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AMD Radeon HD 5970

illanadanillanadan Member Posts: 314

 So I recently received a new toy to play with... A Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 5970 gfx card! As you might know by now I am a pure max power gamer. This new bad boy blew my mind even with upgrading from the dual 5870's I am running now! Super easy to OC this thing just screams through games on max settings while plugged into my 40" 1080p HDTV. There are a few downsides to it. It is a power hog, but that is to be expected with the abilities this has. It is HUGE! If you have a mid-tower case you will more than likely need to remove your HDD cage depending on where your mobo's PCI-E slots are. It gets HOT if you have poor air circulation but that is to be expected. It idles around 53-58c for me which isn't bad at all. While playing games on max settings it hit 80-82c which is still below the safety threshold. It really all depends on your cooling setup. The biggest downside is the price due to it being new. Expect to pay $650+ for one of these right now but give it a month or two.

For a complete review featuring benchmarks read over this: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=21179 

Will Nvidia ever catch back up to AMD/ATI? Only time will tell!

- Case: Thermaltake Kandalf Black Chassis
- CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz (OC'd 4.2GHz on Water Cooling)
- Memory: Mushkin 8Gb (4x 2Gb) DDR3 1600Mhz
- HDD: Dual Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM
- GFX: (2) XFX Radeon HD 5870 in CrossFire - New upgrade! :)

"I like wow, I like aion and I like AoC all for different reasons.....the later cause i get to see boobs, but still its a reason!!" - Sawlstone

Comments

  • MikeBMikeB Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555

    I'll be going with 2x 5870's for my build later this month. They're still the faster solution when compared to the 5970, unfortunately. Of course, the 5970 is quite a bit cheaper than 2 5870's! :)

    How'd you land one so fast? They just came out yesterday! 

  • illanadanillanadan Member Posts: 314

     Thanks to the company I work for I get to see a lot of the new technology on release day. Want to see the new I9's? (Joking about the I9's :) The 5970 blows my 5870's out of the water when playing max settings on a HDTV but is comparable on an average computer monitor. I would LOVE to have gotten my hands on a second one to try them in X config, but I am happy with what I get. Wait for a couple of months for ATI to flush out the drivers and we will see even BIGGER gains in performance.

    - Case: Thermaltake Kandalf Black Chassis
    - CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz (OC'd 4.2GHz on Water Cooling)
    - Memory: Mushkin 8Gb (4x 2Gb) DDR3 1600Mhz
    - HDD: Dual Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM
    - GFX: (2) XFX Radeon HD 5870 in CrossFire - New upgrade! :)

    "I like wow, I like aion and I like AoC all for different reasons.....the later cause i get to see boobs, but still its a reason!!" - Sawlstone

  • CleffyCleffy Member RarePosts: 6,412

    Probably a hardware reviewer.  No way anyone else would swap out 2-5870s for a 5970.  The 5970 is equivalent to 2-5850's at stock.  If you get one from an OEM with 2 8-pin connectors, then you can overclock it to the equivalent of 2-5870.

  • MikeBMikeB Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
    Originally posted by Cleffy


    Probably a hardware reviewer.  No way anyone else would swap out 2-5870s for a 5970.  The 5970 is equivalent to 2-5850's at stock.  If you get one from an OEM with 2 8-pin connectors, then you can overclock it to the equivalent of 2-5870.

     

    If you're lucky. From the reviews I've read even though ATi binned the cards for the best boards and put the best components on them the overclocking potential seems to be hit or miss at the moment. I'd rather pay the extra $$$ and have the guaranteed speed of 2x5870s, than save a few and only have the potential for it through overclocking.

  • illanadanillanadan Member Posts: 314

     I am no hardware reviewer lol. I happened to get one from my company and decided to see what it could do as a true power gamer would. As I said I did see HUGE gains when running it on my HDTV but not so much otherwise. The nice thing is if I decide to I can swap back in my 5870's. The biggest gain comes in when you decide to OC this card. Just look at the FPS gain OC'ed vs. stock (a minimum of +10 fps on max settings, that qualifies as a huge gain for me).

    - Case: Thermaltake Kandalf Black Chassis
    - CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz (OC'd 4.2GHz on Water Cooling)
    - Memory: Mushkin 8Gb (4x 2Gb) DDR3 1600Mhz
    - HDD: Dual Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM
    - GFX: (2) XFX Radeon HD 5870 in CrossFire - New upgrade! :)

    "I like wow, I like aion and I like AoC all for different reasons.....the later cause i get to see boobs, but still its a reason!!" - Sawlstone

  • illanadanillanadan Member Posts: 314
    Originally posted by MikeB

    Originally posted by Cleffy


    Probably a hardware reviewer.  No way anyone else would swap out 2-5870s for a 5970.  The 5970 is equivalent to 2-5850's at stock.  If you get one from an OEM with 2 8-pin connectors, then you can overclock it to the equivalent of 2-5870.

     

    If you're lucky. From the reviews I've read even though ATi binned the cards for the best boards and put the best components on them the overclocking potential seems to be hit or miss at the moment. I'd rather pay the extra $$$ and have the guaranteed speed of 2x5870s, than save a few and only have the potential for it through overclocking.

     

    It all comes down to the drivers for the OC'ing. Thats why I suggested waiting a couple of months for ATI to flush the drivers out. I had no issues myself when it came to OC'ing this thing. 

    AMD's cpu department could learn a lesson from the gfx department when it comes to OC'ing. I was not at all impressed with my ability to OC the Phenom II x4. Had to put it on watercooling to break the 3.9Ghz barrier. 

    - Case: Thermaltake Kandalf Black Chassis
    - CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz (OC'd 4.2GHz on Water Cooling)
    - Memory: Mushkin 8Gb (4x 2Gb) DDR3 1600Mhz
    - HDD: Dual Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM
    - GFX: (2) XFX Radeon HD 5870 in CrossFire - New upgrade! :)

    "I like wow, I like aion and I like AoC all for different reasons.....the later cause i get to see boobs, but still its a reason!!" - Sawlstone

  • dfandfan Member Posts: 362

    2 card combinations still have much microstuttering, I'd stay away from them. 

  • noquarternoquarter Member Posts: 1,170

    Since the 5970 has 2 underclocked 5870's on board, can you Crossfire it with 1 5870 just like you could with the 4870x2 + 4870, or are the drivers not there yet?

  • CleffyCleffy Member RarePosts: 6,412

    On my board I can put those 2 HD5870 and 1 5970 in no problem while having them in quadfire as long as I overclocked the 5970 to 5870 specs.  The MSI AMD boards are so lovely in having 4 PCI-e x16 slots that downgrade into x8 when 3 or more are present, and enough space in between them to use dual slot cards.

    The 2 GPU on 1 board is actually a little better if you ask me since it has the interconnect, and they reside locally next to each other.  The problem is if the PCI-e slot has enough power running to it to handle the card, or the bandwidth is too low for the card.

  • AmazingAveryAmazingAvery Age of Conan AdvocateMember UncommonPosts: 7,188

    I am tempted. Very tempted. Nearly clicked on purchase earlier today for a wait of about 5 days for them to be in stock. Here is Canada they are like $699 where in relation to the US $ should be more like $630.

    New case turned up today Corsair 800d so there is bags of room in there for a new card. Whatever the new card I get will be going on EVGA X58 Classy too.

    I just don't want to end up buying one and then a couple months later Nvidia shows it's hand and I weep.



  • comerbcomerb Member UncommonPosts: 944

    How bout you quit hogging all the new Radeon cards.  I've been trying to get my hands on a 5870 for a month now (out of stock everywhere) while slowly watching their price rise... and you got a 5870 just collecting dust while you play with your 5970... I hate you.

  • thinktank001thinktank001 Member UncommonPosts: 2,144
    Originally posted by illanadan


     Will Nvidia ever catch back up to AMD/ATI? Only time will tell!



     

    My inside contacts from their biggest business contract tell me nvidia has no plans to churn out high end cards like they did in the past.   Their eyes have turned more towards making affordable/profitable cards.

  • noquarternoquarter Member Posts: 1,170


    Originally posted by thinktank001
    Originally posted by illanadan  Will Nvidia ever catch back up to AMD/ATI? Only time will tell!

     
    My inside contacts from their biggest business contract tell me nvidia has no plans to churn out high end cards like they did in the past.   Their eyes have turned more towards making affordable/profitable cards.


    Ok, but how does the Fermi's giant 3b transistor 576mm^2 die that's going to have as much trouble scaling down as the GT200 chip had fit into this strategy.. The chip will clearly be faster than the 5870 but it's a hugely expensive part to produce.


    It seems to be the same strat they've been using, make the biggest fastest chip possible then try to scale it back at impossible price points with no profit margins. It does lead to faster top end parts but mainstream parts can't compete in value.


    From a pure enthusiast standpoint it's great to have them making the fastest parts possible, but from an economic standpoint it doesn't pan out.

  • dfandfan Member Posts: 362

    Planning to make big profits with gigantic chip? ROFL 

  • PizziJQPizziJQ Member Posts: 140

    lmao whops clicked the wrong thread

    Lvl 75 Black Mage/White Mage ffxi
    Lvl 80 Druid WoW
    Lvl 34 Ranger Aion

  • RaknarRaknar Member Posts: 192

    Things I have read hinted that nVidia wantd so badly to design a HPC card that they potentially gimped Fermi in he graphics department in the process. So while it will have more shader power, it doesn't have dedicated hardware for things like tesselation, instead doing in software on the shaders. So it might beat 5870 on DX 9 and 10 games, once games start using DX11 features that ATI has in hardware, Fermi will suffer from running them as compute shaders.

  • CleffyCleffy Member RarePosts: 6,412

    As long as the card can run existing DX9 and DX10 games then its good enough.  However gimping DX11 performance is not a good idea.  EVERY PC developer is going to switch to DX11.  You would have to be in the tank for a company to not switch.  DX11 is back words compatible with DX10.1, 10, and 9(High and Low).  Tesselation, and compute shaders is something you will enjoy if you are running an HD3800+.

  • MikeBMikeB Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
    Originally posted by noquarter


    Since the 5970 has 2 underclocked 5870's on board, can you Crossfire it with 1 5870 just like you could with the 4870x2 + 4870, or are the drivers not there yet?

     

    Yes. You can. You will need to downclock the 5870 to the 5970's speeds though, I believe.

  • MikeBMikeB Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
    Originally posted by AmazingAvery


    I am tempted. Very tempted. Nearly clicked on purchase earlier today for a wait of about 5 days for them to be in stock. Here is Canada they are like $699 where in relation to the US $ should be more like $630.
    New case turned up today Corsair 800d so there is bags of room in there for a new card. Whatever the new card I get will be going on EVGA X58 Classy too.
    I just don't want to end up buying one and then a couple months later Nvidia shows it's hand and I weep.

     

    800D is a real behemoth. I'll be going with a I7 920 + X58 Classifeid and 2 5870's myself.

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