The Radeon HD 5970: Completing AMD's Takeover of the High End GPU Market

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• hechacker1 - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  I once had that problem too. Even if my display went to sleep it would reset the monitor configuration.
  
  I think disabling this helped:
  http://www.tomstricks.com/how-to-disable-or-enable...">http://www.tomstricks.com/how-to-disabl...multimon...
  
  I think eventually catalyst was updated to fix the display loosing connection during sleep (in my case).

• The0ne - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  I think we all seen enough data on this poorly programmed game to removed it from the test. There's really not point as even this card, 5970, can choke on it. Seriously, utter crap of programming.

• lifeblood - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  Three 30" monitors? Dude, I had to work hard just to afford a single 24" monitor. And because I'm salary I don't get overtime (although they do make me work it). If I get a second job flipping burgers at the local fast food joint I might be able to afford two more 24" displays. I bet Eyefinity would still look awesome on that.
  
  And I was only kidding about you getting paid too much. The article was great. Now I am eagerly awaiting Nvidia's response.

• haplo602 - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  nice review.
  
  but PLEASE MARK THE REVIEWED CARD to STAND OUT in the GRAPHS next time. going top down through the list and reading each caption to finaly find the card for EACH GRAPH is realy annoying.

• The0ne - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  Anand graphs are really annoying at times. I wish they were more consistent. Xbitlabs are easy and consistent which makes it a breeze for people like me who just wants to look at the specifics.

• Dante80 - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  I concur, the graphs can be a little confusing without some sort of color coding...
  
  Here is a suggestion Ryan. Use light green and orange for Nvidia and AMD single cards, dark green and red for SLI and Xfire setups and lastly, blue for the card reviewed (you can differentiate with light and dark blue readings for the same card in Xfire or OCed readings). I think the graphs would look much better this way, and its a very easy to implement feature anyway...
  
  cheers...^^

• SJD - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  Great and interesting article, but I'm confused about this Eyefinity situation again.
  
  You state that your monitor didn't support mini-DP, just 'regular' DP, and go on to talk about buying an adapter. Yet, it appears (according to the wiki page at any rate) that mini-DP is electrically identical to regular DP, so only a mini-DP to regular DP cable would be needed. Indeed, other reviews of the 5970 show such an adapter cable included with the card...
  
  What's the score, and why the comment that you need an *active* adapter to go from mini-dp to regular dp?
  
  Simon

• strikeback03 - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  The active adapter went to DVI, I was wondering the same about a simple mini-DP to DP cable

• Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  I've clarified :)
  
  Once you move to three displays AMD runs out of timing sources, the miniDP port must use an active adapter if you're using three displays.
  
  Take care,
  Anand

• mczak - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  This is however incorrect. You need active adapters because rv870 only supports 2 clock sources for display outputs. However, DP (or mini-DP) don't need any such clock source because they use a fixed clock independent from display timings. Hence, if you want to connect more than 2 monitors using DVI/HDMI/VGA you need active DP-to-something adapter. But for DP outputs this isn't needed. And mini-DP is the same as DP anyway electrically.