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
Conclusion
The 5830 is a card that the public has had some very high expectations for coming in to this launch. The 4830 – as short lived as it was – was a well received card even if it wasn’t an immediate bargain. For anyone expecting a repeat performance on the 5830, we can’t help but feel that you’re going to come away disappointed.
On a global average, the 5830 sits about half-way between a 4890 and a 4870, or if you prefer is about 8% slower than a GTX 275 and 20% slower than a 5850. The latter is particularly interesting since it comes so close to the 5850 even though it only has 55% of the ROP capacity; clearly the hit to the ROPs didn’t hurt too badly.
At any rate, I had been expecting something that would consistently be to the north of the 4890 in performance, but the performance is what it is – there’s no bad card, only a poorly priced card.
And a poorly priced card is really what does the 5830 in. AMD expects this card to go for $240, a mere $20 below the original MSRP for the 5850; if one goes by the original MSRP of the 5850 this card is much too slow for the price. Conversely the 5830 is around 10% slower than the 4890, a card that was going for between $180 and $200 before supplies seemingly ran dry. The only price comparison where $240 makes sense is compared to the 5850’s current $300 price – you get 80% of the performance for 80% of the price. But the 5850 is priced for profit taking, it’s a fast card but it’s not a great deal.
When we were being briefed about this card, AMD’s (and former Beyond3D guru) Dave Baumann asked us to get back to him on what we thought the card should be priced at once we finished our testing. Our response to him, and the same thing that we’re holding to in this review, is that the sweet spot for this card would be $200, and the highest should be $220. $200 is a sweet spot because it picks up where the 4890 left off, even if it is around 10% slower. $220 on the other hand places a greater valuation on the 5000 series feature set, and is closer to the GTX 275.
Dave’s argument (and undoubtedly one that will resonate throughout AMD) is that the 5830 has some very useful advantages over the 4890 – DX/DirectCompute 11, Eyefinity, better OpenCL support, and bitstreaming audio. All of this is true, although the 5830 strikes us as a poor choice for Eyefinity usage (get something faster) or for bitstreaming audio (it’s not exactly a cool HTPC card). DX11 and OpenCL is harder to evaluate due to their newness, and in the case of OpenCL AMD doesn’t even distribute their OpenCL driver with the rest of their Catalyst driver set yet.
Meanwhile there’s a separate argument entirely over whether the 5830 is more future-proof (disregarding DX11) due to its higher shader throughput. Historically speaking this is a reasonable argument, but it’s also one that I’m not convinced will hold up when NVIDIA is going to be pushing tessellation instead of shading – you can’t ignore what NVIDIA’s doing given their clearly stronger developer relations.
Ultimately the problem is that being future proof comes at too high a price. The 5770 was a hard sale compared to the faster 4870, and this time we’re talking about what’s around a $60 premium based on performance over the 4000 series. AMD’s saving grace here is that you can no longer buy such a card – it’s either a GTX260/4870, or nothing.
At the risk of sounding petty over $20, a $240 5830 is $20 too much. If this were priced at $200-$220 it wouldn’t be a clear choice for the 5830, but it wouldn’t be such a clear choice against it. For $240 you can try to shop around for a 4890 and save $40-$60 while getting a card that will perform better at most of today’s games, or save even more by going with a 4870 that will slightly underperform the 5830. Alternatively you can save up another $60 and get the 5850, a card that is faster running and cooler running at the same time. There is no scenario where we can wholeheartedly justify a 5830 if it’s going to be a $240 card – this really should have been the new $200 wonder card.
Update: It looks like AMD's partners have been able to come through and make this a hard launch. PowerColor and Sapphire cards have started showing up at Newegg. So we're very happy to report that this didn't turn out to be a paper launch after all. Do note however that the bulk of the cards are still not expected until next week.
This brings up the other elephant in the room: today’s paper launch. Paper launches should by all means have died last year, but their ghost apparently continues to live on. If in fact no 5830s make it to retailers in time for today’s launch, then the card should not have been launched today – it’s as simple as that.
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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.