First Radeon HD 5870 Performance Figures Surface

Here are some of the first performance figures of AMD's upcoming Radeon HD 5870 published by a media source. Czech Gamer posted performance numbers of the card compared to current heavyweights including Radeon HD 4870 X2, Radeon HD 4890, and GeForce GTX 285. Having not entered an NDA with AMD, the source was liberal with its performance projections citing AMD's internal testing that include the following, apart from the two graphs below:

• Radeon HD 5870 is anywhere between 5~155 percent faster than GeForce GTX 285. That's a huge range, and leaves a lot of room for uncertainty.
• When compared to GeForce GTX 295, its performance ranges between -25 percent (25% slower) to 95 percent (almost 2x faster), another broad range.
• When two HD 5870 cards are set up in CrossFire, the resulting setup is -5 percent (5% slower) to 90 percent faster than GeForce GTX 295. Strangely, the range maximum is lesser than that on the single card.
• When three of these cards are setup in 3-way CrossFireX, the resulting setup is 10~160 percent faster than a GeForce GTX 295.
• The Radeon HD 5850 on the other hand, can be -25 percent (25% slower) to 120 percent faster than GeForce GTX 285.

AMD reportedly used a set of 15 games to run its tests. Vague as they seem, the above numbers raise more questions than provide answers. The graphs below are clear, for a change.Update: Here are allegedly AMD's own performance figures sourced from Chinese website ChipHell.com.