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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Scali - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
I'm not talking about developer tools...That's the whole point.
Developers have had access to OpenCL for quite a long time...
But if I were to release an OpenCL application today, it won't work on regular end-users with AMD video cards. These end-users would need to install the SDK to get their hands on the OpenCL runtimes.
That's a ridiculous situation, especially since you can only download the SDK after you've registered as a developer with AMD.
It's just not acceptable.
With nVidia on the other hand... all the end-user needs to do is install the official WHQL drivers from November or later, and they're up and running. No need to register anything, no need to install an SDK... Just a driver update (if they haven't updated already).
The most ridiculous part is that AMD wanted to make everyone believe that they were all for OpenCL, and that they were going to push the standard, and that nVidia was trying to block it with their proprietary Cuda SDK.
As it stands, AMD is the one blocking OpenCL at this point.
And then we're not even getting into issues such as performance and supported featuresets...
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
If you read further, 10.2 are the base drivers that the SDK is built/tested against. The Catalyst 10.2 driver set does not include AMD's OpenCL driver - that only comes in the SDK.Scali - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
A few months ago, I expressed this problem on another forum, talking about 'lack of OpenCL support' from AMD.AMD's Mike Houston was quick to reply that "The Radeon HD5770 [my card] supports OpenCL".
Yea, I know the CARD does... but the DRIVERS don't... At least, not for developers.
So I wasn't amused with Mike Houston's reply. He knows what I mean, and he knows that I know that the hardware supports OpenCL.
Then he started harassing me in a PM, explaining how great AMD's support is and how they work with various ISV's etc.
Then he asks me what they could possibly improve.
So I told him that for starters, they could release the runtimes to end users.
He didn't reply... then the 10.1 drivers were released, and I emailed him, saying that OpenCL was still not bundled.
Then 10.2 came along... still no OpenCL.
So I've mailed Mike Houston again. I don't expect an answer this time either.
So that is how they treat their customers and registered developers... They just give arrogant, cheeky replies when you point out a real issue with OpenCL adoption... then they harass you in PM (apparently they don't dare to do it in public.. so they know their conduct is questionable)... and then they ignore you.
The least you can do is be honest about your shortcomings, and remain friendly towards your customers/developers.
Scali - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
I actually did get a reply this time... but not a very useful one.The roadmap for OpenCL is only available to ISVs under an NDA. I'm not sure why it has to be a secret though... unless you have something to hide perhaps?
Aside from that he said that they wanted to have the end-user release co-incide with the release of OpenCL applications from these ISVs.
Doesn't tell us a lot, since we don't know which ISVs they are, what products it is about, or when they are expected to release.
But it doesn't strike me as if AMD is on the verge of releasing OpenCL to end-users. Sounds more like it's still months away.
Too bad for AMD, the first applications with OpenCL support are already available... such as GPU Caps Viewer, which recently had OpenCL tests added. The latest SiSoft Sandra suite also has OpenCL support in its GPGPU benchmarks.
piroroadkill - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
Disappointing, I'd expect it to beat the 4890 in all tests, even by just a hair.As the title says. Wrong price.
Paladin1211 - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
It's nVidia to blame. I think ATI might soon show its HD 6870 at $1000 and HD 6890 at $2000.Come on nVidia, come on...
Leyawiin - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
Thanks for the informative review Ryan. You made me feel better about my purchase last week of a Gigabyte GTX 260 Super Overclock (based on Anandtech's review of it btw). Saved money, got better performance and I don't need DX11 at this point.Paladin1211 - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
Thanks for the informative review Ryan. You make me feel much better about my purchase last October of an HD 5850 (based on Anandtech's review of it btw). Saved money, got better performance and I really need DX11 at this point.poohbear - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
why did you guys use outdated catalyst drivers for this review??? The 10xx series catalysts were supposed to provide performance increases for the 5xxx series, soit makes no sense that u use such old catalyst drivers?Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
9.9 would have been used for the 4xxx cards.