Radeon HD 5850: Knocking Down GTX 295 In CrossFire

[Onus]

[citation][nom]Miharu[/nom]Interresting... I'm just disappointed, video cards just suck more and more watts.I still love my old ATI HD4770.[/citation]

A. This one appears to use LESS than a 4870, for better performance.
B. ...but the main reason I am waiting for a 5770 is to see even lower power consumption.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]Miharu[/nom]Interresting... I'm just disappointed, video cards just suck more and more watts.I still love my old ATI HD4770.[/citation]
Ehh? really? 1) 4770 old? 2) the old 5800 and 7900 cards delivered way less performance per watt than anything you can buy today... sure they can spend more power if the demand is there, but unlike the old cards they're not running at full blast all the time. Same story with processors. Yes an i7 might be able to use more power than your pentium d did - but the pentium d always did, while your i7 mostly wont.

 

[cknobman]

Just a hint. When you base an entire article on comparing card a against card b it would be nice to have them remotely close to each other in your comparison charts. The 5850 had like 5 other cards in between it and the 285 which made it very hard to directly compare them. Likewise it would have been nice to see the 5850xfire next to the 285sli and 295.

 

[jassim]

guys im establishing my new rig i have allready quad 295 alienware its v smooth but i demand better i went for this items and need v card and i dont which 1 to use since many expert people in here i may get an advise from u guys ..
asus rampage extreme II
core i7 975
OCZ 4X 250 GB raid 0 SSD
thermaltake 1200 power suply
Z machine LQ1000 case
pc-16000 DDR3 6 GB crosir D rams and all things have
but i delay to know wich best 3 v card needed
3x evga 285 AR -1187 2GB 720 hrz

OR
3x ati 5870 CF

please i need answer for wich 1 i chose money not issue for v card i spent alot on SSDS so i wont think about it now

and for what i exprinced b4 that ati driver not good comparing niv drivers
if things change it will be helpful to

 

[grimjester]

There have been several posts asking for different charts. I'll add one: I'd like to see a plot of price on the x-axis and frame rate on the y-axis. It would make it easier to see value for money without having the problems that every single-number price/performance index has.

 

[theLaminator]

So now i have the important decision to make, upgrade my 3870's in 3-way cross fire, or upgrade my e8400 to a core 2 quad, decisions decisions

 

[Kelavarus]

*facepalm

Okay, the article was mostly good. Great to see values and whatnot.

But you DID say in the VERY beginning something about users on 790FX wanting to know how it performed. Then you went and ignored them, yet again? What was the point of even mentioning it if you weren't going to bother?

Personally, after all this talk of dragon and whatnot, I'm curious to see if there really is even a tiny bit of gain from AMD products playing nice. I have no intention of getting an iX processor.

The iX processors may be the fastest out there, but they're not the only ones being used. Just pretty irritating how benchmarks are just about completely ignoring AMD for processors these days.

 

[bk420]

That's great, this means less PCIe slots are needed! YEEHAW! When does the monster 5870X2/X3/X4 come out?

 

[bounty]

"Two dual-link DVI outputs, an HDMI connector, and a DisplayPort can be mixed and matched for any combination of three digital outputs."

I thought I read somewhere that one of the dual-link DVI outputs is shared with the HDMI, so you can't do DVI-DVI-HDMI out for eyefinity.

 

[bounty]

Thank you for the Lynnfield 8x8/CPU limitation section.

 

[saint19]

How I said before, the nVidia empire is going down.

 

[bounty]

It's an interesting reversal. In the last 1 to 2 years or so, it seems like Nvidia has lost at least 6 months to ATI. Going from 3 months ahead, to 3 behind.

 

[brisingamen]

i would go 3 5870's over 3 gtx 285's simply because of dx 11. . . .

i thought to myself well once the dx11 parts are out i can snipe another 4870, but after seeing this thier is no doubt in my mind, after seeing these benches ill just go ahead and upgrade to a 5890 type part with a high over clock and 2 gigs of memory with a nice aftermarket cooler and call it a day. very nice performance,

 

[bob5568]

While the article's intent was not to question the value of overclocking the Lynnfield, I can't help but ponder that point. The benchmarks of lynnfield oc vs stock, with the gpu intentionally not providing a bottleneck, would say to me that overclocking has no value for this processor.

What am I missing?

My new i7 860 is sitting in the box waiting for my win7 delivery in a few weeks. I've been planning an overclock, yet this data makes me wonder if there is any point. Perhaps the way of the future is to just let the turbo boost do its thing and run this proc at stock.

B

 

[TNM]

++
one Radeon HD 5850 under load is almost as quiet as a Radeon HD 4870
++
I think you mean:
"is a bit more noisy".
Having 2 4870s, I can guarantee anyone that there is nothing quiet about a 4870 under load at all.

 

[lowguppy]

These charts would be easier to read of all the dual GPU solutions were grouped together.

 

[bl4c]

very nice article, finally some info on new grafic cards pared with a mainstream motherboard that has two 8x-pcie slots (instead of the two 16x-pcie slots always used)

 

[KT_WASP]

Nice article. It is nice to see ATI cards doing well. Now we have to wait for Nvidia to see what is up their sleeves.

I know it really doesn't have bearings in this article,as you are comparing higher end cards. But, I would have liked to see how the 5850 stacked up against the last gen 4850 series card. I think that ATI's XX50 series cards are very popular for their price/performance and usually people tend to stick to that series cards for budget reasons. If you included that comparison, people who have the very popular HD4850 could have seen how the next gen 5850 stacked up overall. I know it is a big jump in performance across generations, but it would have been nice.

 

[da bahstid]

Great review, Canga. Thorough and informative as always, and good forethought to compare 8 and 16 lane configurations too.

I wasn't expecting ATI to impress this well to be honest, but as close as the 4890 already was to GTX-285 performance maybe I shouldn't be surprised after all. Nice to see though that my 4870X2 doesn't look too shabby at all. Much better than when the 4800s and GTX200s first came out and my 3870X2 was obsolete overnight.

Though I'm thinking NVidia will have their act together when they release GTX-300...NVidia should be back in the performance lead, priced accordingly as always.

 

[AtwaterFS]

[citation][nom]Honis[/nom]I think I'll hold out on this generation for now. The performance increase isn't quiet what I expected. Good article. Thanks for helping make a decision.For reference, I'm running a 4780 1 gig and the most "advanced" game I play is Fallout 3.[/citation]

I have same card and I'm def waiting a generation unless Fallout 4 or some deal breaker comes out. w/ 48701G u can play most every game aside from pigs like Crysis and GTA4 @ max settings @ 1080 rez so what's the point?

By next gen GFX perf goes up another 60-100% and DX11 should have some market penetration

 

[tipoo]

We're able to say something we haven't been able to say for quite some time: AMD has the high-end market locked up tight.

 

[eyemaster]

I wonder if the 5850 can be modified to be a 5870... The cards are different sizes, but we don't know why yet, really. Seems like the only difference is a few less transistors active and a little bit lower clock. The longer card might just have more power components. I'd like to see the cards dissected and have some answers!

 

[chechak]

Radeon HD 5850 is AWESOME with crossfire it's beating single gtx295 and gtx285 SLI even some times beating his own brother Radeon HD 5870 with crossfire .....I THINK nvidia is preparing for something!!!!

 

[porksmuggler]

"My, how times have changed."

Seriously, how near sighted. You can look at your site's own GPU chart that Don puts out each month and know these two are consistently playing hopscotch. That is if you keep up with release dates and pricing...

ATI has been on top as many times in the past as nVidia. 9xxx series, X19xx series, and yes also the 48xx series on the price/performance ratio. Unless you're excluding the dual GPU boards, saying the GTX series outperforms ATI for the money is garbage.

For those of us constantly building rigs using vids from BOTH companies, your slight of bias is pathetic. Sure, you trumpet AMD/ATI's current victory, but you can't pass on slipping in your opinion that nVidia is superior overall.

Give it a rest already.

 

[philosofool]

"The Radeon HD 4800-series was a staggering improvement, catapulting ATI right onto Nvidia’s heels. It was a second-place finish,"

I don't know what you guys are talking about here. ATI completely owned nVidia in the last go round of graphics, unless you consider that tiny market that includes $200+ processors. nVidia is getting schooled right now: ATI is calling the shots. How much would a GTX 260 cost if not for ATI? About $250.