The Official HD 5800 Series Review thread

[badsykes]

Don't be a butthead.

5870 X2 will be <$500

Ya but with 600$ you get two nice experiencing instead of putting one experience on steroids for nothing...

[caveman-jim]

Ya but with 600$ you get two nice experiencing instead of putting one experience on steroids for nothing...

I know English isn't your first language, but I have no idea what you're trying to troll here.

[jam2k]

The Asus card looks very promising

They claim %38 perf increase over stock card, pretty impressive.

[Sound_Card]

The Asus card looks very promising

Do they cover warranty on their tool? If so, thats the way to go.

[AMD_G@y]

doesn't AMD's Overdrive (OC) software interact with the 5800 series GPUs ? Maybe not as easy as the Asus but would be great for say XFX (awesome warranty) to bump the voltages and clocks to OC. Lightman over at B3D did some mem scaling tests with Vantage (iirc) and using AOD software got the memory up to 1300-1350, also reportedly got 950 Mhz on stock core voltage (1.15).

[badsykes]

I know English isn't your first language, but I have no idea what you're trying to troll here.

I just see less and less reason to pay 500$ for a VGA..And in the Crysis era i saw many people going for big priced dogs because of this technology demo..I think there will be same story like with DIrt.The first dirt was killing the rigs big time (i know from my experience with x2 at 3ghz and 2900xt) and the Grid that use a enhanced engine was flying on most of our toys..

[becco]

Do they cover warranty on their tool? If so, thats the way to go.

No, they dont. Except ASUS made OC edition with 1035MHz stock clock from factory.

[Dacs]

I'm having some serious flicker issues with my card.

Anyone experiences the same thing?

[Gandalfthewhite]

dacs try turning catAI off

[Dacs]

dacs try turning catAI off

Will do later (since I'm in my office ATM) when I get back home, but I forgot to mention that the flickers happen on my desktop, not during gaming.

Thanks!

[Dacs]

Tried disabling Catalyst AI, flicker remains.

Is there by any chance I got a lemon card?

[Sound_Card]

Screen flicker? texture flicker?

[acroig]

Every now and then, a game will come out that AA can't be forced in. I never had to rename the .exe as all the games I have work with AA.

Ah I see

Really, S_C, all the UE3 games have AA settings in them? Show me the menu setting in say Bioshock where AA is set in game? How about GoW or MOH: Airborne?

All I'm saying is that it's not "every now and then". Heck we have a forced AA thread for a reason, don't we? I understand you can't care less about this issue but some of us think it's BS in late 2009 to have to rename exe's to force AA on a title.

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33929562

[Dacs]

Screen flicker? texture flicker?

Screen flicker.

Sorry for being vague in my description.

Apparently, it affects only my secondary monitor. I've heard that this might be a driver issue.

It's quite annoying TBH. Anyone experiences this as well?

[Sound_Card]

Really, S_C, all the UE3 games have AA settings in them? Show me the menu setting in say Bioshock where AA is set in game? How about GoW or MOH: Airborne?

All I'm saying is that it's not "every now and then". Heck we have a forced AA thread for a reason, don't we? I understand you can't care less about this issue but some of us think it's BS in late 2009 to have to rename exe's to force AA on a title.

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33929562

Bioshock and UT3 are deffered engines and AA will never work "correctly" in the game no matter what you do. Besides, Bioshock and UT3 work with AA even in DX10.

[Sound_Card]

Screen flicker.

Sorry for being vague in my description.

Apparently, it affects only my secondary monitor. I've heard that this might be a driver issue.

It's quite annoying TBH. Anyone experiences this as well?

Only secondary monitor?
More details. Connection type?

[acroig]

Bioshock and UT3 are deffered engines and AA will never work "correctly" in the game no matter what you do. Besides, Bioshock and UT3 work with AA even in DX10.

I understand this, I just took issue with your "most games have AA in menu" comment. My issue is with those games that don't and AA has to be forced on. It's with these games that a program like nHancer works wonders or older games that have no AA/AF menu otions. I simply wish ATI would give us this (recall that I still have 3 working ATI cards at home) and I can't see the reason for their refusal. I'm not a programer so I don't know how complicated it would be to implement this but there was talk of it late last year and earlier this year.

[Sound_Card]

I never said anything about AA being in menu. All my game are applicable to AA either in game or in CCC.

[acroig]

All my game are applicable to AA either in game or in CCC.

I don't think I understand what you're saying here.

[Dacs]

Only secondary monitor?
More details. Connection type?

DVI - Samsung 24" LCD
DVI - DVI/VGA dongle - 17" LCD

The flickers are somehow random at first (in my 24" LCD monitor, which is set at the secondary monitor) but when I tried playing a MKV file, the secondary monitor flickers like crazy.

I tried swapping the connection at the back and it didn't do anything. I swapped the 17" to 24" for the primary screen and the flickering switched to the 17" monitor.

Haven't tried any other drivers as I don't have much choice at the moment.

[Sound_Card]

I don't think I understand what you're saying here.

I can use AA in any of the games I have either in the game or in CCC. Clear?

[Sound_Card]

DAC, try switching the monitors to different DVI ports but keeping the primary and secondary untouched.

[acroig]

I can use AA in any of the games I have either in the game or in CCC. Clear?

Very clear. Please see the thread I linked to where plenty of games could not be done in the matter you described.

[jam2k]

Added Guru3D's Eyefinity review.

[Dacs]

DAC, try switching the monitors to different DVI ports but keeping the primary and secondary untouched.

I did this prior to switching the primary and secondary monitors. Nothing happened.

I hope this is a driver issue.

[spyre]

I don't have that issue on my VGA 2nd monitor with my 5870 *shrug*

[caveman-jim]

DVI - Samsung 24" LCD
DVI - DVI/VGA dongle - 17" LCD

The flickers are somehow random at first (in my 24" LCD monitor, which is set at the secondary monitor) but when I tried playing a MKV file, the secondary monitor flickers like crazy.

I tried swapping the connection at the back and it didn't do anything. I swapped the 17" to 24" for the primary screen and the flickering switched to the 17" monitor.

Haven't tried any other drivers as I don't have much choice at the moment.

Download and run GPUz while you do this, see if you have any clock drops (esp. memory) or VRM drops when this happens.

You're not the only one this is happening to, I think it's an issue with the DVI-VGA adapter; I had the same issue using one DVI and DVI-VGA. Once I removed the VGA and went double DVI the problem went away.

[Dacs]

Download and run GPUz while you do this, see if you have any clock drops (esp. memory) or VRM drops when this happens.

You're not the only one this is happening to, I think it's an issue with the DVI-VGA adapter; I had the same issue using one DVI and DVI-VGA. Once I removed the VGA and went double DVI the problem went away.

I'll try to hook up my old 19" LCD (the one that I upgraded from when I bought my 24" LCD) since it has a DVI input and I'll look out for this flicker.

I also noticed that the clocks change like crazy as well, is this a new power feature of 5870 akin to Phenom II CnQ?

[Sound_Card]

The clocks drops down to below 200mhz when idle.

[Mirageknight]

Don't be a butthead.

5870 X2 will be <$500

ATI only said hemlock < $500. didn't say 5870x2 < $500. 5850 is also using hemlock code name chip. I guess 5850x2 is $499 and 5870 is $599.

[Dungeoncrawler]

Found this article over at n4g:

Radeon HD 5870 X2 runs through CryEngine 3 like butter

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15707/1/

[Treeckcold57]

They didn't mention about PLX chip or something else...I need more detail.

[Dacs]

I updated to this driver and voila! No more flickers!

[Blacklash]

I tried 930|1300 recently with the AMD GPU tool and saw 8585 GPU in Vantage using the Extreme preset. Performance preset = 16933 GPU.

At stock I get 64FPS @ this point in Kesh in AoC. That's DX10 all on 8xAA|16xAF. Running at 930|1300 that rises to 71.7FPS. So my overclock is worth around 7FPS.

http://img504.imageshack.us/i/ageofconandx10200909291.jpg/

When the day hits again I will test wide shots. If that translate to my lowest FPS during the day using very wide deep shots that will be a boost from 25.5 to around 32, which will be meaningful.

Old stock speed shots of Kesh during the day.

Lowest FPS-

http://img143.imageshack.us/i/lowkesh.jpg/

Regular FPS examples-

http://img2.imageshack.us/i/regkesh1.jpg/

http://img2.imageshack.us/i/regkesh2.jpg/

http://img176.imageshack.us/i/regkesh3.jpg/

As above except with DX9.

Lowest FPS

http://img29.imageshack.us/i/lowfpsdx9.jpg/

Good FPS

http://img84.imageshack.us/i/goodfpsdx9.jpg/

[caveman-jim]

I also noticed that the clocks change like crazy as well, is this a new power feature of 5870 akin to Phenom II CnQ?

the new power savings of the 5870 are crazy, PowerPlay drops the core and memory clocks as well as voltages.

[caveman-jim]

ATI only said hemlock < $500. didn't say 5870x2 < $500. 5850 is also using hemlock code name chip. I guess 5850x2 is $499 and 5870 is $599.

A good observation and the only reason I disagree is this pic:



Cypress is the 5850 and 5870 and the bottom and top edges match up with the retail prices of the cards quite nicely. Now I know its a PR slide and quite unscientific, but I think if the 5870 X2 was $599 the Hemlock graphic would straddle the $500 line and not line up under it. I know it's a lot to read into a PR shot... but I can hope, can't I?

[acroig]

Now I know its a PR slide and quite unscientific, but I think if the 5870 X2 was $599 the Hemlock graphic would straddle the $500 line and not line up under it. I know it's a lot to read into a PR shot... but I can hope, can't I?

We can all hope.

[koralis]

It's occurred to me that the Samsung "center" monitor could have one of these displayport adapters built in. So you'd plug in your 2 DVI and 1 Displayport cables from the graphics card to the central monitor, and then it gets fed from there to the "wings" which may simply be DVI, etc.

Just speculation, but would be cool.

[jam2k]

Added 5850 reviews.

[jam2k]

Summary:

Thanks Catapostrophé@SA:

HardOCP
"For $259 the ATI Radeon HD 5850 smacks the competition then laughs.[---]We think the ATI Radeon HD 5850 is "THE" next-gen video card that gamers and hardware enthusiasts are going to flock to."

AnandTech
"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."

PC Games Hardware
"we can have come to a clear conclusion in matters of the Radeon HD 5850 [which is that it is slower and/or faster than the GTX 285. Duh.]"

The Tech Report
"The Radeon HD 5850 manages to outshine the fastest single-GPU GeForce card overall while costing less, drawing less power, and producing less noise."

The Guru of 3D
"It's a little gem really."

PC Perspective
"The new Radeon HD 5850 is definitely the best card you can get in the $250 price range today and I think is my best overall pick for all gamers."

Hot Hardware
"Gamers in the market for a powerful graphics card, that supports all of the latest technologies, need look no further."

Legit Reviews
"The ATI Radeon HD 5850 is 15-25% slower than the Radeon HD 5870 graphics card, but it also is priced 32% less right off the bat. That, my friends, makes it a price versus performance winner!"

Tom's Hardware
"we’re perfectly comfortable calling the Radeon HD 5850 a solid buy for the reasons a gamer would buy a new graphics card today"

nVidia forums
"The purpose of these forums is the discussion of NVIDIA's products and services. If you wish to discuss ATI products and services at length, you'll need to do it at their forums. [Thread locked.]"