AMD ATI Radeon HD 5970 Video Card Review @ [H]

[SpeedyVV]

For crying out loud... why do we always get these postings.

Go to a Ferrari owners club and complain how a:

Ah...for a while I thought for sure Ferrari understood what was going on. For a while I was starting to believe they were forcing Porche to be competitive, that they were collectively pushing the PC (performance car) driving world down the right path. That's what I get for having hope.

It would not surprise me in the least if like the previous car, you find very limited quantities of this car. In our lovely world of today perception is reality so of Ferrari only builds 10,000 of these carsand sells them all, they can go to the stockholders and say "See!! See!! We can't build them fast enough...they are flying off the dealerships!!.' Shareholders get their greedy rocks off, and the company prospers.

If Ferrari saturates the market with a $600,000 car everyone wants but virtually no one can afford, then they lose. It is the same thinking that got video card companies, finance companies, and a lot of other industries in trouble in the last couple of years; gambling that your 1% die-hard faithful will save you.

I still consider myself a PC racer, but I'm slowly losing interest because of continued lack of these companies to consider what is slowly choking this part of racing to death...you can swear against the bicycles as long as you live, but we all need to realize, like it or not...they are simply stomping PC's into the ground. PC racing must become more economical. This money one will pay for this behemoth will land you not one but 1000 the bicycles now...and because more and more races are becoming multi-type...someone explain to me how companies like Ferrari and Porsche can justify I spend this ridiculous amount of money on something that will be outdated before I can get done with this post?

If you're an avid PC racer, chances are during the single lifespan of a bicycle (5 years, give or take), you'll probably build/re-build/upgrade your racing PC at least twice, and probably for no less than $1000000, especially when you're dropping $600,000 for a freakin' racing car. There is absolutely no way this business model can continue. It's becoming a larger and larger waste of money, and for people like me, I will only bend over for so long. There simply isn't enough lube to make it feel right.

This is a [H]ard core PC site. Enough with these posts already.

[/vent]

Oh yeah, look at the $100-$200 Video Card performance. If that does not give you hope that these manufactures are doing the right things try again.

However, does one need a 5970 card? Damn right I do. As much as a NEED a Ferrari. Fortunately i can afford a 5970, unlike a Ferrari.

 

[Mr. K6]

For crying out loud... why do we always get these postings.
Go to a Ferrari owners club and complain how a:

This is a [H]ard core PC site. Enough with these posts already.
[/vent]

Oh yeah, look at the $100-$200 Video Card performance. If that does not give you hope that these manufactures are doing the right things try again.

However, does one need a 5970 card? Damn right I do. As much as a NEED a Ferrari. Fortunately i can afford a 5970, unlike a Ferrari.

Excellent points, people are always going to bitch and moan about products that they don't have/can't afford. Darkryft is either too young or too oblivious to remember the good old days of enthusiast building - things are cheaper than they have ever been, and price/performance ratios are amazing.

btw did you guys notice that 5870 just passed gtx 295 in crysis. not only 5970 is faster than gtx 295 now also 5870 is doing better job with latest drivers

I've been saying that since its release, and it's more apparent with each new driver release.

Excellent review though guys, I understand the time constraints and you guys still packed a lot of info into the review.

 

[harmattan]

Excellent points, people are always going to bitch and moan about products that they don't have/can't afford. Darkryft is either too young or too oblivious to remember the good old days of enthusiast building - things are cheaper than they have ever been, and price/performance ratios are amazing.

I've been saying that since its release, and it's more apparent with each new driver release.

Excellent review though guys, I understand the time constraints and you guys still packed a lot of info into the review.

Understood that this is [H] and we are here for the bleeding edge stuff, but to play devil's advocate, when do we pass that point in the road where a few miles an hour more is not "better"? I think we've well surpassed that point for most applications (in both senses of the term). Eyefinity if potentially the only exception.

I always thought this was one of [H]'s (and most of it's readers) central tenant: after a point, it's not about speed, but the experience the technology provides.

On the topic of the card itself, I'm really surprised it OCs that high. I was sure they would be limited to around 850mhz.

 

[stateofjermaine]

So will the 5850x2 be called the 5950?

By performance standards, it seems like it will be called the 5970.

 

[Pretiacruento]

As always, Excellent review, guys!!

Amazing card indeed! It would be really, _Really_ awesome if they could come up with software (drivers) that stack up as high as their hardware, right off the bat...

What's the problem with their drivers dept.?? :/

 

[Mr. K6]

Understood that this is [H] and we are here for the bleeding edge stuff, but to play devil's advocate, when do we pass that point in the road where a few miles an hour more is not "better"? I think we've well surpassed that point for most applications (in both senses of the term). Eyefinity if potentially the only exception.

I always thought this was one of [H]'s (and most of it's readers) central tenant: after a point, it's not about speed, but the experience the technology provides.

On the topic of the card itself, I'm really surprised it OCs that high. I was sure they would be limited to around 850mhz.

As far as I'm aware, no one is forcing anyone to buy a 5970 - it's there should someone want the experience. Many people don't realize that these enthusiast flagship cards are worth more than simply the insane FPS they produce - they actually push the limits of the current technology, and I think help companies improve it. As I stated, this is the best time yet to be an enthusiast yet - there are many options available on all performance/budget levels. Consoles are actually a problem here, since they penetrated the mainstream market and became a major cash cow, developers have since gotten lazy.

All that said, I'm glad to see companies still producing top of the line stuff. The speed in a large part gives you the options to add more to the experience.

 

[Makaveli@BETA]

Excellent post by the top 3 guys.

Darkryft the answer to your question is simple if you can't afford it don't buy it. You don't need a 5970 to game there are more than enough options available to fit into your budget.

This is [H] no one is gonna cry for you here

 

[PS3]

HMM, is it me or is the article missing peices, I do not see any of the GTX 295 cards stats in any of the game listings for its performance charts, the GTX 295 is completely missing on all the charts and graphs to compare, all 3 of the ATI cards are in the charts clearly, but the GTX 295 is missing for me ??

Using Windows 7 and the IE 8 it comes with.

Well we already know how the 295 will perform. It's faster than a 5870 90% of the time, and slower than a 5970...about 20-80% slower at times depending on resolution and settings. I think right now the games are a bit cherry picked, and there definitely is some mixed reviews as far as the gap between the 295 and 5970. If you look at guru3d's review the gap isn't that big in a lot of their tests.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

Ah...for a while I thought for sure AMD/ATI understood what was going on. For a while I was starting to believe they were forcing NVIDIA to be competitive, that they were collectively pushing the PC gaming world down the right path. That's what I get for having hope.

It would not surprise me in the least if like the previous card, you find very limited quantities of this video card. In our lovely world of today perception is reality so of ATI only builds 10,000 of these cards and sells them all, they can go to the stockholders and say "See!! See!! We can't build them fast enough...they are flying off the shelves!!.' Shareholders get their greedy rocks off, and the company prospers.

If ATI saturates the market with a $600 card everyone wants but virtually no one can afford, then they lose. It is the same thinking that got car companies, finance companies, and a lot of other industries in trouble in the last couple of years; gambling that your 1% die-hard faithful will save you.

I still consider myself a PC gamer, but I'm slowly losing interest because of continued lack of these companies to consider what is slowly choking this part of gaming to death...you can swear against the consoles as long as you live, but we all need to realize, like it or not...they are simply stomping PC's into the ground. PC gaming must become more economical. This money one will pay for this behemoth will land you not one but both the 360 and PS3 now...and because more and more games are becoming multi-platform...someone explain to me how companies like ATI and NVIDIA can justify I spend this ridiculous amount of money on something that will be outdated before I can get done with this post?

If you're an avid PC gamer, chances are during the single lifespan of a console (5 years, give or take), you'll probably build/re-build/upgrade your gaming PC at least twice, and probably for no less than $1000, especially when you're dropping $600 for a freakin' video card. There is absolutely no way this business model can continue. It's becoming a larger and larger waste of money, and for people like me, I will only bend over for so long. There simply isn't enough lube to make it feel right.

why and how? because people are willing to pay for it.. and while yes you can say consoles are cheaper.. consoles can not compete with the graphics quality of a computer.. especially vs any 5k series gpu.. its just that simple.. and even if the 360 was 5 bucks.. id still rather spend 300+ for a graphics card then use a console..

 

[Syntax Error]

Curious to see the "Heaven" DX11 benchmark and how it performs on that, but overall, quite a nice review!

 

[x3sphere]

Ah...for a while I thought for sure AMD/ATI understood what was going on. For a while I was starting to believe they were forcing NVIDIA to be competitive, that they were collectively pushing the PC gaming world down the right path. That's what I get for having hope.

It would not surprise me in the least if like the previous card, you find very limited quantities of this video card. In our lovely world of today perception is reality so of ATI only builds 10,000 of these cards and sells them all, they can go to the stockholders and say "See!! See!! We can't build them fast enough...they are flying off the shelves!!.' Shareholders get their greedy rocks off, and the company prospers.

If ATI saturates the market with a $600 card everyone wants but virtually no one can afford, then they lose. It is the same thinking that got car companies, finance companies, and a lot of other industries in trouble in the last couple of years; gambling that your 1% die-hard faithful will save you.

I still consider myself a PC gamer, but I'm slowly losing interest because of continued lack of these companies to consider what is slowly choking this part of gaming to death...you can swear against the consoles as long as you live, but we all need to realize, like it or not...they are simply stomping PC's into the ground. PC gaming must become more economical. This money one will pay for this behemoth will land you not one but both the 360 and PS3 now...and because more and more games are becoming multi-platform...someone explain to me how companies like ATI and NVIDIA can justify I spend this ridiculous amount of money on something that will be outdated before I can get done with this post?

If you're an avid PC gamer, chances are during the single lifespan of a console (5 years, give or take), you'll probably build/re-build/upgrade your gaming PC at least twice, and probably for no less than $1000, especially when you're dropping $600 for a freakin' video card. There is absolutely no way this business model can continue. It's becoming a larger and larger waste of money, and for people like me, I will only bend over for so long. There simply isn't enough lube to make it feel right.

There will always be people willing to upgrade. You do not need to upgrade to play the latest games these days. A 4670 will handle pretty much everything at a 720p resolution and costs around $50, maybe cheaper now. The sad thing is that a lot of people outside the enthusiast community do not realize this. There is still the perception that PC gaming costs mega $$ amongst the average joe.

Another thing is that people always want to run things maxed out, when the settings on a console are often much lower. If you want to run games at settings that surpass their console counterpart, then yes it's going to cost more. No way around that.

 

[defaultluser]

Hmmm. I want this card, but it appears that 2x5850 is just as good. *Ponders*
So the extra shaders on the 5970 seemed to offer no advantages at all?
3200 shaders on 5970 vs 2880 shaders on 5850. *Slightly puzzled*

It's memory bandwidth-limited (both have 4GHz memory). So, only the most shader-intensive games will allow the 5890 to outpace 2x5850 cards.

I like the marketing literature "sleep mode," which turns-out to be lackluster. While it may be putting devices to "sleep," it is not saving you much power (44w spec versus 54w spec for 2x5870 or 2x5850). If the card were truly "asleep," power consumption for that card should be a few watts (that's what your entire computer draws when it is "asleep"), and the target idle power would be closer to 30w, instead of a disappointing 44w.

And the best part is: any old Crossfire configuration using the 5-series cards will show the same power reduction (hence why the idle power for 5890 and 2x5850 was approximately the same), so it's nothing new.

I'd just buy two 5850s myself, or else settle for a single 5870.

OFF TOPIC: I'm really glad the review took Gearbox and ATI to-task for the poor AA support in Borderlands. I was under the impression that Unreal Engine 3 only had a conflict with AA and Deferred-Rendering under DirectX 9. I was given the impression that these feature work fine together under DX10, but when you enable Borderlands DX10 it changes nothing. You can enable MSAA in the ini file, but this only smooths some objects, and half the scene is still jagged.

Tim Sweeney: The most visible DirectX 10-exclusive feature is support for MSAA on high-end video cards. Once you max out the resolution your monitor supports natively, antialiasing becomes the key to achieving higher quality visuals.

http://www.pcbuyersguide.co.za/showthread.php?t=6757

It's strange to see the predictions coming to pass - we've had a whole generation of Unreal Engine games with poor AA support thanks to that hideous decision at Epic Games. And instead of doing Dx10 support right and enabling MSAA like the engine is capable of, developers drag-ass and develop for DX9 with DX10 as an afterthought, because that's what the consoles support.

Thanks for selling us out to the consoles, Tim. I'd love to go on-and-on about how beautiful DX10 looks on UE3, but I can't get past the mountains of JAGGIES.

 

[MrLonghair]

Where were you when the 8800GTX/Ultra launched?

Nuff said on that point.

 

[Romir]

Where were you when the 8800GTX/Ultra launched?

Nuff said on that point.

I played through all of Dragon Age on an 8800GTX. 1680x1050 4x AA 16x AF @ 45 fps from a 3 year old card that I recently bought for $75.

Not bad at all.

(The bad part is the SLI link troubles I started having after 192.07 which have prevented me from getting GTX 285 levels of performance from two $75 cards.)

 

[CyborgTMT]

For Borderlands you might want to check out this section of WillowEngine.ini file:

[Engine.GameEngine]
bSmoothFrameRate=TRUE
MinSmoothedFrameRate=22
MaxSmoothedFrameRate=62

I changed the true to false and almost doubled my frame rate. BTW, playing on a 4870 and the new drivers (9.11) killed some of the textures in the game.

 

[RiZnO]

I played through all of Dragon Age on an 8800GTX. 1680x1050 4x AA 16x AF @ 45 fps from a 3 year old card that I recently bought for $75.

Not bad at all.

(The bad part is the SLI link troubles I started having after 192.07 which have prevented me from getting GTX 285 levels of performance from two $75 cards.)

Bought my gtx for Crysis for $600. right when they came out... Im glad these are all out of stock otherwise I would be doing that allll over again lol.

 

[Nenu]

Awesome review as usual. Impressive card, and well worth the msrp, considering two 5870s would cost you like $800, and one 5970 is only going to run you a measley $599...ok...that is pretty expensive.

It's interesting that the GTX295 beat the 5970 in Batman with AA enabled. But isn't that because AA is blocked on ATI cards due to Nvidia?

A bit confused with the batman AA results, it's clearly fame rate capped at the start which will massively reflect comparisons between the speeds of cards...

I wonder if the card is throttling when playing Batman, even at stock clocks.
The drivers are very early so may push the card too hard when using some techniques.
This could be checked by using the voltage booster and leaving the clocks at stock, or reduce the clocks at stock voltage to see if the framerate remains more consistent.
Or monitor the clock speeds with Rivatuner or similar

Worth finding out.

 

[GabooN]

Still would like to know how two 5870s comapre to a single 5970.

 

[AtkinS]

Hi kyle.

From what i can remember the "Crossfire X" Is not on a single pcb other than AMD's own test cards perhaps.
Crossfire is dualgpu.
CrossfireX is trifire or quadfire.

Correct me if im wrong, but last time i checked when trifire and quad came they called that cfx.

Otherwise, great review.

 

[Methadras]

Man. How did nVidia fuck up this bad?

 

[Nenu]

Still would like to know how two 5870s comapre to a single 5970.

Read some of the other reviews.

 

[Mohonri]

ATI AA and CPU Physx are intentionally crippled in Batman AA, it is a severely flawed tool to use as a benchmark, as it intentionally, and artificially favors NVIDIA.

http://www.techpowerup.com/104868/B...nables_AA_Only_on_NVIDIA_Hardware_on_PCs.html

Hmm...this strikes me as particularly anti-competitive behavior, and enforcing it through DRM (SecuROM) is double-evil. Anti-trust law doesn't require that a company have a monopoly to be found guilty--I wonder whether AMD would have a case here. I'd also be interested in knowing how much money nVidia paid to get that one line of code inserted.

 

[FrgMstr]

Hi kyle.

From what i can remember the "Crossfire X" Is not on a single pcb other than AMD's own test cards perhaps.
Crossfire is dualgpu.
CrossfireX is trifire or quadfire.

Correct me if im wrong, but last time i checked when trifire and quad came they called that cfx.

Otherwise, great review.

I honestly don't give a shit. We are very specific about our configurations. Call them whatever you want at home. The fact is that CFX and CF don't really specify anything, but I will ask AMD now to get it straight. Not that I will give a shit after that either.... ridiculous bullshit branding to confuse people even more.

Read some of the other reviews.

I think anyone should be able to put that together from what we have shown here.

For Borderlands you might want to check out this section of WillowEngine.ini file:

[Engine.GameEngine]
bSmoothFrameRate=TRUE
MinSmoothedFrameRate=22
MaxSmoothedFrameRate=62

I changed the true to false and almost doubled my frame rate. BTW, playing on a 4870 and the new drivers (9.11) killed some of the textures in the game.

I will give that a run too. 9.11 killed some textures for me as well with the 5870.

 

[STEM]

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit, 8GB DDR2 800, Q9550 and a ATI Radeon HD5870 1GB. I've just upgraded to Catalyst 9.11, and all the stuttering and low frame rates went away. I can play now NFS Shift (finally), and it's smooth as butter. I'm using the first first NFS pacth 1.01, since the second one isn't available yet. If anyone else can report a similar experience, please post a reply, it'd be very helpful for many other ATI users.

Thanks, and have a great day

PS: It'd be great if we could get the preview patch #2 for NFS Shift. I'd be awesome if EA would release a beta version or something similar, as more people would be able to test the patch.

 

[Brent_Justice]

For Borderlands you might want to check out this section of WillowEngine.ini file:

[Engine.GameEngine]
bSmoothFrameRate=TRUE
MinSmoothedFrameRate=22
MaxSmoothedFrameRate=62

I changed the true to false and almost doubled my frame rate. BTW, playing on a 4870 and the new drivers (9.11) killed some of the textures in the game.

I did edit this for testing, SmoothFrameRate was at FALSE for testing, for maximum unlocked performance in the game.

 

[JokerCPoC]

And if one looks at the Card right, It looks like the Batmobile!

 

[evilcartman]

And it's almost as big too, lol.


Great review as always. If/when I can scrounge the money for a new system my goal is to get a 5970 to go with it. Hopefully the drivers will have matured by then.

 

[PS3]

If you look at other reviews what's even more amazing is how 5970 CF scales. This has got to be the best scaling in history for a quad gpu set up. I mean it's absurd, minimum fps almost doubles, average fps practically doubles, it's amazing.

 

[MrGuvernment]

I agree. The 5850 seems like the better buy between three. Buy one now and the other later when the price drops.

Always a bad move for SLI /XFire usually, because when the prices drop there is often a single card out that can beat the Xfire combo if you sell your first and consider the price diff., buy both now or don't bother usually, unless prices drop fast.

 

[stateofjermaine]

Always a bad move for SLI/XFire usually, because when the prices drop there is often a single card out that can beat the Xfire combo if you sell your first and consider the price diff., buy both now or don't bother usually, unless prices drop fast.

So, a current 4870/260 owner would be ill-advised to spend $150 on a second card for ≈ 5870 performance, when their other option would be to sell their used card (certainly for $100 or less) and pay the difference ($150+ for a 5850, $250+ for a 5870)? I'm not sure I see the logic.

 

[Dethred]

Why include batman AA in the video reviews? It clearly straddles the line between video game and Nvidia promotion. I understand the reasons for including it (new game, demanding, etc), but all of that is eliminated by the fact that it is borderline incompatible with ATi cards. Just curious.

Fixed, thanks - Brent

 

[Mohonri]

So, a current 4870/260 owner would be ill-advised to spend $150 on a second card for ≈ 5870 performance, when their other option would be to sell their used card (certainly for $100 or less) and pay the difference ($150+ for a 5850, $250+ for a 5870)? I'm not sure I see the logic.

The cost goes beyond just the up-front cost of the card. With a newer, faster single card, you also benefit from lower power consumption/heat, which converts nicely into money. You also get the simplicity of having only a single card in your machine, and you also get the benefits of new features (like tessellation) that may not be available on the older cards. It's not a slam-dunk decision to go for a single newer card, but a lot of factors make it lean that direction.

 

[vjcsmoke]

Has [H]ardOCP tried the hack to make Batman: AA believe that the ATI card is actually an Nvidia card? I would love to see the performance numbers then because it would be more apples to apples without the 'screw you ATI' code from Nvidia interfering with the accuracy of the test results.

 

[yang88she]

thanks for the review

 

[Pastyface]

I know you guys included Arma II results in the 5870 review and was curious if you could include the game if you do an update on the 5970 down the road.

Great review though.

 

[MrLonghair]

Has [H]ardOCP tried the hack to make Batman: AA believe that the ATI card is actually an Nvidia card? I would love to see the performance numbers then because it would be more apples to apples without the 'screw you ATI' code from Nvidia interfering with the accuracy of the test results.

They haven't. So I think it's dumb to keep it this way but hey all the other sites (but one) are doing it with control panel AA for the ATI cards in Batman, and the ATI cards win even then, and would win harder if the field was fair.

Dont' forget to vendor-fake when benching Borderlands, now that I think about it, you want to do that with every single game they've put their hands on. At least the ones that act suspicious, not RE5 that's for sure.

 

[FrgMstr]

Since the 5970 is basically (2) downclocked 5870's I would have also loved to see specific numbers against 5870CF. It would have also been interesting to see 5870CF against an overclocked 5970. I am also a realist in that everything can't be tested, but that just seemed like a no brainer. Great article regardless.

We would have loved to have seen that too. Sadly we had more wants than time. Seemed like a no brainer to me that two 5850s cost $600 and one 5970 costs $600 and two 5870s cost over $800.

We showed that two 5850s will hold value much better down the upgrade path if you buy a 5850 today and one later.

 

[PS3]

It would also be nice to see gtx285 sli numbers as well. I think that's the set up that might still compete with 5850cf...well...not compete, but come close maybe.

 

[FrgMstr]

But if you want to game in Eyefinity, I think the 5970 is clearly the best/fastest choice. Speaking of which, when are you going to do Eyefinity review of 5970?

Unless you have big monitors, 5850 is just fine for Eyefinity. I had 5850 driving 3x1 30" playing less demanding games like L4D etc.

Mentioned twice in the article.

 

[Brent_Justice]

I know you guys included Arma II results in the 5870 review and was curious if you could include the game if you do an update on the 5970 down the road.

Great review though.

Arma II is known not to scale well with multi-GPU configurations