Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 and HD 5850 Smile for the Camera

[btarunr]

Here are the fist pictures of Sapphire's Radeon HD 5800 series offerings: Radeon HD 5870 1GB and Radeon HD 5850. The cards sport the usual sticker design of a CGI girl in a reddish background. With these cards having the cosmetic "red-streak" cleaving the cooler shroud in the center, the so is the sticker. This is also perhaps the first public picture of the Radeon HD 5850, and our size projections were right: While the Radeon HD 5870 maintains a long PCB, the HD 5850 is about as long as a Radeon HD 4870 (reference design). Both accelerators stick to the reference AMD design.

* Images removed at request of Sapphire * Google for alternate source

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[kylzer]

Look so much better than the HD48xx series

i really can't wait for release.

 

[skylamer]

Yea,h it is really nice and the specs are fantastic^^

 

[Crazykenny]

Look so much better than the HD48xx series

i really can't wait for release.

I still think my Vapor-X HD4870 from Sapphire looks sexy.

 

[newtekie1]

Can't wait for performance numbers!

What I find interesting is that ATi has decided to use a crippled core on the HD5850. In the past they've used the full core, but changed the memory subsystem. This time they've crippled the core, and left the memory relatively unchanged.

I wonder if that has anything to do with the problems with 40nm?

 

[happita]

Vapor-X cards will always look dead sexy, they are the Fat Bastards of Austin Powers...

 

[sapetto]

It's nice to see that they have the same cooler because i find it sexy .

 

[pantherx12]

Don't like the look of the 870.

The 850 looks much nicer, better CGI lass and more black, win!

 

[Fitseries3]

ewwww


take the sticker off.

it looks so much better plain

 

[AsRock]

Cool go faster line + a go faster sticker. As long as the card does well i'm happy .

 

[KainXS]

lol the 5850 sticker looks better than the 5870 sticker, what the hell sapphire

 

[pantherx12]

I prefer the simple design as well, although a bit of colour might be okay, some sort of simple fractal.

 

[wahdangun]

Can't wait for performance numbers!

What I find interesting is that ATi has decided to use a crippled core on the HD5850. In the past they've used the full core, but changed the memory subsystem. This time they've crippled the core, and left the memory relatively unchanged.

I wonder if that has anything to do with the problems with 40nm?

i think it becaouse there are no GDDR6 to begin with, and if ati use GDDR3/4 with HD 5850 it will definitely useless because it will become bandwidth limited (just like those 9600 GS with 96sp)


i can't wait for wizz benches,

 

[LaidLawJones]

So this card must run pretty cool at max load as I do not see any cooling vents from this angle. If the other side is the same, then the majority of air intake is through the fan. Is this finally a stock cooling solution that works well and is quiet but not exotic?

To bad the bar down the center doesn't light up.

 

[btarunr]

I wonder if that has anything to do with the problems with 40nm?

GTX 260 comes with a crippled core too. That doesn't indicate foundry problems, does it? It's merely how the SKUs are carved out.

They wanted to make a full transition to GDDR5, and maybe didn't want to use GDDR3. Over 100 GB/s memory bandwidth using 256-bit GDDR3 is not possible / requires expensive chips (one of these), and under 100 GB/s of bandwidth will probably bottleneck Cypress.

 

[TheMailMan78]

ewwww


take the sticker off.

it looks so much better plain

I agree. WTF happen the the other ones with Mussels mouth I mean "decorative air holes in the back" and the sloped cooler? These suck.

Oh and Bta GO TO BED MAN!

 

[btarunr]

Oh and Bta GO TO BED MAN!

Wrong mod. It's time for Mussels to hit the bed, not me.

 

[legends84]

woah... power

 

[TheMailMan78]

Wrong mod. It's time for Mussels to hit the bed, not me.

Yeah I forget. I keep thinking India is the polar opposite in time. Nevermind. Continue on your regularly scheduled thread.

 

[human_error]

Hmm, interesting.

Glad to see the 5850 with a dual slot cooler this round - i always felt the cooler on the 4850 could have been a better design.

I also noticed how the 5850 is shorter than the 5870 there - by a reasonable amount as well. After seeing leaked images of the 5870 pcb it leaves me wandering what they removed from the pcb that is needed for the 5870 but not the 5850. I guess i'll have to wait until next week to find out

 

[TheMailMan78]

Hmm, interesting.

Glad to see the 5850 with a dual slot cooler this round - i always felt the cooler on the 4850 could have been a better design.

I also noticed how the 5850 is shorter than the 5870 there - by a reasonable amount as well. After seeing leaked images of the 5870 pcb it leaves me wandering what they removed from the pcb that is needed for the 5870 but not the 5850. I guess i'll have to wait until next week to find out

It has to do with power consumption. Our GPU keeps getting smaller but the capacitors and resistors stay the same.

The 5850 takes one less PCI-E connector than the 5870.

 

[laszlo]

i don't want to see how they look !

i want to see real benches!

 

[TheMailMan78]

i don't want to see how they look !

i want to see real benches!

Official 58XX series benches.

Crysis: Faster than the 4870
Call of Duty 4: Faster than the 4870
FarCry2: Faster than the 4870
3DMark06: Faster than the 4870
Vantage: Faster than the 4870

Feel better? Now lets talk about the thread subject.

 

[Imsochobo]

Hope cooler designs stay the same

a 4870 waterblock( full coverage block) fits on 5870

 

[newtekie1]

i think it becaouse there are no GDDR6 to begin with, and if ati use GDDR3/4 with HD 5850 it will definitely useless because it will become bandwidth limited (just like those 9600 GS with 96sp)


i can't wait for wizz benches,

Not useless, just crippled. That same way crippling the core would hinder it. I don't believe dropping to GDDR3 would have hurt it any more than disabling shaders.

GTX 260 comes with a crippled core too. That doesn't indicate foundry problems, does it? It's merely how the SKUs are carved out.

They wanted to make a full transition to GDDR5, and maybe didn't want to use GDDR3. Over 100 GB/s memory bandwidth using 256-bit GDDR3 is not possible / requires expensive chips (one of these), and under 100 GB/s of bandwidth will probably bottleneck Cypress.

It does indicate defective GPUs, nVidia has used the crippling method to get rid of defective cores for as far back as I can remember. ATi used to do it also, but stopped recently, at least when the GPUs first game out. They would add the crippled GPUs in later.

I'm not saying it is a bad thing to do this, don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with it. It is a common practice in the industry, and if it leads to cheaper parts that perform well, I'm all for it! And it has given use some of the best performance for the money cards, the 8800GT/9800GT, 8800GS/9600GSO, HD4830, 8800GTS 320MB, X1900GT, GTX260, X800GTO, 7800GT...

I'm just trying to figure out why ATi is changing their strategy all of a sudden. I wouldn't be surprised if they are still having issues with 40nm, and that is part of the decision.