hd3870 to hd4870. They all had more or less squealing ferrite coils when they are under stress, that's just more crappy cards flying around since hd3800 series is out and even 1st tier producer like Sappire is not prone to that. I cant simply understood how can they put pure silent pipe cooling or even vaporx thats in the end much quieter than card itself  And i'm use to some air blowing sound more than to some irritating noise coming out of the card. No it's not psu or the mobo but the cards.


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## wolf (Oct 29, 2009)

Scrizz said:


> still a mighty fine card
> I want a 6-monitor edition



Maybe if they ship it with 6 active adapters.... not many people will be willing to buy that or fork out for all DP monitors.


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