AMD’s Radeon HD 5830: A Filler Card at the Wrong Price
by Ryan Smith on February 24, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Also Announced: Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition
While we were being briefed about the 5830, AMD also used the opportunity to tell us about the 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition. You may better know this card as Trillian, a card that AMD was showing off (but not naming) all the way back at their 5800 series launch event in September. The 5870E6 is the 6 port mini-DisplayPort card that AMD was using to drive their 6 monitor and 24 monitor setups during the event.
AMD is finally ready to launch the card (and we’re assuming the 6 display Samsung mega-monitor is done too) which is why AMD is announcing it today. We have the complete specs of the card, but AMD is not quite ready to discuss its performance so we have yet to receive a sample card nor can we talk about its expected performance until a later date.
| AMD Radeon HD 5970 | AMD Radeon HD 5870E6 | AMD Radeon HD 5870 | AMD Radeon HD 5850 | |
| Stream Processors | 2x1600 | 1600 | 1600 | 1440 |
| Texture Units | 2x80 | 80 | 80 | 72 |
| ROPs | 2x32 | 32 | 32 | 32 |
| Core Clock | 725MHz | 850MHz | 850MHz | 725MHz |
| Memory Clock | 1GHz (4GHz data rate) GDDR5 | 1.2GHz (4.8GHz data rate) GDDR5 | 1.2GHz (4.8GHz data rate) GDDR5 | 1GHz (4GHz data rate) GDDR5 |
| Memory Bus Width | 2x256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| Frame Buffer | 2x1GB | 2GB | 1GB | 1GB |
| Transistor Count | 2x2.15B | 2.15B | 2.15B | 2.15B |
| TDP | 294W | 228W | 188W | 151W |
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 40nm | TSMC 40nm | TSMC 40nm | TSMC 40nm |
| Price Point | $599 | >$400 | $400 | $300 |
In a nutshell, the 5870E6 is a 2GB version of the 5870 equipped with 6 mini-DisplayPorts for its output. The core and memory clocks are the same as the regular 5870, while the extra RAM is to cover the larger framebuffer that would be required for such a large surface (6 1080P monitors would be 12.5MP). AMD has to equip the card with 16 GDDR5 chips in 16bit mode (as opposed to 8 chips in 32bit mode) to get 2GB of memory, so the power usage of the card will be 228W under load, and 34W idle. This means it will take a 6pin PCIe power plug and an 8pin power plug to drive the card, the only 5800 series card to have such a requirement.
AMD will once again be using the 5800/5900 series trademark shrouded cooler, this time with a full vent along the second slot to deal with the additional heat from the extra GDDR5 chips. At this point we don’t know how long the card will be, although we wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up being longer to fit the extra GDDR5 chips and power circuitry.
In order to drive adoption and to make things a bit easier for buyers, AMD will be having their partners include a number of dongles with the card so that no one is caught completely off guard by the exclusive use of mini-DP. The 5870E6 will come with 2 mini-DP to DP dongles, 2 mini-DP to single-link DVI dongles, and a single mini-DP to HDMI dongle. This will give the 5870E6 a similar degree of output flexibility as the 5870, even though it’s composed entirely of mini-DP ports.
Since this is still being driven by Cypress, the clock source limitation has not changed. Cypress only has 2 clock sources for DVI-type displays, so the 5870E6 can only drive up to 2 DVI/HDMI displays using passive adapters. Furthermore if you want to drive a 2560 display or a 120Hz 1920 display, you’re going to need active adapters regardless of clock sources. So if you’re thinking of buying this as a 2GB 5870 to drive your 2560 DVI monitor, you’re still going to be shelling out another $100 for an active adapter. Even with the dongles, it’s clear that this card really is meant to be paired with DP/mini-DP monitors for the long-run.
As for pricing information, AMD has not announced a final price for the card. But since the regular 5870 is already at $400 it’s safe to tell you that this card will be in excess of $400.
Finally, we’re left wondering whether this card is a bit ahead of its time. Eyefinity is certainly ready (particularly with the Catalyst 10.3 driver additions that will be coming) but AMD’s current power situation means that they can either offer a 2GB 5870 or a 2GB (1GB effective) 5970, but not a 4GB (2GB effective) 5970. Based on our reviews of the 5870 and 5970 we’re not convinced that a 5870 is fast enough to drive 6 monitors and run games at a high level of detail at the same time, and at the same time more memory would seem to be critical for the frame buffer size that would result from such a setup. With Crossfire Eyefinity fully working as of the Catalyst 10.2 drivers, we suspect anyone serious about a 6 monitor setup is going to want to go for a pair of these cards in Crossfire mode so that they have the rendering performance to drive such a high resolution display. It would be costly (>$800) but then again so would a 6 monitor setup.
We’ll have more on the 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition once it launches.
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Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
The article was amended as soon as I woke up this morning.Teemax - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
I agreed with the conclusion. HD 5830 is overpriced for its performance.I hope Anand will be equally tough on NVIDIA's cards when they come. Overpriced GPUs stink.
Slaimus - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
I would guess it is priced high so it would limit demand. It is probably just a stop gap production to exhaust the supply of bad chips. Once Nvidia releases competitive products, the price compression would just squeeze this card off the long run.If it was too good of a deal, they would be forced to keep supplying it even when the future yields become good.
It is a relevant product if you need to build a system now, but cannot afford a 5850.
psychobriggsy - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
A paper launch is something released to review, with the product not showing up in the shops for *many* weeks, whilst the company isn't saying anything about it.Here we have the company saying "they'll be available next week" and giving a perfectly valid reason (get your reviews done before you're all shipped off to cebit), and you're getting all pious.
Get some sense of scale. If three cards get shipped next week, then call it a paper launch. If thousands get shipped next week, then it's not a paper launch. If Nvidia ship 1000 Fermis on day 1, and none for a month, that's a paper launch, but would you call them out on it?
kwrzesien - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
Agreed. Cards are available on newegg NOW!http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a...;cm_re=a...
You WON'T find them under the video guided search, not a category yet. Maybe the paper launch should have started a few days ago!
kc77 - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
Someone else has mentioned it, but I have to concur your reviews lately of ATI/AMD products have been overly negative. I personally buy Nvidia products because I prefer thier Linux drivers to ATI's. However, while I've been waiting for Fermi, it does seem the driver article which was unbelievably negative considering it was a driver release designed to improve the driver situation and this article go way too far to prove a point which eschews the whole picture of the situation.While I agree the 5830 should be priced better, when you look at what Nvidia is offering (or not offering) it makes sense. First, the 260/216 is barely available at all. Niether is the 275. The 285 is going for nearly $400 and is outclassed by a $300 ATI product (which was referred to as not a good deal). If you want to talk about weird pricing on what is basically an technologically obsolete product that would be it. I personally couldn't believe ATI's desire to "profit-taking" was even mentioned at all for a 20 - 40 dollar difference between horrible and ideal. Care to guess what the 260 and 275 prices were when they released? Try $449 and $600+, how big of an objection was raised to that?
While I understand the desire to make sure every reviewer gets their Fermi card for review this isn't the way to do it, considering it's almost 6 months late. If we want lower prices nothing would be better than for the other half of the equation (Nvidia) to do their job as well. Just a thought.
Voo - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
So you think the 5830 is nicely priced and you would love to buy one? Really? You would pay 240$ for that level of performance?I don't think Ryan is the fanboy here, sorry. Also I'd love some examples from the other articles were Ryan was "especially negative" about Ati without any reason.
kc77 - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
If you're not going to pay attention to what I said in an effort to prove a point then there's really no need to respond further.I said "While I agree the 5830 should be priced better" basically saying yes it could be lower. However, there's a difference in looking for a deal within ATI's lineup versus looking for a deal throughout the entire video card market. I specifically said that I bought Nvidia cards for a reason. At this time I cannot upgrade my video card. Why? Because if you like to buy a DX11 card from Nvidia you can't. Not only that but their cards are way over priced right now where this card competes. Even if I wanted to ignore the functionality, I can't ignore the performance.
The 285 goes for 400 (380 and some change) dollars and the 5850 beats it at 300 dollars. That's a $100 difference before you even look at the 5830. I'll say it again the 5830 isn't much of a deal within ATI's own lineup. However, when looking at what's purchasable within Nvidia's lineup it's priced accordingly. If you were to put prices over the benchmarks you would see a $150+ gap between a 285 and a 260/216. Essentially they (ATI) are charging you $40 for Eyefinity and Dx11 with performance that's slightly better than the 216 which sells between $189 - $200 (if you can find it in abundance). I'd hardly call that highway robbery.
Voo - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
So you're agreeing with the main criticsm of this review and still call it unfair? For me a card either has good value or not - independent if the "better" card comes from the same company or not.We all know that Nvidia has no interesting cards in the >200$ bracket, but that doesn't mean that any card >200$ from Ati is automatically a hit.
The first thing I thought when I read the part about "yeah but this card has eyefinity, DX11,.." was, that if you substituted that for CUDA and Physix you had a perfect Nvidia marketing speech ;)
kc77 - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
"So you're agreeing with the main criticsm of this review and still call it unfair? "Same here what would give you the impression that wouldn't be the case for me? First off I don't care per se what manufacturer makes the card. My preference is with Nvidia, but I'm not going to intentionally buy an obsolete card costing upwards of $200. We are not talking budget cards here.
Let me break it down as to why the 5850 is probably the best value out there right now (even though I don't own one).
Nvidia 200/200b GPU
GTX 280 debut price - $649
GTX 260 debut price - $449
ATI 5xxx GPU
5870 debut price - $389
5850 debut price - $279
(those prices reflect the actual possible at release not what the manufacturer quoted)
Do you see the difference? It's just as crazy to say that any >$200 card that ATI releases is a hit, as it is to not recognise that the prices are FAR LOWER then what they normally have been in the past, and not include that reality in your determination of what is value. The 5830 isn't what I would call value, however for the performance of the 5850 (which was also mentioned) it just doesn't make sense to not see the value in that card.