ASUS EAH 5830 DirectCU

[jessicafae]

wow I think the 5830 shows how high the defect rate (and how bad the yields) are with the TSMC 40nm process. They almost had to disable half of the chip to get the 5830 (30% of the shaders are disabled and 50% of the ROPs). The 55nm 4830 only needed to disable 20% of the shaders (640/800) and 20% of the ROPs (32/40).

It just looks like the price/performance ratio of the 40nm parts is no where near what the 55nm process could deliver. I am just really glad I bought my 4890 when I did. Looking more and more like I will completely skip the 40nm generation. Lets hope the 28nm generation in 2011 is better.

RV870/cypress die image. The ROPs are at the bottom.
Compare to cartoon image shows how much die space the ROPs take up

ps: I don't know why no one has ever brought this up, but ATI never released an official die shot of cypress, and the leaked one (above) actually has 2x16x16x5 shaders (2560sp, note the 16 rows on each side of 4x4 blocks) not the 2x10x16x5 as in the official block diagram. It is highly possible that even 5870 (1600sp) is a partially disabled cypress.

 

[Delta6326]

Dang that card sucks, im still wandering how can a card be so much slower than a 5850 and use more watts? it may not be by alot but something slower should use less watts, ima stay with my 2x 4850 for sometime. Great Review as always Wizz

 

[PaulieG]

I actually think it's a good business move to keep a performance gap between the 5830 and 5870/5850. When you start producing gap cards that are too close to the high end, you end up crippling your higher end card sales. We might not like it as consumers, but it's smart.

 

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

but for that price paulie?

 

[PaulieG]

but for that price paulie?

LOL. I missed the price. Yeah, that is a bit high. I think maybe $199 would be more resonable.

 

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

i was waiting for this to come and drive 5850 prices down, now it seems as iif its going to do the opposite

 

[KainXS]

I like the way it looks, i won't buy it but it looks nice.

 

[johnnyfiive]

5770 with a nice a overclock is a much better value IMO. As for people who keep comparing it to a 4890, 5770's are equal with 4890's IMO. I really don't see any reason to compare it to a 4890 (either the 5770 or 5830) because the 4890 is EOL and if you can find one new its going to cost you $200. If you can find one used, great, but comparing the 5770/58xx it to last gen cards is irrelavent and the pro's on the 5770/58xx series cards far outweigh the 48xx series cards. Less power, DX11, etc., etc.

The 5830 should cost $199, $229 is too much. Just spend the extra $70 and get a 5850. For a sub $200 card, the 5770 is THE best card without a doubt. You can get a 5770 for $145 now. So for $300 you can have 5870 performance.

 

[jessicafae]

I really don't see any reason to compare it to a 4890 (either the 5770 or 5830) because the 4890 is EOL and if you can find one new its going to cost you $200...

I think the point is more that if someone already owns a 4890 or 4870 or 2x4850 then they need comparison to the 5770, 5830 in order to decide if it is worthwhile to upgrade/change. In this case there is not sufficient performance improvement to justify the change. If one is moving from 46xx or 3xxx series, or building a new system, then I agree with your point. If I was building new, I would probably buy a 5770.

 

[W1zzard]

actually providing data ftw

 

[Kantastic]

with a tiny overclock you can have 4890 with lower power consumption and DX11 ! sounds good to me, i set my self at a ~ $200 limit for graphics cards and this pans out quite nice, i think i found my next graphics card

Well it should've been faster than a 4890 at stock with lower power consumption than a 5850 and DX11 for $200.

 

[Polarman]

+1 for 4890.

 

[zithe]

im sorry but im not a rich guy like you

That won't change your bill by a quarter in a year's worth of 24/7 use.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Glad I got my 5850.

 

[MKmods]

The price will drop fast.

atleast to 220.

This looks like a $199 card (the 5770 should be $149 and the 5850 should be $250)

I saw the price at Newegg for the power Color 5830 is $249 reg with $10 off

I wouldnt mind $239 but I would expect the card closer to the 5850 and less like a 5770.

 

[DrunkenMafia]

so its only 5% faster than a 5770 and uses more powerand costs more. I can match that with a very small oc on my 5770.. The 5830 needed to be at least 10% faster than it is to really fit in anywhere. I know I wouldn't get one.

 

[caamsa]

Is it possible that the drivers for this card are not maximizing its potential?

 

[Pix]

Glad I got my 5850.

Agree totally.

Was a bit worried about getting a 5850 just days before this surfaced, but now it has, I'm happy with what I've got.

Also, I thought this would have 1280 shader processors, but it has 1120 compared to the 5850's 1440, plus it has half the ROPs. It's been gimped way too much.

But Paulie's right, they probably learned that they pretty much killed 4850 sales with the 4830 launch and don't want that happening again.

Either way, looks like I was right to not wait for this one.

 

[marvelous211]

Considering this card doesn't perform all that much faster than 5770 it should be more closer to 5770 prices than 5850. $200 at best.

It doesn't make much sense how it performs compared to 4890 though. It should perform much better than 4890 but it doesn't. I think the problem lies in the ROP. There are 2 rop clusters per memory controller total of 8 ROP. ATI must have taken whole cluster of 4 rop out instead of equalizing taking 2 ROP per cluster. So you get mixed results. In shader heavy games though 5830 is faster than 4890 or 5770.

 

[W1zzard]

Considering this card doesn't perform all that much faster than 5770 it should be more closer to 5770 prices than 5850. $200 at best.

It doesn't make much sense how it performs compared to 4890 though. It should perform much better than 4890 but it doesn't. I think the problem lies in the ROP. There are 2 rop clusters per memory controller total of 8 ROP. ATI must have taken whole cluster of 4 rop out instead of equalizing taking 2 ROP per cluster. So you get mixed results. In shader heavy games though 5830 is faster than 4890 or 5770.

there are only 8 actual rops units, each being able to do 4 pixels per clock. you can't magically change them to do 2 pixels per clock (at least it doesnt make sense to add extra logic for such a feature). so you are correct that ati disabled 4 rop units instead of disabling the feature set of each rop unit leaving all of them enabled

 

[mastrdrver]

Considering this card doesn't perform all that much faster than 5770 it should be more closer to 5770 prices than 5850. $200 at best.

It doesn't make much sense how it performs compared to 4890 though. It should perform much better than 4890 but it doesn't. I think the problem lies in the ROP. There are 2 rop clusters per memory controller total of 8 ROP. ATI must have taken whole cluster of 4 rop out instead of equalizing taking 2 ROP per cluster. So you get mixed results. In shader heavy games though 5830 is faster than 4890 or 5770.

The problem lies in the texture units because of somethings that got moved there for DX11 from DX10.1. This is the reason the 5450 is slower than the 4350 given the same exact specs except for DX11.

 

[trt740]

so basically this is a 5770 with a 256 bit bus and 200 or so more shaders. It seems to be a tiny bit over priced but still not a bad card when it's overclocked.

 

[theorw]

so basically this is a 5770 with a 256 bit bus and 200 or so more shaders. It seems to be a tiny bit over priced but still not a bad card when it's overclocked.

U can still grab a 5770 for 140EUR and OC it to 1000 core 99% and good chances of hitting 1030-1050 then 5830 @240EUR as it is sold here is POINTLESS!Grab a 2nd 5770 and u are king up to 1920-1080

 

[overclocking101]

well was gonna sell my 4890 and grab one but just bought another 4890 instead, lets hope I dont short this one out vlike I did my sapphire