PowerColor Radeon HD 5870 LCS: The GHz Limit, Broken

[Pei-chen]

This article is crap. Sapphire has already sold 4890 @ 1 GHz way before 5000 was even released. Why buys a card, overclocks it and calls it a breakthrough when plenty of factory overclocked cards has already done it?

And what's up with the GHz war again? Haven’t we learned anything? One AMD MHz != one Nvidia MHz. Fermi/GT300 will not run at 1GHz or even 850MHz but will still competes with 5870 simply because it is designed differently.

Non-Chris articles are usually crap.

 

[gian84]

DX11 BETTER deliver, otherwise 2x 4890 pawnz 5870 performance-wise, and 4870s will kill 5770 sales.

 

[falchard]

The problem with overclocking now for a hundred mhz is that it doesn't make much of a difference since its already over 800mhz.

Still like it being a single-slot cooler. Only if it was the 6 mini-port design.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]Pei-chen[/nom] Sapphire has already sold 4890 @ 1 GHz way before 5000 was even released. Why buys a card, overclocks it and calls it a breakthrough when plenty of factory overclocked cards has already done it?
And what's up with the GHz war again? Haven’t we learned anything? One AMD MHz != one Nvidia MHz. Fermi/GT300 will not run at 1GHz or even 850MHz but will still competes with 5870 simply because it is designed differently. [/citation]

The title refers to the GHz limit imposed by the BIOS on this specific card Pei-chen, not all 5870s or graphics cards in general.
Nor do I ever mention a GHz war, nor do I suggest that one AMD MHz = one Nvidia MHz...

It's pretty clear you didn't read it at all.

Might I suggest that you actually read the article before knee-jerking a sensationalist complaint?
It might make more sense to you...


[citation][nom]Pei-chen[/nom]This article is crap.[/citation]

One man's opinion.

In my opinion for instance, your comment takes the lead in that category.

To each his own.

 

[flyinfinni]

Interesting article. I expected the 4890s to beat the 5870 because the 4870x2 was generally close and a xfire 4890s ought to be better than that. Still, I wish I had $$ for a 5870, or even a 5850 (later into Xfire with those)- great engineering work by ATI.

 

[hixbot]

AMD's rep said that the explanation is likely that the Radeon HD 5870 is optimized for DirectX 11, and not DirectX 10 and 9 titles. As DirectX 11 titles are released, we'll see the 5800-series deliver even better performance.

This makes absolutely no sense to me, DX11 adds to DX 10 and 9, how can something be optimised for 11, and not 10 and 9?!

 

[Ehsan w]

man world in conflict looks like a bad piece of shit, look at the bottom speeds at all resolutions
either every explosion is HUGE or it's just badly programmed or something

 

[warezme]

The performance increase increase not significant enough to justify the cost of water color and water cooling system. THe only thing this seemed to excel in was power draw increase.

 

[scrumworks]

I see old drivers syndrome again.

This card can seemingly hit 1380/1350 MHZ too which is impressive: http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/16753/1/

 

[scrumworks]

[citation][nom]idisarmu[/nom]I don't understand how the 5870 can be slower than a 4870x2/2x4890. Aren't the specs EXACTLY the same, except for the 5870's HIGHER clocks and that the 5870 has all those specs in ONE gpu die rather than two?[/citation]

5870 should be on par or a bit faster than 4870x2. I don't expect 5870 to be faster than 2x4890.

In fallout: "Once again, the overclocked Radeon HD 4890s in CrossFire take the win at the highest resolution."

Seems that those 4980s are overclocked too. That might count also.

 

[Guest]

I believe this is the second card passing the Ghz limit.There was one before this that also had passed 1Ghz.

 

[nebun]

not worth the risk since the frame increase is not very significant at all

 

[mi1400]

JAN-2008, ATI IGP (ATI Radeon 3200) was first gpu to shatter 1GHz, by J&W Technology people. http://www.jwele.com/news_detail.php?253

 

[lowguppy]

Perhaps the coolant is supposed to flow over the memory first before going through the GPU? That could be why the memory refused to Overclock. Switching could make it harder to OC The GPU though.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]scrumworks[/nom]In fallout: "Once again, the overclocked Radeon HD 4890s in CrossFire take the win at the highest resolution."Seems that those 4980s are overclocked too. That might count also.[/citation]

The 4890's weren't OC'd, they were run at stock speeds as per the setup info. Fixed the mistake tho, thanks for pointing it out.

As I mention on the last page, i did ask AMD why the 5870 didn't beat two 4890s even thouguh it didn't have to deal with Crossfire latencies. The 5870 has the same stats but faster core and memory speeds, so it didn't make sense to me. AMD's answer was that the 5870 is optimized for Dx11 and we'll see the advantages in future titles.

Still seems odd to me that there's such a large performance disparity, hopefully as the drivers are updated they can squeeze more performance from the 5x00 series.

 

[cleeve]

I believe this is the second card passing the Ghz limit.There was one before this that also had passed 1Ghz.

Yes. once again, I'm not claiming to irst to break a GHz. As mentioned in the article, I was talking about breaking the GHz limit this particular card has in the BIOS.

Cards have been overclocked over a GHz for a long time now.

 

[exar333]

Sounds like the CF 4890 is the way to go...forget the 5870.

 

[exar333]

[citation][nom]idisarmu[/nom]I don't understand how the 5870 can be slower than a 4870x2/2x4890. Aren't the specs EXACTLY the same, except for the 5870's HIGHER clocks and that the 5870 has all those specs in ONE gpu die rather than two?[/citation]
less memory bandwith.

 

[bystander]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't forget that the 5870 has hardware tesselation. Some of it's archetiture is being utilized for this new DX11 feature. This will also mean, even under DX11 titles, it probably will not give higher framerates, but rather it will give tesselation with great FPS compared to trying to do software tesselation on two 4890's.

I personally find anything over 60 fps undectectable, but I can notice tesselation, so this is a welcome sacrafice.

 

[lgmtk]

I think i just came.

 

[Netherwind]

I have an Asus 4890...I'm thinking about adding a sapphire vapor-x 4890 to my collection instead of waiting for a 5870 toxic after this article...it could be all in the drivers though.

 

[hannibal]

Well after 5870 is really available (one TSMC get it right... it can take forever in bad case...) the price of new 5870 will become much more competitive against 4890, and even now the 5870 is fast enough, even the 2*4890 is faster option, just like they sayd in the article. Nice article all the way, maybe a little bit obscure, because water cooling is not mainstream hobbe, but it proves where the limits of current 5870 production technology are.
The 5870 seemed to eat a lot of power in extreme settings. It would be nice to see more linear clockspeed upgrades, so it would be possible to define the sweat spot. The maximum speed that don't eat too much power.

 

[overshocked]

No liquid nitro? Dissapointed.

 

[cyberkuberiah]

[citation][nom]anamaniac[/nom]It's dissapointing to hear the memory had to be put so low...Though I'd love to liquid cool my i7, then add a 5870 and liquid cool that also. I got a radiator at work that can likely handle a 10 kilowatt system, add to that it's constantly cooled by sub zero temperatures (during winter atleast), with a 5 barrel resevoir, and dual 24" fans (used to cool 3000psi hydraulics).Even more dissapointing to see it can't keep up with it's dual 4xxx series cousin.Also, GPU waterblocks just look so inneficient...[/citation]

u just redefined the word "enthusiast"

 

[scryer_360]

Someone else, who shall go unnamed, brought up an excellent point: two 5850's are just above the price of a 5870LCS, but will defeat the LCS none the less. But at that price point, a 5970 is probably the better bet for just plain ease of use.

So....

There isn't any win here, just tie. A 5970>5870LCS>5870>5850, but two 5850's beats a 5870LCS but would be outdone by a 5970. So, no matter what you do, you can't beat ATi's current price scheme.

...

Dang.