Introduction

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AMD released their Radeon HD 5830 Series in late February this year. The card is based on the same Cypress GPU as on the Radeon HD 5850 and HD 5870, but in order to reach their performance target, AMD has disabled some shader units as well as two ROP units. This results in a card that is roughly comparable to HD 4890 in performance, but offers all the new features from the HD 5000 Series like EyeFinity and DirectX 11.

MSI uses their well known TwinFrozr II cooler on this card, the specifications have remained the same however.

<table border="1" class="resulttable" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th></th>
<td>Radeon<br />
HD 4870</td>
<td>Radeon<br />
HD 5770</td>
<td>Radeon<br />
HD 4890</td>
<td>GeForce <br>
GTX 260</td>
<td><strong>MSI<br />
HD 5830</strong></td>
<td>GeForce <br>
GTX 275</td>
<td>Radeon<br />
HD 5850</td>
<td>Radeon<br />
HD 5870</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Shader units </th>
<td align="right">800</td>
<td align="right">800</td>
<td align="right">800</td>
<td align="right">216</td>
<td align="right"><strong>1120</strong></td>
<td align="right">240</td>
<td align="right">1440</td>
<td align="right">1600</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>ROPs</th>
<td align="right">16</td>
<td align="right">16</td>
<td align="right">16</td>
<td align="right">28</td>
<td align="right"><strong>16</strong></td>
<td align="right">28</td>
<td align="right">32</td>
<td align="right">32</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>GPU</th>
<td align="right">RV770</td>
<td align="right">Juniper</td>
<td align="right">RV790</td>
<td align="right">GT200</td>
<td align="right"><strong>Cypress</strong></td>
<td align="right">GT200</td>
<td align="right">Cypress</td>
<td align="right">Cypress</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Transistors</th>
<td align="right">956M</td>
<td align="right">1040M</td>
<td align="right">959M</td>
<td align="right">1404M</td>
<td align="right"><strong>2154M</strong></td>
<td align="right">1404M</td>
<td align="right">2154M</td>
<td align="right">2154M</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Size</th>
<td align="right">512 MB </td>
<td align="right">1024 MB </td>
<td align="right">1024 MB </td>
<td align="right">896 MB </td>
<td align="right"><strong>1024 MB </strong></td>
<td align="right">896 MB </td>
<td align="right">1024 MB </td>
<td align="right">1024 MB </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Bus Width </th>
<td align="right">256 bit </td>
<td align="right">128 bit </td>
<td align="right">256 bit </td>
<td align="right">448 bit </td>
<td align="right"><strong>256 bit </strong></td>
<td align="right">448 bit </td>
<td align="right">256 bit </td>
<td align="right">256 bit </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Core Clock</th>
<td align="right">750 MHz </td>
<td align="right">850 MHz </td>
<td align="right">850 MHz </td>
<td align="right">620 MHz </td>
<td align="right"><strong>800 MHz </strong></td>
<td align="right">602 MHz </td>
<td align="right">725 MHz </td>
<td align="right">850 MHz </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Clock</th>
<td align="right">900 MHz </td>
<td align="right">1200 MHz </td>
<td align="right">975 MHz </td>
<td align="right">1050 MHz </td>
<td align="right"><strong>1000 MHz </strong></td>
<td align="right">1107 MHz </td>
<td align="right">1000 MHz </td>
<td align="right">1200 MHz </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Price</th>
<td align="right">$155</td>
<td align="right">$155</td>
<td align="right">$200</td>
<td align="right">$200</td>
<td align="right"><strong>$270</strong></td>
<td align="right">$230</td>
<td align="right">$300</td>
<td align="right">$400</td>
</tr>
</table>

Packaging

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MSI's package is dominated by blue with a very sexy picture of the card on the front. You will find further product detail on the back.

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You will receive:

Graphics card
Driver CD + Quick Install Guide
DVI to D-Sub Adapter
2x PCI-Express power cables

The Card

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MSI uses their TwinFrozr II cooler on this card which has been seen on other HD 5000 products too. It uses two fans that are both temperature-controlled.

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The card occupies two slots in your system.

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The card has a DVI port, one HDMI port, and one DisplayPort.

For HDMI Audio, NVIDIA requires you to feed an external audio source, for example from your motherboard's on-board audio, to the card via SPDIF cable. AMD on the other hand has integrated a sound device inside their GPUs which is the easier solution for most users. Also AMD's integrated sound device has been upgraded to support HDMI 1.3a which includes Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, AC-3, DTS and up to 7.1 channel audio with 192 kHz / 24-bit.

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CrossFire configurations with up to four cards are supported, you may also mix cards from different vendors in your CrossFire setup.

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Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.

A Closer Look

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MSI's cooler uses four heatpipes to transport heat away quickly from the GPU core to a large number of fins where it is dissipated by the airflow of the two fans.

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The card uses two 6-pin PCI-Express power connectors. We have seen cards using a 6+8 configuration, but that is purely for marketing reasons.

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The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Samsung, and carry the model number K4G10325FE-HC04. They are specified to run at 2500 MHz (5000 MHz GDDR5 effective).

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uP6206 is an affordable voltage regulator, unfortunately it does not support the I2C interface, so software voltage control is not possible.

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This is AMD's Cypress GPU, it comes with a whopping 2154 million transistors and is produced on a 40 nm process at TMSC Taiwan. The Cypress die size is 334 mm².

Test System

<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="ramtable" width="450">
<tr align="center">
<th colspan="2" scope="row" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th width="120" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td scope="row">Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.8 GHz<br />(Bloomfield, 8192 KB Cache)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td scope="row">Gigabyte X58 Extreme<br />
Intel X58 & ICH10R</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td scope="row">3x 2048 MB Mushkin Redline XP3-12800 DDR3 <br>
@ 1520 MHz 8-7-7-16</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">WD Raptor 740ADFD 74 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">BFG ES-800 800W</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Software:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Windows 7 64-bit</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Drivers:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">NVIDIA: 195.62<br />GTX 480: 197.17<br />ATI: Catalyst 10.3<br />HD 5450: Catalyst 10.1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Display:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">
LG Flatron W3000H 30" 2560x1600<br /><img src="http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/HD_5830_Twin_Frozr_II/images/zotac.jpg" width="120" height="40"></td>
</tr>
</table>

All video card results were obtained on this exact system with the exact same configuration.
All games were set to their highest quality setting

Each benchmark was tested at the following settings and resolution:

1024 x 768, No Anti-aliasing. This is a standard resolution without demanding display settings.
1280 x 1024, 2x Anti-aliasing. Common resolution for most smaller flatscreens today (17" - 19"). A bit of eye candy turned on in the drivers.
1680 x 1050, 4x Anti-aliasing. Most common widescreen resolution on larger displays (19" - 22"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.
1920 x 1200, 4x Anti-aliasing. Typical widescreen resolution for large displays (22" - 26"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.
2560 x 1600, 4x Anti-aliasing. Highest possible resolution for commonly available displays (30"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.

Please Note:- Since there is no AMD reference design for the Radeon HD 5830, the generic HD 5830 highlighted in our tests is the first HD 5830 we tested, the ASUS EAH5830 Direct Cu. While this should not affect your judgment as far as performance tests go, it should serve as a fair reference point in the power-consumption, and fan-noise tests.

BattleForge

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BattleForge, a card based RTS, is developed by the German EA Phenomic Studio. A few months after launch the game was transformed into a Play 4 Free branded game. That move and the fact that it was included as game bundle with a large number of ATI cards made it one of the more well known RTS games of 2009. You as a player assemble your deck before game to select the units that will be available. Your choice can be from forces of Fire, Frost, Nature and Shadow to complement each other.
The BattleForge engine has full support for DX 9, DX 10 and DX 10.1, we used the internal benchmark tool to acquire our results.

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Call of Duty 4

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Call of Duty 4 is a first-person shooter that is built on the award winning Call of Duty Series. It is the first version to play in modern times. In a near-future conflict between the United States, Europe and Russia you get to play as a United States Marine and a British SAS operative. The engine is Infinity Ward's own creation and has true dynamic lighting, depth of field, dynamic shadows and HDR. Even though the game plot is scripted you will find yourself in intense battles, often working together with computer controlled team mates.

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Call of Juarez 2

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Call of Juarez 2: Bound in Blood is a prequel to the first Call of Juarez game which was one of the first DX10 titles available on the market. This time the plot evolves around two brothers, before each mission you may pick one to play. Your choices affect the game play since both characters have different ways of handling situations and doing combat.
Call of Juarez 2 uses Techland's Chrome Engine 4 which adds Edge Anti Aliasing as one of the first engines on the market. Edge Anti Aliasing looks similar to normal AA but comes with a considerably reduced performance drop. However, due to the deferred shading design of Edge AA, normal AA can't be used on top of it.

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Company Of Heroes

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The real-time strategy game Company of Heroes is set during World War II where you take two American companies through several fights all over France to liberate the country from German occupation. Company of Heroes is the first game to use Relic's next-generation engine "Essence Engine" which includes support for HDR lighting, Shader Model 3.0, normal mapping, dynamic lighting and shadows. You are able to zoom in from the tactical view of the battle field to see the individual units fighting. Often you catch yourself admiring the detailed animations of the soldiers while the fight around you is raging.

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Crysis

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After the tremendous success of Far Cry, the German game studio Crytek released their latest shooter Crysis in 2007. The game was by far the most hyped and anticipated game in 2007, the forums were full of "Can my system run Crysis?" threads because of the high hardware requirements of this game. Just like in Far Cry the plot evolves on a small island with a thick and richly detailed jungle world. A lot of attention has been given to small details like correct physics. For example when you fire on a tree trunk, it will shatter and the tree will fall over leaving a stump behind. Enemies in a car can be stopped by shooting the tire of the car. The game graphics are by far the best ever seen in a PC game so far, yet the game still runs well on most computers.

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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2

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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II by Relic Entertainment is an RTS game based on the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Unlike other Dawn of War titles there is no base-building element in the game, you simply command units on the battlefield. Due to the non-linear mission design, the choices which mission and objective you pick to pursue have considerable impact on game play and mission difficulty. A "hero" unit concept adds RPG elements to the game, allowing you to advance the unit in terms of levels and abilities. Dawn of War 2 uses the Essence Engine 2.0, version 1.0 was used in the Company of Heroes Series.

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DiRT 2

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DiRT 2 is the first game to offer basic DirectX 11 features, even though they are very limited, the title has been used extensively by AMD to market their DX11 products. The game features a large number of different racing events all over the world with tracks ranging from off-road, over stadiums to complex city courses. We chose not to benchmark DX 11 at this time since this would result in incomparable scores for many of the cards. It should also be noted that SLI does not work at this time which explains the low score of the GeForce GTX 295.

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Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

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The first-person shooter Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is set in the science-fiction universe of Quake and requires several classes to work together to achieve certain goals on a map. In the campaign mode you gain experience which you can use to buy upgrades for your class. The player gets to pick from five classes of either the Global Defense Force or the Strogg faction. As underlying game engine, the successful id Software Doom 3 engine has been licensed, but several features like MegaTextures have been added, giving the outdoor world a much more detailed appearance.

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Far Cry

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Far Cry was released in early 2004 by the new development studio Crytek. It quickly became a massive success because it was one of the first titles to take you in a beautiful 3D outdoor world. Far Cry was one of the most demanding games at its time. Even with today's video cards you can still see big differences in frame rates, especially at the higher resolutions.

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Far Cry 2

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Four years after the success of Far Cry, Ubisoft has published the sequel called Far Cry 2. While the first part was set on an island, Far Cry 2 takes you deep into Africa with game play that resembles Grand Theft Auto much more than the original Far Cry, which was a classical 3D shooter. Ubisoft engineered a completely new 3D engine called "Dunia" which offers a large amount of popular features like DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 support, destructible environments, physics and non-scripted AI while not being as much of a resource hog as Crytek's CryEngine.

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Tom Clancy's HAWX

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Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. is one of the very few recent flight simulator games on the market. Being a console conversion it emphasizes "flight" more than "simulator". It is set in a near future in which private military companies have begun fighting conflicts for nations with their own military gear. You are playing an elite pilot who was recruited by such a private company. During the game you get to fly over 50 different aircrafts, ranging from the MIG 21 to the mighty F22 Raptor. One notable feature of its engine is the use of GeoEye satellite imagery for terrain generation which offers one of the most realistic incarnations of battlefield terrain available today.

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Prey

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Prey is based on a highly modified 3D engine made by id Software. This first person shooter brought a completely new way of gaming to the genre. In many levels you find yourself walking upside down or on the walls. This adds a completely new aspect to the gaming experience in this genre.

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Quake 4

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The Quake titles are among the most successful first person games. Developed by id Software, the famous game studio that brought you DOOM, you find yourself in a sci-fi world that is full of aliens and shocking effects. The main focus of the game is the single player story line. Quake 4 puts you on the home planet of the Strogg. In a number of missions you and your fellow marines will encounter all sorts of enemies, including some really huge aliens.

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The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

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The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is a first person shooter game set in a far future. You are Riddick, a notorious space criminal played by Vin Diesel in the movies. Dark Athena continues where Escape from Butcher Bay ended. A major aspect of the game is its tactical use of shadows and stealth so that enemies can't detect you. Vin Diesel's voice acting also adds greatly to the game experience.
The 0.0 FPS scores for NVIDIA cards at 2560x1600 are caused by driver crashes which seem to be related to card with 512 MB memory and below. Since it works fine on ATI this is not a game problem but an NVIDIA driver issue.

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S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

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Before its release in 2007, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl was one of the most hyped games of the last years. This RPG/FPS hybrid game is set a few years in the future, after a nuclear disaster occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The release of radiation causes strange things like mutations in the nearby area. You take the role of a Stalker who seeks fame and riches in the contaminated area around Chernobyl. The game engine features all the latest buzzwords like HDR, bullet physics, skeletal animation, soft shadows and weather effects. Stalker's vast outside world is richly modeled, you can interact with a large number of objects in the game thanks to the physics engine.

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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Clear Sky

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STALKER Clear Sky is GSC Gameworld's prequel to the 2007 hit "STALKER". Just like in the first part the game is set around the Russian area of Chernobyl and Pripyat, most well known for the nuclear accident that occurred there. You play the role of a mercenary who spends his days in The Zone trying to make a living. The Zone is an area which is affected by so-called anomalies which cause mutants to appear and laws of physics to change. While you investigate these anomalies the plot leads up to the events that happened right before the first game starts. A new in-game faction system encourages you to befriend various groups in The Zone in exchange for information or items. While the graphics of Clear Sky are based on the first Stalker game engine, there are numerous improvements, including support for DirectX10 and depth-of-field/volumetric effects.

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Unreal Tournament 3

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The fourth game in Epic's highly successful Unreal Tournament Series is simply called Unreal Tournament 3. It is based on the all-new Unreal 3 engine which is a major step forward from the previous engine. The game principle is centered about an arena style gameplay where several contestants try to reach a certain kill count or capture a flag for example. As you would expect from a new 2007 title, the graphics are top notch, with large and detailed textures. One major drawback of the way the engine is designed is that there is no support for Anti-Aliasing.

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World In Conflict

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The realtime strategy game World In Conflict by Massive Entertainment is set in 1989 taking the player through a fictional conflict during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Unlike other RTS games, World in Conflict is not centered around building a base, you command units on the battlefield with a number of reinforcement points available to replace lost troops.
Massive's Masstech Game Engine makes heavy use of level-of-detail techniques which allow you to zoom in closely on the action displaying fights in high-fidelity with a large number of effects.

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3DMark03

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Futuremark Corporation is the number one player in the world of synthetic benchmarking. The 3DMark series is the most popular test suite for video card testing and is used by gamers, overclockers and manufacturers alike to determine how fast their hardware is. Even though it is a few years old, 3DMark03 can easily stress today's video cards.

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3DMark05

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Another benchmark from Futuremark is 3DMark05 which comes with four completely new game tests that make massive use of shaders and lighting effects. 3DMark05 is a great test for modern video card architectures - in some tests you are often close to the 30 fps mark, below which your games will feel sluggish.

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3DMark06

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Even though it's based on Futuremark's 3DMark05, the new 3DMark06 adds new tests for Shader Model 3.0 and HDR rendering. It is also the first 3DMark to incorporate a CPU score into the final 3DMark score. All tests have received an overhaul, for example in the Canyon Flight test you can now see beautiful sun glare effects with the help of High Dynamic Range rendering.

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Power Consumption

Cooling modern video cards is becoming more and more difficult, especially when users are asking for quiet cooling solutions. That's why the engineers are now paying much more attention to power consumption of new video card designs.

For this test we measure power consumption of only the graphics card, via PCI-Express power connector(s) and PCI-Express bus slot. A Keithley Integra 2700 with 6.5 digits is used for all measurements. Again, the values here reflect card only power consumption measured at DC VGA card inputs, not the whole system.

We chose 3DMark03 Nature as a standard test representing typical 3D usage because it offers: - very high power draw - high repeatability - is a standard benchmark that is supported by all cards - drivers are actively tested and optimized for it - supports all multi-GPU configurations - easy to obtain - fairly compact in size - test runs a constant duration and renders a non-static scene with variable complexity just like any normal game.

The four result values are as following:

Idle: Windows Vista Aero sitting at the desktop (1280x1024 32-bit) all windows closed, drivers installed. Card left to warm up in idle until power draw is stable.
Average: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Average of all readings (12 per second) while the test was rendering (no title screen).
Peak: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. Highest single reading during the test.
Maximum: Furmark Stability Test at 1280x1024, 0xAA. This results in a very high non-game power consumption that can typically be reached only with stress testing applications. Card left running stress test until power draw converged to a stable value.
Blu-Ray Playback: Power DVD 9 Ultra is used at a resolution of 1920x1200 to play back the Batman: The Dark Knight disc with GPU acceleration turned on. Playback starts around timecode 1:19 which has the highest data rates on the BD with up to 40 Mb/s. Playback left running until power draw converged to a stable value.

MSI's PCB design uses more cost efficient components than the AMD reference design, especially the different voltage regulator circuitry affects power consumption. In our testing we see a slightly elevated power consumption across the board, but it is small enough to not make any significant difference in real-world usage. Only the "Maximum" result seems a bit high, which is probably because MSI has increased the GPU voltage slightly.

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Fan Noise

In the past years users would accept everything just to get more performance. Nowadays this has changed with people being more aware of the fan noise and power consumption of their graphic cards.
In order to properly test the fan noise a card emits we are using a Bruel & Kjaer 2236 sound level meter (~$4,000) which has the measurement range and accuracy we are looking for.

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The tested graphics card is installed in a system that is completely passively cooled. That is passive PSU, passive CPU cooler, passive cooling on the motherboard and Solid-State HDD.
This setup allows us to eliminate secondary noise sources and test only the video card. To be more compliant with standards like DIN 45635 (we are not claiming to be fully DIN 45635 certified) the measurement is conducted at 100 cm distance and 160 cm over the floor. The ambient background noise level in the room is well below 20 dbA for all measurements. Please note that the dbA scale is not linear, it is logarithmic. 40 dbA is not twice as loud as 20 dbA. A 3 dbA increase results in double the sound pressure. The human hearing is a bit different and it is generally accepted that a 10 dbA increase doubles the perceived sound level.

MSI did a great job lowering the fan noise in idle, with only 26 dbA you will barely be able to hear the card at all when running normal desktop applications. Under load the fan noise seems a bit excessive, considering how little noise AMD's solution emits.

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Performance Summary

To create this graph we took all performance results of the five resolutions we tested, threw them together and calculated the relative performance of each card, compared to our review sample. In a sixth graph we also combined all tests in all resolutions to calculate the total relative performance of the review sample.

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Performance per Watt

This graph was created by taking the relative performance numbers and putting them in contrast to the average power consumption results.

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Performance per Dollar

If you are looking for the best bang for the buck, then you will love this graph. We looked up the current USD price of each card on the popular online shop Newegg and used it and the relative performance numbers to calculate the Performance per Dollar Index.

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Overclocking

To find the maximum overclock of our card we used a combination of GPUTool and our benchmarking suite.
The overclocks listed here were achieved with the default fan and voltage settings as defined in the VGA BIOS. Please note that every single sample overclocks differently, that's why our results here can only serve as a guideline for what you can expect from your card.

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The overclocks of our card are 960 MHz core (20% overclock) and 1370 MHz Memory (14% overclock). It seems that most recently produced Cypress cores can hit between 950 and 1000 MHz. I am sure with good cooling or a voltmod this card could easily reach the magic 1000 MHz mark. Memory overclocks nicely too, just like we have seen on all other cards using Samsung memory.

MSI includes their Afterburner overclocking utility with the card and claims support for voltage control. We downloaded the latest 1.51 version, which shows an adjustable voltage slider, but it doesn't work. We tested this by changing voltage using Afterburner and manually measuring it on the board with a multimeter in both idle and load: no change. An easy test for you to do if you don't have a multimeter is to set the lowest voltage and load the card using Furmark. Now increase the voltage to the maximum, temperature should immediately increase, not the case on the MSI HD 5830 Twin Frozr II.

Another minor issue is that the CCC Overdrive limits are too low for serious overclocking. You can put Afterburner into an unofficial overclocking mode which removes the CCC limits, but this requires manual editing of INI files, a move many users may not like.

Overclocked Performance

Using these clock frequencies we ran a quick test of Call of Duty 4 to evaluate the gains from overclocking.

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The actual 3D performance gained from overclocking is 18.9%.

Temperatures

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Idle temperatures are really low, but so is fan noise: a good combination. Under load the card tends to be quite noisy however, but there is some temperature headroom to quieten it down some. Unfortunately this has to be done by the user, it would have been nice if MSI designed their card like that.

Clock Profiles

Modern graphics cards have several clock profiles that are selected to balance power draw and performance requirements.
The following table lists the clock settings for major performance scenarios and the GPU voltage that we measured. We measure on the pins of a coil or capacitor near the GPU voltage regulator.

<table border="1" class="resulttable" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th></th>
<td><strong>Core <br>
Clock</strong></td>
<td><strong>Memory <br>
Clock</strong></td>
<td><strong>GPU Voltage<br>
(measured)</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Desktop</th>
<td align="right">157 MHz</td>
<td align="right">300 MHz</td>
<td align="right">0.95 V</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Blu-Ray Playback</th>
<td align="right">400 MHz</td>
<td align="right">900 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1.03 V</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>3D Load</th>
<td align="right">800 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1000 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1.21 V</td>
</tr>
</table>

AMD includes their own overclocking utility with Catalyst Control Center. While easy to use, it also limits the maximum overclock to a predefined limit in the BIOS. This limit may vary from vendor to vendor or product to product. Following are the upwards limits for overclocking CCC gives you.

<table border="1" class="resulttable" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th colspan="2">CCC Overdrive Limits</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Core</td>
<td>875 MHz</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Memory</td>
<td>1000 MHz</td>
</tr>
</table>

Value and Conclusion

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<tr><th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/dollar.gif</th>
<td>

MSI's HD 5830 Twin Frozr II is available online for around $270.

</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbup.gif</th>
<td>

Dual fan TwinFrozr II cooler
Good looks
Low power draw
Quiet in idle
Good overclocking potential
Improvements to HDMI audio. 7.1 ch HDMI audio with Dolby, DTS
MSI Afterburner overclocking utility included
Native HDMI & DisplayPort
Support for AMD EyeFinity Technology
40 nm GPU
Support for DirectX 11

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
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<td>

High Price
CCC Overdrive limits too low for serious overclocking
No software voltage control
Slower than HD 4890
Noisy under load
No support for CUDA/PhysX

</td></tr>
<tr><th>7.9</th>
<td>MSI's HD 5830 Twin Frozr II is an interesting mix of features and the potential to become a great SKU, with a few stumbling blocks along the way. The Twin Frozr II cooler is potent mix of performance and aesthetics that gives the card a sleek yet industrial look. Despite having two fans to do the job of cooling, Twin Frozr II ends up with pleasant fan noise levels when idling. It starts to get noisier in load. In the end it keeps the GPU cool enough, and that goes a long way in helping its overclocking potential. Speaking of which, the MSI HD 5830 Twin Frozr II has nice overclocking headroom. The 20% overclocking on the GPU and 14% on memory gives you a handy 19% performance boost, which goes on the show that the Radeon HD 5830 scales well in performance with increase in clock speeds. The bundled MSI Afterburner software, while helped jump the measly CCC Overdrive clock speed limits, couldn't give us software voltage control it claimed to offer.<br /><br />
With performance in general, the Radeon HD 5830 misses the sweet-spot it set out to achieve, nothing wrong with MSI's implementation as such. It faces stiff competition from three fronts: 1. the previous-generation Radeon HD 4890, which is significantly faster than it at any given resolution, and is available much cheaper than it; 2. the Radeon HD 5770 upper-mid range graphics card that is just 12% slower, while being way cheaper at just $160; and 3. with just another $30, you get the Radeon HD 5850 at $299, which is a solid 30% faster. While the HD 5830 is intended to be a $230-ish SKU, its value proposition is further aggravated by MSI's pricing of $270. Overall we don't have many qualms with the way MSI designed the HD 5830 Twin Frozr II, the card gives decent performance for full-HD resolutions, but at $270 there are so many other options that you can explore - and maybe profit from.</td></tr>
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