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

Just picked up a sapphire off new egg. Anyone know if there is much penalty when using PCI-e x8? I'm using an overclocked C2D on a P35 mobo.
 
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RiZnO said:
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.
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Well if you did buy another $600 card all over again, at least it would run Crysis with decent framerates now;)
I was like you, invested in the GTX to prepare for Crysis. As for the HD5970, I really have no excuse this time except for Eyefinity. I agree with Kyle that one 5870 will run fine with EF, but that is with DX9 or DX10 (which I can only name a few) titles. I'm just worried that DX11 will need a little more power. Watching that Unique Heaven Tessellation in EF with one 5870 kinda made me think if this is what is to come, I might need CF.
Of course this will more than likely backfire as when DX11 becomes more mainstream, newer cards that run titles fine with only one card will be out.
There is no win win situation for early adopters. All I can hope is AvP is a fun game with all the eye candy on.
 
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While it might be "overkill," we use the Core i7-920 processor at 3.6GHz in an attempt to keep prevent our evaluation from being CPU limited.
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keep prevent
 
Darkryft said:
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.
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Alright, you don't NEED a $600 graphics card, you can go buy a $100 card that will play most games at normal resolutions (1680x1050 in my case) just fine (I'm still using a 8800GTS until fermi comes out or price drops on 5850). I could put together a computer for $700 that will do everything both the X360 and PS3 do, but better, and without having to use one of those stupid gamepads or nerfed up aiming for FPSes.

console gamers have not made WoW or LOTRO or Everquest or Age of Conan what THEY are today.

Console gamers wouldn't even HAVE multiplayer if it wasn't for us, hell, except for PC games everyone would still be playing Zelda on the original NES and talking about how cool it is.

Give it time man, the kids will grow sick of their kid toys and eventually try real gaming, I'm transferring my 13 year old to a PC at tax time.
 
Most of the time I doubt you'll feel it and it likely won't matter. The card won't be running to its full potential in all situations though.
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Interesting...I bought it for Eyefinity, however, so I wonder if it will be more apparent with super high resolutions. I've been looking for a reason to upgrade the C2D for a while, but as it was pretty heavily overclocked I never really saw a reason for games.
 
Well technically, nobody 'needs' to buy the 5970 if they don't want to or can't afford it. There are other cards on the market that are very good that can be had for less. They're called the 5870, the 5850, the 285GTX, the 275 GTX, the 4890, etc. etc.

The 5970 is the top of line flagship for ATI, just like the 295 is the flagship for Nvidia. At ~600 and ~500 respectively neither are affordable unless you've been saving up a while for them. It's also a fact that either of these video cards will absolutely CRUSH whatever gpu is being used in a PS3 or Xbox 360 right now. I played Resident Evil 5 on a single 5870 at 100+ FPS in DX10 and it looks a LOT better than the console version does. In fact I'd argue the reverse. Console gaming is bringing down the quality of PC games, because we are getting ports that are designed to run on much less demanding hardware.
 
I have decided to Nick Name the card John Holmes after the porn star. The Card is 13 inches long, how about a review of what cases can actually fit the thing? I struggled getting a 2 GB 4870 10.5 inch Sapphire card into my P1 Alienware chassis. Most mid tower and full tower cases can barely fit a 10.5 inch card. With the size constraints and poor availability wouldn't 2 5870's Crossfire, be more feasible?
 
Where are the Nvidia 295 comparison graphs? You mention the results but don't show them compared to the AMD.
 
Great review, impressive card. Even if I usually think that you can't never have too much computing power, this card is really meant for those running 30 inchers with full eye candy or above with eyefinity, much less isn't justified for the card. For lower resolutions the HD5870 would be quite 'sufficient', considering the games we have today.
 
Darkryft said:
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.
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You can get a 5750 for ~$140 which will play any game perfectly fine in today's common PC resolutions. That $140 video card will absolutely destroy the performance and the visuals of any of the current gen consoles and by destroy I mean you can't even compare the two in performance and resolution.

5970 is an enthusiast card. The review even states that this card is pretty much overkill for all the today's games (unless gaming with Eyefinity multi monitor setups). $600 for a dual GPU, fastest in the world, monster card such as this is not that bad honestly. Especially considering that TSMC is struggling to produce the GPU dies, meaning there is a shortage of parts to make these video cards.

about the review:
nVidia is pissing me off with the whole colluding with game studios to cripple features for ATI cards, it's such a lame anti-consumer tactic.

btw, nice review as always.
 
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vjcsmoke said:
Fun review. As expected some games didn't take advantage of CrossfireX, and some benefited about 50% or more. 5970x2 is just sick.
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I haven't seen reviews of 5970CF that show minimum fps however. 200 fps is nice if it doesn't dip below 40 fps...a la Crysis. I'm sure we will eventually see some you tube videos of 5970CF playing crysis warhead. The minimum fps @ enthusiast settings running 4xaa / 16xaf is going to tell us if a $1200 5970 CF is indeed worth it. If the minimum fps is anything below 60, I'd be personally disappointed. There is a 5870 Quad set up floating around on youtube where the fps would still dip in the 30s regularly.
 
PS3 said:
I haven't seen reviews of 5970CF that show minimum fps however. 200 fps is nice if it doesn't dip below 40 fps...a la Crysis. I'm sure we will eventually see some you tube videos of 5970CF playing crysis warhead. The minimum fps @ enthusiast settings running 4xaa / 16xaf is going to tell us if a $1200 5970 CF is indeed worth it. If the minimum fps is anything below 60, I'd be personally disappointed. There is a 5870 Quad set up floating around on youtube where the fps would still dip in the 30s regularly.
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Any link to that video? Love to find out what driver they using as newer obiously are better. Nomatter how i think about it or bend it when i am going 30" soon 2x5970 4GB is more and more tempting when they show up, or 4x5870 2GB as money is not a thing that matter to me as mutch as delays of things.
 
E.R said:
Any link to that video? Love to find out what driver they using as newer obiously are better. Nomatter how i think about it or bend it when i am going 30" soon 2x5970 4GB is more and more tempting when they show up, or 4x5870 2GB as money is not a thing that matter to me as mutch as delays of things.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI-f9P8nKKs

I think this might be the video he was referring to. Its a Quad CrossfireX setup being used and it benchmarks Crysis warhead and Heaven Benchmark at 2560x1600. I didn't check the AA settings but I think it was 4xaa or 8xaa so it might be a reasonable approximately to say 1440x900x3 monitors since its almost the same number of pixels as 2560x1600. I think the minimum frame rates were 24 fps? but max as 70 and average was around 56ish fps. So I guess not that bad?
 
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What is the difference between using this dual GPU in a single x16 slot, and crossfired single GPUs in two x8 slots? We always hear that hardcore gamers should avoid the 1156 chipset because it's limited to x8 in crossfire; if that's the case, wouldn't a single 5970 in a 1366 be just as limited?
 
WBurchnall said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI-f9P8nKKs

I think this might be the video he was referring to. Its a Quad CrossfireX setup being used and it benchmarks Crysis warhead and Heaven Benchmark at 2560x1600. I didn't check the AA settings but I think it was 4xaa or 8xaa so it might be a reasonable approximately to say 1440x900x3 monitors since its almost the same number of pixels as 2560x1600. I think the minimum frame rates were 24 fps? but max as 70 and average was around 56ish fps. So I guess not that bad?
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Thanks, not bad but did i read right Cat 8.66? Or what it said then i guess it can be inproved a bit.
It looks to be with no AA on the not crystal clear resultpicture.
 
vjcsmoke said:
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?
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running 5760x1080 and a 5850 at 940/1100 and havent had any issues with eyefinity framerates in the games I play.
Dragon Age and NFS shift.

If you play mmog, rpg etc..I bet a 5850 would cover a lot of game without any issues at all using a 5850.
fps is different, I remove all distractions meaning, no aa/af, no textures all on low etc..as this allows me to see the opponent better.,
anyone bothered with imagequality, play single player games, and that is basically for me, boring.

If I find games to demanding, I might get a second 5850, but currently, I am happy with my setup.
 
Im in the market for a 5970 but i can not find anyone that has one in stock.. i have a new computer built with no video card in it :( Anyone know where i can find a 5970??
 
jono80 said:
Im in the market for a 5970 but i can not find anyone that has one in stock.. i have a new computer built with no video card in it :( Anyone know where i can find a 5970??
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5970 on Amazon... :D Oops, OOS! So sorry, tried ebay?
 
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i saw a couple on ebay but id rather buy from a retail online store.. something about buying a 600-700 video card on ebay turns me away.. ha
 
TehQuick said:
You are asking in the wrong thread, buddy ;) And no, I don't think 5870 is faster than 4870 in crossfire, if it's slower than 4870x2 :cool:
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from some numbers, its equivalent..

but smooth wise, 5870 take the crown..
 
Have the drivers improved 5970 performance/features at all since Brent first wrote this article?
 
darkpark said:
Say, is a single 5870 faster than two 4870s in crossfire?
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With crossfired cards, you occasionally will get drops/dips in performance so you have lower minimum framerates. Like with a 4870's there were some issues with microstuttering in early driver releases were the game would be pretty smooth then seem to pause for a moment and then continue being fairly smooth then a really quick pause again.

With a 5870, you wouldn't get the 'pausing' // 'stuttering' issue that are sometimes associated with crossfire or sli in some games. Your average frame rates would be about the same and image quality would be pretty similar, except in DX11 titles of course. You'd have higher minimum frames per second though possibly making the game feel a bit smoother. Overall, it would be kind of a trade-off. If you could sell both your 4870s and pay for say 75-80% of the cost of a 5870 with the 4870 sales, I'd say it might be worth upgrading but probably not worth it if you were paying the full retail price considering what you have now.
 
thanks for the response WBurchnall!
I think that I'm going to sit on my two 4870s a while longer since all the games that I play I can set to almost maximum quality. Although being an enthusiast, I am eager to get my hands on a new and faster video card. :) As such, I'll wait a while until the 5970s are more readily available and at more reasonable prices.
 
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