Ati radeon hd 5870 - Ati News!

Introduction - Part 2

The possibility to manage from three to six monitors simultaneously is an option that opens many new usages, that go from the gaming world to the more professional one, and that not only make the gaming more interesting and intense, but also offer more space for the active working desktop.

In order to have a good idea of the possible usages, the images in this post give a good idea of what possibilities the Eyefinity technology offer.

Introduction

Eyefinity is the name of ATI’s new technology, presented officially on September 10th last year, and that arrived with the introduction of the new HD 5000 solutions. Eyefinity guarantees the possibility of managing up to six monitors at the same time: as much as the HD 5000 cards are theoretically capable of managing six displays, this feature is reserved to the Eyefinity 6 edition proposals, that have arrived only recently in the market.

The possibility of having a multi-display solution has become more and more real in the last few years: the LCD monitors made it more possible to have a bigger number of monitors connected to a system, thanks to the smaller size if compared to the old CRT monitors. Also taken in consideration are the heat and energy consumption, a lot more manageable than old monitors, and that help in the construction of a multi-monitor system.

Conclusion - Part 2

The overclock that comes with the two cards don’t really bring noticeable increases, but the lack of rumor and the low temperatures are two important elements to consider: these two, together with a big margin of overclocking, could make the difference when it comes to these two models.

The Sapphire card is sold for around €335 in average (plus taxes) and the difference in price is justified by the great efficiency on the Vapor Chamber technology. The PowerColor solution is sold for €15 more compared to a normal HD 5870 in average, but also the custom heatsink system makes the difference. Worth spending the money for better solutions.

Conclusion - Part 1

The two cards by Sapphire and PowerColor feature a different heatsink solution that proves to be effective an silent, and frequencies that are slightly higher than the standard. They are, thus, cards developed to those passionate users that aim to take the most benefit from the card, including overclocking, for example.

One thing must be mentioned, however, and that’s the power supply circuit: if on one hand, the cooling system in both cards work better than the reference, the choice by both manufacturers to use a different power circuit has prevented any possibility of overvolting. This is usually important and a limitation when it comes to overclocking, which could be a contradiction in a way, since the cards seem to be developed for the most enthusiast users.

Overclocking - Final

Powercolor PCS+ HD 5870 - High Quality - AA 4x - DX10

950 Mhz / 4900 Mhz (GPU/Memory):

- 2560 x 1600 - 146
- 1920 x 1200 - 176
- 1680 x 1050 - 186
- 1280 x 1024 - 203

930 Mhz / 4900 Mhz (GPU/Memory):

- 2560 x 1600 - 144
- 1920 x 1200 - 176
- 1680 x 1050 - 185
- 1280 x 1024 - 202

920 Mhz / 4900 Mhz (GPU/Memory):

- 2560 x 1600 - 143
- 1920 x 1200 - 175
- 1680 x 1050 - 185
- 1280 x 1024 - 200

875 Mhz / 4900 Mhz (GPU/Memory):

- 2560 x 1600 - 143
- 1920 x 1200 - 173
- 1680 x 1050 - 184
- 1280 x 1024 - 197

The PowerColor proposal is developed based on the HD 5870 GPU. The reference model is sold with the 850 Mhz frequency for the GPU, hence a lower overclocking margin is to be expected, especially when compared to the Sapphire model, and consequently, a lower margin of FPS gained.

Overclocking - Part 2

Tom Clancy’s HAWX - Overclocking test

Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 Toxic -  High Quality -  AA 4x - DX10

765 Mhz / 4500 MHz (GPU/Memory):

- 2560 x 1600 - 129
- 1920 x 1200 - 152
- 1680 x 1050 - 163
- 1280 x 1024 - 180

900 Mhz / 4500 Mhz (GPU/Memory):

- 2560 x 1600 - 138
- 1920 x 1200 - 166
- 1680 x 1050 - 176
- 1280 x 1024 - 195

930 Mhz / 4500 Mhz (GPU/Memory):

- 2560 x 1600 - 140
- 1920 x 1200 - 167
- 1680 x 1050 - 178
- 1280 x 1024 - 196

The overclocking possibilities that the Sapphire HD 5850 Toxic can offer are very interesting: the card comes with the frequency of 750 Mhz. The potential n this GPU is the same as the HD 5870, the only difference is the lower number of shader units. That’s why the card was taken up to 900 Mhz and in order to avoid overheating, the fan was set at 100%. The passage from 750 Mhz to 900 Mhz means a big performance step that allows for a noticeable FPS increase. The tests were done until reaching the stable marker of 930 Mhz; beyond that, the card was unstable and could not run any tests.

Overclocking - Part 1

As we mentioned in the beginning of our review, these two cards are made for the enthusiast users. Hence why perhaps a special chapter about the overclocking capabilities of both cards is needed, in order to check the behavior of the cards when pushed to frequencies beyond their standard. Before we start with the numbers, it’s worth mentioning that the cards are limited, by default, to a maximum frequency. In order to actually be able to set frequencies beyond that limit, it depends on which tool being used. If users decide to use the MSI Afterburner (very popular when it comes to overclocking tools), a small modification in the CFG files must be done.

The file is called MSIAfterburner.cfg, and opening on notepad, the line that says EnableUnnoficialOverclocking = 0 must be changed to 1. Doing that, it’ll be possible to push frequencies beyond the manufacturer’s limits. But be warned, before trying such a thing, that the overclocking in any card usually makes the card not covered by warranty, so do it at your own risk.

Noise and Temperatures -  PowerColor PCS+ HD 5870

When comparing the reference Radeon HD 5870 and the PowerColor proposal, the difference in the temperatures is even higher: in this case, the PowerColor solution has less overclocked frequencies when compared to the Sapphire solution, but benefits fully from the heat-pipe system used by PowerColor. The PCS+ HD 5870 keeps lower temperatures throughout the test sessions, no matter whether in idle or full load.

Noise levels

As for the noise levels, the two proposals also win when compared to the reference models. With the same noise levels, the two proposals guarantee a better cooling system for the GPU, keeping temperatures lower with the same amount of noise, or sometimes even lower than the reference.

Noise and Temperatures - Sapphire HD 5850 Toxic

As we mentioned in the beginning of this review, one of the elements that benefit directly from the presence of different cooling systems than the reference models is the temperature; thanks to the better performing solutions, the two manufacturers were capable of guaranteeing cards that, despite the higher frequencies, also have lower temperatures.

The confrontation between Sapphire’s proposal and the HD 5850 reference shows just how effective the Vapor Chamber heatsink can be. Despite the higher frequencies for GPU and memories, the temperatures remain quite close to the reference model, despite the clear performance advantage. When in idle, the fans are spinning in the minimum speed, where the card presents a higher temperature than the reference model, but once the card starts working in full load, the custom cooling system does its job, bringing the temperatures lower than the reference model, despite the higher frequencies.

Tom Clancy’s HAWX

The benchmark utility is integrated in the game, and all the high quality settings were chosen, except for the ambient occlusion, left at low. The tests were done in DirectX 10 and 10.1 and AA 4x.

Values are expressed in FPS

DirectX 10

PowerColor PCS+ Radeon HD 5870 vs ATI Radeon HD 5870 reference

- 2560 x 1600 - 143
- 1920 x 1200 - 173
- 1680 x 1050 - 184
- 1280 x 1024 - 197

Reference values:

- 2560 x 1600 - 133
- 1920 x 1200 - 162
- 1680 x 1050 - 169
- 1280 x 1024 - 185

Sapphire HD 5850 Toxic vs ATI Radeon HD 5850 reference

- 2560 x 1600 - 129
- 1920 x 1200 - 152
- 1680 x 1050 - 163
- 1280 x 1024 - 180

Reference values:

- 2560 x 1600 - 120
- 1920 x 1200 - 146
- 1680 x 1050 - 158
- 1280 x 1024 - 168

DirectX 10.1

PowerColor PCS+ Radeon HD 5870 vs ATI Radeon HD 5870 reference

- 2560 x 1600 - 88
- 1920 x 1200 - 124
- 1680 x 1050 - 133
- 1280 x 1024 - 157

Reference values:

- 2560 x 1600 - 84
- 1920 x 1200 - 115
- 1680 x 1050 - 130
- 1280 x 1024 - 143

Sapphire HD 5850 Toxic vs ATI Radeon HD 5850 reference

- 2560 x 1600 - 79
- 1920 x 1200 - 104
- 1680 x 1050 - 113
- 1280 x 1024 - 116

Reference values:

- 2560 x 1600 - 77
- 1920 x 1200 - 101
- 1680 x 1050 - 112
- 1280 x 1024 - 114

The game tests have shown exactly what was expected: the higher frequencies give better performance than the reference models. In the case of the Sapphire’s solution, with a small overclock, the performance can get closer to the HD 5870 as well: the performance gap is closed by higher frequencies to compensate for the less number of shaders, in that case.