Radeon HD 5850: Knocking Down GTX 295 In CrossFire

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You know what get's me they always run the new cards with a $1000 CPU that's been overclocked. What good is showing new video cards running on an overclocked CPU that most can't afford, let alone are currently running? Show me what the new vid cards can do with an Core i5 or Phenom II please.
 
Well done another good review.

Couldn’t the benchmark charts be made easier to analyse ? When you are reviewing too many GPU’s is best to have separate charts for each resolutions, else it gets confusing. (It will result in a longer page, we can live with that)
 
There's a video review over at [H]ardocp showing off ATI's Eyeinffinity and it looks really impressive especially in games like Need For Speed Shift where your periphery vision is enhanced to extent that when you viewing from the drivers POV you can see either side of the car.

It's also good to see the 8x limitations of mainstream motherboards won't be an issue for this generation and to be honest I did have a concern that there wouldn't be enough bandwidth for these super powerful cards but I'm glad to see I was wrong. What would have good is if you tried to find the bottleneck by cutting the bandwidth down from 8x to 4x to 2x so we can see when it really starts to hurt.
 
[citation][nom]bviperz[/nom]You know what get's me they always run the new cards with a $1000 CPU that's been overclocked. What good is showing new video cards running on an overclocked CPU that most can't afford, let alone are currently running? Show me what the new vid cards can do with an Core i5 or Phenom II please.[/citation]

Dude, check out page 14. 😉
It's all there, you just have to look! 😉
 
[citation][nom]Article[/nom]By comparing those numbers to the overclocked results, we’ll have a better idea if a CrossFire’d 5850 configuration is overkill for an upper-midrange gaming system, or if you really need a higher-end CPU in order to keep up.[/citation]
This implies a loss-loss situation. Either you're saying cf is overkill for the system, or that the system needs an even better cpu, by which time it is no longer an upper midrange system in the first place. So either it's overkill, or it doesn't exist. Ehh ... Great!


[citation][nom]Article[/nom]In fact, we’re not even convinced that the next thing to emerge from Nvidia will be a new architecture. [/citation]
I wonder if they'll launch a new series of cards .... single board solutions in trippleslot with 6 g80 chips shrinked (again) to 32nm or something!
 
[citation][nom]ibnsina[/nom]Well done another good review. Couldn’t the benchmark charts be made easier to analyse ? When you are reviewing too many GPU’s is best to have separate charts for each resolutions, else it gets confusing. (It will result in a longer page, we can live with that)[/citation]

I agree. Though overcloked core i7 is great way to test the power of video cards without CPU bottlenecks. I'm much more ineterested to see wether these new cards give me any actual benefit. Sure, they tested those cards on stock i7. But even at stock speeds that's a faster CPU than majority of people actually have.

I haven't been able to find a review with a more mainstream CPU. hint hint :) For example, you guys could put these new cards in a SBM $650 machine or something like that.
 
Damn that is a nice card and great review! Now the problem is I still cannot get myself to spend £200 on a card gaming at 16x10 when 4870 plays everything possible smoothly turned up well high with lashings of AA. It would be nice to see what a Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad setup would do with 5850/5870 as I am sure there are loads of readers with p35/38x p45/48x setups that have aging cards for mid life upgrades like my system.
 
When I first saw that the 5850 was nearly twice as fast as the 4870, I was really impressed by evolution. Then I realise the 5850 also uses almost twice the power, didn't feel so evolutionary anymore. Just scaled down, over juiced and over clocked.
 
[citation][nom]cruiseoveride[/nom]When I first saw that the 5850 was nearly twice as fast as the 4870, I was really impressed by evolution. Then I realise the 5850 also uses almost twice the power, didn't feel so evolutionary anymore. Just scaled down, over juiced and over clocked.[/citation]

On page 2 of the article it states the Board power is lower for the 5850 than the 4870. (151W vs 160W respectively)

Then later this is demonstrated in the power consumption tests, the system with the 4870 consuming 330W under load compared to the 5850s 305W.
 
[citation][nom]cruiseoveride[/nom]When I first saw that the 5850 was nearly twice as fast as the 4870, I was really impressed by evolution. Then I realise the 5850 also uses almost twice the power, didn't feel so evolutionary anymore. Just scaled down, over juiced and over clocked.[/citation]
go clean your glasses where do you see twice the power consumption ? in fact the 5850 consumes even less power than the 4870 at idle.
 
Is no overclock! The two cards may share similarities in the core architecture, but the 5850 has several additions to bring it upto the DirectX 11 spec. But most importantly it's produced on a 40nm process as opposed to the older 55nm process used on the 4870, helping to greatly reducing power consumption and allowing them to basically double the number of shaders and texture units while only increasing the die area by 22%!
 
one of the biggest variables ive seen from review to review is the tempuratures given by the stock coolers, i think that the reference cooler is definitly adequate for modest over clocks, however some fault of the high readings in some reviews vs other may be due to. . .

the fact that the heatsinks are applied by hand in a factory on an assembly line and that all heatsinks are not applied equally, although every factory has thier own measures of quality control,
this happends and is the case with any company manufacturing cards and it has nothing to do with weather or not its ati or nvidia, asus or gigabyte.


although it shouldnt have to be done, the people who care enough about it to look at the tempuratures and do something about it may consider re applying the heatsink with high quality aftermarket thermal paste.

also power supplys regardless of the manufacturer and wattage output rating if under peforming by producing slightly less voltage may affect it aswell, similar to a car engine running lean?

and gpu to gpu im sure also varies much like cpu overclocks, thier is luck involved.

i would like to see an in depth article on these factors, im sure THG could whip up a nifty hardcore tempurature/heat management and all its factors bit.

keep up the good work guys, i read reviews like its my religion!
 
Can you test the 5850 against an overclocked to 1,000MHz more / 1,100MHz RAM 4890? I have a weird feeling that an overclocked 4890 can keep up with 5850 while being almost $100 cheaper.
 
Sounds like everyone should sell their Nvidia stock, but let's see if I have this right:

ATI's 5870 is MSRP'd at $379 and equals/shreds Nvidia's 295 (2xGPU's) which is currently priced at least $100 more on average. ATI's 5850 shreds Nvidia's 285 model (their fastest single CPU card), has a MSRP of $259, and is about $100 less than current average 285 prices. And ATI is thought to have 5700-type parts coming out below, at even cheaper prices, that will demolish 250, 260 and 275 Nvidia parts.

And should Nvidia's paper tiger (GT300) actually ever see the light of day, ATI has the even faster 5890 and, heaven's forbid, a 5870x2 (and possibly 5850x2) set of models available to throw into the fray!

Things haven't been going well for Nvidia on the 40 nm front recently, and the fact that their much-hyped GT200-series ATI-killer turns out to be merely DX 10.1 9500's or whatnot, should turn them (and their hyperbole-casting CEO) into the laughing-stocks of the industry. Turkeys unite! (Line up behind Nvidia).
 
I don't know that I'll need an upgrade any time soon, but this card looks great. I want to see what the 57xx can do, but by the time I need it (maybe next Spring/Summer?), I would not be surprised if the 5850 has dropped to $150 (or less!), which will make it a compelling upgrade.
 
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