AMD's Radeon HD 5870: Bringing About the Next Generation Of GPUs
by Ryan Smith on September 23, 2009 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Conclusion
The easiest kind of product for us to write about is the kind that’s clearly superior to its competition. The hardest kind to write about is the kind that’s stuck in the middle. For the 5870, we have the latter case.
Let’s be clear here: the 5870 is the single fastest single-GPU card we have tested, by a wide margin. Looking at its performance in today’s games, as a $379 card it makes the GTX 285 at its current prices ($300+) completely irrelevant. The price difference isn’t enough to make up for the performance difference, and NVIDIA also has to contend with the 5850, which should perform near the GTX 285 but at a price of $259. As is often the case with a new generation of cards, we’re going to see a shakeup here in the market as NVIDIA in particular needs to adjust to these new cards.
The catch however is that what we don’t have is a level of clear domination when it comes to single-card solutions. AMD was shooting to beat the GTX 295 with the 5870, but in our benchmarks that’s not happening. The 295 and the 5870 are close, perhaps close enough that NVIDIA will need to reconsider their position, but it’s not enough to outright dethrone the GTX 295. NVIDIA still has the faster single-card solution, although the $100 price premium is well in excess of the <10% performance premium.
Meanwhile AMD is retiring the 4870X2, which ended up beating the 5870 enough that we would consider it a competitor to the 5870. However, you can’t consider it if you can’t buy it.
Then we have the multi-GPU space, where things are rather clear. Having the fastest single-GPU card makes the 5870 in Crossfire the fastest dual-GPU solution by far. Unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to benchmark a GTX 295 Quad SLI setup, but given the notoriously finicky nature of Quad SLI and Quad Crossfire, we’re comfortable calling the 5870 CF the better multi-GPU solution.
And that brings us to our next conundrum: if dual-GPU setups can overshoot the 5870, does that make them better? At equal performance levels, we would take a single-GPU setup any day of the week; there are no profiles to deal with or the sometimes inconsistent scaling in performance (see: Dawn of War II). Even with a slight lead in performance, we would pick the 5870 over the 4870X2 or GTX 295 so long as the latter were not significantly cheaper. As it stands the 5870 is the greater value, even if it's not the fastest card.
Moving away from performance, we have feature differentiation. AMD has a clear advantage here with DirectX11, as the 5870 is going to be a very future-proof card. The 8800GTX is a good parallel here – it took 3 years for it to really be outclassed in terms of features, and the performance is still respectable today. DX11 is going to give the 5870 the same level of longevity when it comes to being up-to-date on features, although we’ll see if its performance lasts for quite as long. When games using DX11 arrive, it’s going to bring about a nice change in quality (particularly with tessellation). However it’s going to be a bit of a wait to get there.
On that tangent, we have Eyefinity. Unlike DX11 Eyefinity is something we can take advantage of today, but also unlike DX11 it’s not necessarily an improvement. As Anand discussed when attempting to use it, when it works it’s absolutely great, but at the moment it has some real teething issues. And it’s expensive – even 3 cheap TV-quality monitors is an investment for most people of hundreds of dollars on top of everything else. It’s very much like a certain NVIDIA feature in terms of cost, goals, and its hit-or-miss nature. Eyefinity is something we’re going to want to keep an eye on to see what AMD does with it in the future, because they’re on the right track. It’s just not something that’s going to tickle the fancy of very many people today.
Wrapping things up, for those of you who were expecting the 5870 to shake things up, the 5870 is certainly going to do that. For those of you looking for the above and a repeat of the RV770/GT200 launch where prices will go into a free fall, you’re going to come away disappointed. That task will fall upon the 5850, and we’re looking forward to reviewing it as soon as we can.
At the end of the day, with its impressive performance and next-generation feature set, the Radeon HD 5870 kicks off the DirectX 11 generation with a bang and manages to take home the single-GPU performance crown in the process. It’s without a doubt the high-end card to get.
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RubberJohnny - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - link
Well silicondoc you sure have some hatred for ATI/love for nvidia.It's almost as if you work for the green team...
You seem to have all this time on your hands to go around the net looking for links to spread FUD...sitting on new egg watching these cards come in and out of stock like you have a vested interest in seeing ATI fail...unlike any sane person it appears you want nvidia to have a monopoly on the industry?
Maybe you are privy to some inside info over at nvidia and know they have nothing to counter the 5870 with?
Maybe the cash they paid you to spin these BS comments would have been better spent on R&D?
SiliconDoc - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - link
That's a nice personal, grating, insulting ripppp, it's almost funny, too.---
The real problems remain.
I bring up this stuff because of course, no one else will, it is almost forbidden. Telling the truth shouldn't be that hard, and calling it fairly and honestly should not be such a burden.
I will gladly take correction when one of you noticing insulters has any to offer. Of course, that never comes.
Break some new ground, won't you ?
I don't think you will, nor do I think anyone else will - once again, that simply confirms my factual points.
I guess I'll give you a point for complaining about delivery, if that's what you were doing, but frankly, there are a lot of complainers here no different - let's take for instance the ATI Radeon HD 4890 vs. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 article here.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3539">http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3539
Boy, the red fans went into rip mode, and Anand came in and changed the articles (Derek's) words and hence "result", from GTX275 wins to ATI4890 wins.
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No, it's not just me, it's just the bias here consistently leans to ati, and wether it's rooting for the underdog that causes it, or the brooding undercurrent hatred that surfaces for "the bigshot" "greedy" "ripoff artist" "nvidia overchargers" "industry controlling and bribing" "profit demon" Nvidia, who knows...
I'm just not afraid to point it out, since it's so sickening, yes, probably just to me, "I'm sure".
How about this glaring one I have never pointed out even to this day, but will now:
ATI is ALWAYS listed first, or "on top" - and of course, NVIDIA, second, and it is no doubt, in the "reviewer's minds" because of "the alphabet", and "here we go in alphabetical order".
A very, very convenient excuse, that quite easily causes a perception bias, that is quite marked for the readers.
But, that's ok.
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So, you want to tell me why I shouldn't laugh out loud when ATI uses NVIDIA cards to develope their "PhysX" competition Bullet ?
ROFLMAO
I have heard 100 times here (from guess whom) that the ati has the wanted "new technology", so will that same refrain come when NVIDIA introduces their never before done MIMD capable cores in a few months ? LOL
I can hardly wait to see the "new technology" wannabes proclaiming their switched fealty.
Gee sorry for noticing such things, I guess I should be a mind numbed zombie babbling along with the PC required fanning for ati ?
silverblue - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - link
No; if he did work for nVidia, he'd be far better informed and far less prone to using the phrase "red rooster" every five seconds.crackshot91 - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
Any possibility of benchmarks with a core 2 duo?I wanna know if it will be necessary to upgrade to an i5 or i7 (All new mobo) to see big performance gains over my 8800GT. Will a C2D E6750 @ 3.2GHz bottleneck it?
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
Our recent Core i7 860 article should do an adequate job of answering that question. Several of the benchmarks were taken right out of this article.therealnickdanger - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
You dedicated a full page to the flawless performance of its A/V output, but didn't mention it in the "features" part of the conclusion. It's a very powerful feature, IMO. Granted, this card may be a tad too hot and loud to find a home in a lot of HTPCs, but it's still an awesome feature and you should probably append your conclusion... just a suggestion though.Ultimately, I have to admit to being a little disappointed by the performance of this card. All the Eyefinity hype and playable framerates at massive 7000x3000 resolutions led me to believe that this single card would scale down and simply dominate everything at the 30" level and below. It just seems logical, so I was taken aback when it was beat by, well, anything else. I expected the 5870 and 5870CF to be at the top of every chart. Oh well.
Awesome article though! I'm sure there's a 5850 in my future!
MrMom - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
Does anyone have a good explanation why the massive HD5870 is still slower/@par with the GTX295?Thanks
SiliconDoc - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - link
Yes, because the ati core "really sucks". It needs DDR5, and much higher MHZ to compete with Nvidia, and their what, over 1 year old core. LOL Even their own 4870x2.Or the 3 year old G92 vs the ddr3 "4850" the "topcore" before yesterday. (the ati topcore minus the well done 3m mhz+ REBRAND ring around the 4890)
That's the sad, actual truth. That's the truth many cannot bear to bring themselves to realize, and it's going to get WORSE for them very soon, with nvidia's next release, with ddr5, a 512 bit bus, and the NEW TECHNOLOGY BY NVIDIA THAT ATI DOES NOT HAVE MIMD capable cores.
Oh, I can hardly wait, but you bet I'm going to wait, you can count on that 100%.
Spoelie - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - link
because those are 2 480mm² dies, while this is only 1 360mm² die?Griswold - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
Its one GPU instead of two, maybe?