The Radeon HD 5970: Completing AMD's Takeover of the High End GPU Market
by Ryan Smith on November 18, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Test
For the 5970 launch, AMD is launching the card with a special set of drivers based on the Catalyst 9.10 branch, version 8.663.1. These drivers have had a lot of work put in to their Crossfire abilities, both to enable Crossfire Eyefinity support on the 5970, and to improve overall Crossfire performance. The Crossfire performance improvement also cascades down to the 5800 series, where we’ve seen CF performance improve in Crysis and Dawn of War II, while we’ve seen Resident Evil 5 performance dip some. So we’ve rerun our 5850CF and 5870CF numbers with the new drivers an updated them accordingly; single card performance remains unaffected.
Also, for most of these games we’ve gone ahead and dropped all resolutions besides 2560. Crysis is the only game that even remotely struggles with the 5970 (and less so thanks to these drivers). Everything else gets 60fps or more at 2560.
Finally, we’ve gone ahead and benchmarked the 5970 at both stock at overclocked 5870 (850MHz/1200Mhz) speeds. Bear in mind that we did encounter VRM throttling at 5870 speeds however.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.33GHz |
| Motherboard: | Intel DX58SO (Intel X58) |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 9.1.1.1015 (Intel) |
| Hard Disk: | Intel X25-M SSD (80GB) |
| Memory: | Patriot Viper DDR3-1333 3 x 2GB (7-7-7-20) |
| Video Cards: |
ATI Radeon HD 5970 |
| Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA ForceWare 190.62 |
| OS: | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
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kilkennycat - Thursday, November 19, 2009 - link
Er, have you noticed the "Not in Stock" or "Pre-order" when you have gone to order one. You might get a 5850, but try finding a 5870 without having to psy a jacked-up premium over MSRP. Best of luck.mrdaddyman - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
Since the 5870 seems to be in such great supply, I would like for someone to post a link where I can actually buy one of these. I have been trying to buy one for a month and haven't been able to find one.rennya - Thursday, November 19, 2009 - link
Does it has to be online?Here, I have many options for 58xx and 57xx models in retail stores. Which is more applicable for me because Newegg doesn't ship to my place.
Well, if you insist of finding online links, plenty of them at http://flaturl.com/eb0">http://flaturl.com/eb0 or http://flaturl.com/YmU">http://flaturl.com/YmU or http://flaturl.com/pAU">http://flaturl.com/pAU or http://flaturl.com/q15">http://flaturl.com/q15 or http://flaturl.com/5av">http://flaturl.com/5av and many more.
These are just some of the sellers in my place who sells those so-called mythical ATI cards online (doesn't include the gazillions others sold in retail). You may want to argue that they won't ship to you in United States, but then again the likes of NewEgg doesn't ship here too.
If you are desperate enough, I can help you obtain one of those cards. Want to take the offer?
Alexstarfire - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
And this is the 5970 that we are talking about. Not the same thing.MamiyaOtaru - Thursday, November 19, 2009 - link
by saying "another paper launch" you were implying that the previous launches were paper. So you were talking about the 5870. As they are and have been available, they were not paper launches. So even if the 5970 is a paper launch (it isn't) you can't very well call it another onetajmahal - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
No link yet for the 5850 or the 5870? That's a surprise.lloyd dd - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
would using 3 monitors in portrait orientation sort out the aspect ratio in eyefinity?JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
It would be closer. 4800x2560 would end up at a 1.875 AR, compared to 1.78 for 16:9 and 1.6 for 16:10. I think that 16:9 content stretched to fill 4800x2560 should look fine (about the same as 16:10 stretched to fill a 16:9 monitor).Of course, the more difficult question is how to put three 30" LCDs into portrait mode. You would need a different base stand -- none of the 30" LCDs I've seen allow you to rotate the display into portrait mode, probably because the LCDs are two feet wide.
yyrkoon - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
Hey Jarred,Why not be inventive, and make a stand to hold 3 x 30" LCDs ? I do not mean you specifically of course, but whomever would want to have one. It really is not that difficult . . . just a little planning, and the ability to work with steel ( heavy ) or quality aluminum. Now if someone did not have the skills to make brackets etc, they could even draw something up, give it to a local fabricator, and be on their merry way . . .
Personally, I like the first option mainly because I enjoy working with materials as such ( metals, wood, plastics, etc ). Not to mention the fact that it can cost far less doing it yourself.
JarredWalton - Thursday, November 19, 2009 - link
I understand it's entirely possible. My point is merely that it's yet another expense. I don't think 3x30" with EyeFinity is going to be anything but a very, *VERY* niche product. LOL.5970 = $600
3 x 30" = $3000 (minimum)
3 x Stands = $120 to $600
So besides having the money, you need the space (and possibly time). I'd say $4000+ just for the GPU and LCDs is where the costs start, and naturally you would want a killer system (i7-920 with overclocking, or i7-975). But hey, you want the best of the best, there you have it. Until the next big thing comes along.
Speaking of which, what about 30" LCDs with 120Hz and 3D Vision? LOL.... (No, I'm not saying that's out or coming soon, but it could be.)