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
Power & Temperature
Since AMD isn’t doing a reference Radeon HD 5830, non-performance data is of limited value. Even with the variety of cards among AMD’s partners, the power draw of the 5830 cards should be within a few watts of each other and vary only with the difference in their fans so long as they use a 5870 PCB. On the other hand temperature data is going to heavily depend on the cooler used, and noise data is completely useless here since it entirely depends on the cooler used.
So we have power and temperature data for you, but please keep in mind that this temperature data is really only useful as a frame of reference – retail cards could be quite dissimilar.
At idle, the power usage is just as AMD promised: it’s a hair under the 5850, by a single watt to be exact. As far as high-end cards go, this is the least power hungry among them when idling.
Under load the story is quite a bit more interesting. We know the 5830 is rated for a TDP between the 5850 and 5870 that’s much closer to the 5870, but the power draw doesn’t reflect that. Here it’s 17W over the 5850, and nearly 70W off the 5870. We’ve double checked and the card isn’t throttling (a very possible situation given the higher voltage used) so we’re not quite sure what to make of these results. The 5830 is apparently more alike the 5850 than the 5870 when it comes to power consumption, which is certainly a good thing since it means it edges out the 4870 and 4890, and is well ahead of the GTX 275.
With an eye on the fact that this temperature data is going to be heavily dependent on the cooler used, for our sample card we certainly have some interesting results. Under idle this is the coolest of our high-end cards, which is no surprise given the use of the 5870’s big cooler and the lower idle power usage of the 5830. On the other hand under load, even with the otherwise minor difference in power draw compared to the 5850 and the bigger cooler it’s 5C hotter, which is actually more in-line with what we would have expected. However it still stays below the 4800 series and the 5870, both of which get warm enough that they really have to rev up their fans.
It’ll be interesting to see just how good the vendor coolers end up being. With the relatively low load power usage, the 5830 doesn’t have to be a particularly loud card.
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Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
Jarred already said most of what I wanted to say: it's not a good value.At any rate, you certainly have a good point about NVIDIA being uncompetitive about $200 right now. AMD isn't facing significant competition from NVIDIA right now at those prices, and they're taking advantage of a very rare opportunity to set their own prices and do some profit taking. I can completely understand that.
With that said, none of this is a great outcome for consumers. And that's who we choose to represent. AMD can do profit taking, but it doesn't mean we have to like it.
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
I like how people accuse Ryan of being negative against AMD but forget the NVIDIA side of things. Simply put, we're negative against products that aren't a good value. We highly recommend the 5850 and 5870, for example (at least when they're closer to MSRP). The 5770/5750 are decent/good as well, compared with 4870/4850. The 5670 is reasonable for the price (though not a great deal compared to the 4850). The problem comes when we start getting into the lower end cards.5450 and 5570 are good for HTPC usage and questionable for gaming. The 5570 is priced such that you could get better gaming performance for less money if you sacrifice DX11. And while we're on a subject of negativity, you'll notice Ryan has ripped NVIDIA to shreds on the GT 240 ("The Card that Doesn't Matter"), the G210 wasn't at all roses, and the GT 220: "the performance of the GT 220 is abysmal. Or rather, the pricing is."
The way I see it, Ryan is calling it like it is. You want an HTPC card and don't care about gaming? 5570 looks quite good, and 5450 is marginal but cheap. You want to play games, and there are a lot of great options, so why should we recommend mediocre choices? Who cares if the 5830 is a better card than certain competing NVIDIA products if it's not a better card than AMD's own 5850 and 5770?
kc77 - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
So far it's not coming off that you are recommending anything from AMD/ATI. Look in the closing fourth paragraph this is what was said about the 5850...."But the 5850 is priced for profit taking, it’s a fast card but it’s not a great deal."
That doesn't sound like your recommending the 5850. That could be typo I don't know. But when I saw that I didn't know what to think. How can a card that has no direct rival other than a 295 which is priced higher, not be considered a good value?
If you noticed I didn't post about those others. Not the 5450, 5570, 240, 210, or 220. There were small things I noticed here and there specifically about reporting the temps of the cards, but nothing earth shattering. However, I noticed a much larger change in tone specifically with the driver article. Since I'm looking to upgrade I was looking for a strictly technical piece on the stability, feature set, and possibly Linux compatibility for the drivers. Instead amongst technical snippets here and there were paragraphs of editorial flourishes which made getting the real deal more complicated than necessary.
I'm not "accusing" Ryan of anything. I typically read multiple tech sites and so far the last couple you've done just seem in my opinion to be overly negative or more obtuse as they sometimes negate the larger picture. The only reason I've posted at all is to make sure that when Nvidia does release their cards I can fully believe that the viewpoint of the author is honest and true. It matters quite possibly to the tune of $399 or more to me.
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
You're taking quotes from this article, which reflects the current street prices. Let's go back to the http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3650...">original 5850 review:"The 5870 is still the card to get when price (and size) is no object, but the 5850 is there to fill the gap if you won’t miss some of the performance.... For this fall, we're able to say something we haven't been able to say for quite some time: AMD has the high-end market locked up tight."
If you add $40 to the price of the 5850, then of course the value proposition is less attractive. This is what happens when NVIDIA can't compete: the 5850 was scheduled to cost less than the GTX 285, and it still does. The GTX 285 is a horrible value right now, all things considered, and since it's priced at $335+ AMD's partners can get away with charging $300+ for the 5850. Given the choice right now, sure, I'd still recommend the 5850 -- just like we did http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=373...">in our recent buyers' guide (albeit with reservations given the budget goal of the guide).
At $260 the HD 5850 was a slam dunk; at ~$300 it's merely good. As Ryan points out, our allegiance is to the consumer, and there's no way to take a $40 price hike as being beneficial. The economy sucks, gaming is a luxury, and the 5850 went up 15% in pricing.
kc77 - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
I think everyone can understand things change overtime. Your stance however is sitting on both sides of the coin. On one hand your saying "it's not a good deal" but on the other hand your saying it is (if you read previous articles).The fact remains that a true competitor to the 5850, 5870, and even to some extent 5830 (though the case is rather slim) don't exist from a technological stand point (heat, performance, features, DX cert). There's just no other way to say it. Compared to what "top of the line" video cards used to cost, it's hard for the 5850 in particular to not be seen as a value. If they were gouging, and we all know what that looks like ($600+ video cards), no harm, no foul on it being less of a value. However, when there's hardly a card that competes with it, AND it doesn't cost 4, 5, or 6 hundred bucks, it's a reasonably good value. No it's not the same type of value that the 4xxx series brought, but then again they didn't arrive before Nvidia, and performance-wise they weren't nearly as dominating.
Overall I think your response has clarified your stance and you've actually vocalised the point I was trying to make. The problem is that your response to me isn't reflected in the article at all, which gives the impression I was talking about earlier.
Imagine if the conclusion of the article included your recent response.
silverblue - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
I could say that your criticism is a little negative :) however, we're all free to express our own opinions, and you do make an interesting point.By the way, not only have I tried to post this twice, but I did click the Report link by mistake. Sorry! :(
silverblue - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
I could say that your criticism is a little negative as well :) In the end, however, everyone's entitled to their own opinion, and you have raised an interesting point.By the way, I did misclick the Report link when I was going to reply... sorry about that! :(
Lurker911 - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
Nice review! I feel the same about this card. Theres something strange about your 4870 results. How can 13% higher core and 8% higher memory clocks on the 4890 result in such huge gaps between the two? In far cry2 your 4890 results are nearly 16% faster. Where in most other reviews the difference is avg 10%.Assimilator87 - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
Hey Lurker, the performance increase comes from the fact that the 4870's a 512MB card and the 4890's a 1GB card and Far Cry 2 loves extra memory.Lurker911 - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
That would be the case with techpowerup's review. But anandtech uses a 1gb 4870. The battleforge results here are even more bizarre with 4890 over 20% faster than a 4870 1gb.