AMD's ATI Radeon HD 5870 Video Card Review @ [H]

Brent_Justice

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AMD's ATI Radeon HD 5870 Video Card Review - AMD’s ATI Radeon HD 5800 series debuts today and the new ATI Radeon HD 5870 is now available. We will give you all the gritty details of the HD 5800 Series, and show you just how well the new flagship ATI Radeon HD 5870 accelerates games. Can you say, "Twice as much performance in the same power envelope?"
 
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It's aliiiive! Reading now... EDIT1: Wow, $259 MSRP on the 5850? EDIT2: Interesting how the TWIMTBP games run slower... the 5870 trounces the 285 in ARMA II though :eek:.
 
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My God is that thing efficient. 5W higher than the 4890 and about twice the performance. :)
 
Very nice review as usual. Pretty impressed with the results but i think now would be a great time to pick up a nice cheaper than ever 4890 1gb (-$200) and wait for the 5890, as the 5870 in australia is almost $600 atm :/
 
thanks for a great article, I was hoping for a few more games to see performance measurements, but the article is better written than any other I have read tonight, especially the guru3d one.
 
Read the article once but can't find anything about the new feature in 9.10 catalyst, I guess that it is still under cover until 9.10 is out...
Edit: Crysis is playable on all settings at Enthusiast level!! :eek:
 
thanks for a great article, I was hoping for a few more games to see performance measurements, but the article is better written than any other I have read tonight, especially the guru3d one.

Yeah, quality over quantity is not always easy to do, but we find it works out better. I don't think you will see anything at any other site that will give you a better overall conclusion with 19 pages of canned benchmarks.
 
Nice review, thanks Kyle & Brent.

I am surprised that HD 5870 couldnt push 1920x1200 all enthusiast + 4xAA to 30 fps average in Warhead. IMHO was expecting that at least because my 4870x2 gets around 25 fps w/ 4xAA at that level just like 5870. I guess its an improvement of sorts but 5870 does have a nice clock boost.
 
Very Nice review guys! Excellent descriptions and this card is truly fantastic. I definitely see one in my future!
 
Nice review, thanks Kyle & Brent.

I am surprised that HD 5870 couldnt push 1920x1200 all enthusiast + 4xAA to 30 fps average in Warhead. IMHO was expecting that at least because my 4870x2 gets around 25 fps w/ 4xAA at that level just like 5870. I guess its an improvement of sorts but 5870 does have a nice clock boost.

I was hopping the same thing...

:(

now I cant decide if I should sell 4890CF for a 5870...
 
Read the article once but can't find anything about the new feature in 9.10 catalyst, I guess that it is still under cover until 9.10 is out...
Edit: Crysis is playable on all settings at Enthusiast level!! :eek:

There is no new feature in Cat 9.10 for previous gen cards, I was mistaken about that. I had the initial impression that Supersampling AA would be debuted in Cat 9.10 also for previous gen cards, what they meant was that Cat 9.10 will enable Supersampling AA for 5800 series. So the new feature exposed in Cat 9.10 is Supersampling AA for 5800 series only.
 
I cannot wait for your review on the 5850 that is the one I am really anxious to see a review on. Great review as always.
 
Nice review, thanks Kyle & Brent.

I am surprised that HD 5870 couldnt push 1920x1200 all enthusiast + 4xAA to 30 fps average in Warhead. IMHO was expecting that at least because my 4870x2 gets around 25 fps w/ 4xAA at that level just like 5870. I guess its an improvement of sorts but 5870 does have a nice clock boost.

Perhaps with dual or triple 5870... I aim to find out. It is a challenge now for me that I must find out what can run Warhead at 60 FPS at 1920 4X AA Enthusiast! :D
 
Cheers guys, quite a powerhouse really, wonder when we will get stocks in NZ.

Cant wait to play ARMA2 with one of these.
 
It is clear that this card is the fastest single GPU card on the market, I still have doubts it is the fastest card on the market at this point in time. I look forward to the 5870 vs GTX 295 and 4870x2. This comparison will put a lot of my unanswered questions to rest.
 
Anyways, excellent review, I'm glad I stayed up for it. [H] is the BEST! How I envy you Kyle/Brent! ;)
 
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Its everything i had hoped it would be. All ive really heard is about the GT300 and how aweseome its supposed to be, never really heard much from anyone about this beauty of a GPU. Really glad that ATi is back in the enthusiast ring once again. Now we wait for "Bulldozer".
 
There is no new feature in Cat 9.10 for previous gen cards, I was mistaken about that. I had the initial impression that Supersampling AA would be debuted in Cat 9.10 also for previous gen cards, what they meant was that Cat 9.10 will enable Supersampling AA for 5800 series. So the new feature exposed in Cat 9.10 is Supersampling AA for 5800 series only.

Ok, thanks for the info.
 
It is clear that this card is the fastest single GPU card on the market, I still have doubts it is the fastest card on the market at this point in time. I look forward to the 5870 vs GTX 295 and 4870x2. This comparison will put a lot of my unanswered questions to rest.

To that, my initial impression is that it is going to depend on the game. We've been hearing some things about Batman that may be negative in terms of performance for the 5800 series, such as no AA support on AMD cards (which is true right now) you have to force it on from the control panel, whereas with NV cards you can enable it from in-game, we've got the game being tested right now, and this I can verify. We will have much more about that in our follow-up and our gameplay evaluation of the game itself across various cards. The point is, i think a lot of the performance between the 5870 and GTX 295 and 4870 X2 is going to depend on the game and other factors. As per this evaluation, AMD is saying that NFS: Shift is also running slower than it should.
 
You know, I usually read HardOCP and Anandtech reviews before making any conclusions. Not sure what happened over at Anandtech, but I thought their review was terrible and misinformed. Or maybe HardOCP's review was just that much better than AT. Either way, great review/article by the [H]. Keep up the good work gents!
 
I might be asking too much, and I understand if you don't want to tell me this info, but in this testing have you been able to have relatively equal apples to apples comparisons overall? Or do you have to change game settings to get equal frame rates between the two? Obviously you are right; it depends on the game. But do they trade jabs with each other from game to game?
 
Sorry Kyle et al. Some hard truth here.

I recall a few years ago re: the methodology and your defense.

I understand you're need to differentiate.

Please stop. Now.

Thank you.
 
Thx for the nice review but i think i can get a 4890 and pair it up for cheap as things are now so i can be settled and wait this round out. DX11 won't be a deal breaker for 2 yrs or so. :)
 
I might be asking too much, and I understand if you don't want to tell me this info, but in this testing have you been able to have relatively equal apples to apples comparisons overall? Or do you have to change game settings to get equal frame rates between the two? Obviously you are right; it depends on the game. But do they trade jabs with each other from game to game?

This is what our highest-playable gameplay evaluation is, finding what level of performance is playable and how far we can increase image quality settings while maintaining similar performance. This difference in gameplay settings equals the difference in the gameplay experience provided by each video card. So, yes, we change game settings.

In our apples-to-apples testing we match game settings, and see how framerate compares.
 
I get that, I was just wondering what the outcome was between the framerates, and if the framerates were equal without changing the game settings

edit: basically I was wondering if I could get a little glimpse on what your findings have been :)
 
Thx for the nice review but i think i can get a 4890 and pair it up for cheap as things are now so i can be settled and wait this round out. DX11 won't be a deal breaker for 2 yrs or so. :)

Did you forget the part where 3 DX11-enabled games are coming out (very) soon, and 2 others will gain it through a patch?

Great review by the way, I was amazed at the ArmA 2 results.
 
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