Monday, September 14th 2009
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:
Sources:
Czech Gamer, ChipHell
- 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.
265 Comments on First Radeon HD 5870 Performance Figures Surface
For example, the TPU review back then said So it seems like the supply shortage wasn't courtesy extreme demand, given the output NVIDIA is capable of. I was squaring them off as >$200 / high-end to support my older arguments, those which the "vast majority" don't buy. I acknowledge them to be performance/high-end products.
That big jump in sales cannot be squared down to one product. That is an industry-wide figure, and doesn't pertain to a company or its products. And we don't know in which segment 8800 GT was classified back in 2007 because it was a high performing product at a >$200 price point.
HD5870 1GB version for $350:roll:
Here in Europe, the 8800GT was always +40€ ($60) more expensive than the HD3870, the GTX260 Core 216 was always +40€ more expensive than the HD4870, and the GTX275 was always +40€ more expensive than the HD4890.
I guess it will depend on the pricing that ATI sets and that retailers choose, but the 5870 could end up being the best value mid to high end gaming card ever on initial release.
XD
Although having said that, this bits a reply to your post, the picture from wikipedia thurther up the page has DDR and GDDR on the bus type column, to further add to our confusion :D
It is said that in some countries in the EU, Nvidia does sell much more than Ati (mainly in southern contries), I mean much more than the 2-to-1 (66%-33%) they do in the US, so it might be that Ati was forced to lower the prices there, but it doesn't happen always everywhere.
There's the posibility that you are comparing full retail prices on GTX cards against light retail prices on HD cards. I've seen many light retail HD cards and none on the other camp. Ok you can find lower prices that way, but you are NOT getting the same thing. You don't get the goodies and although enthusiast like us might not want those goodies and just want the card, esentially it's not the same. One friend got one of these light packages from Club3D (ok I know, I know) and it didn't carry any 4pin to 6pin connector, nor 6-to-8 or 4-to-8 although the card required one 6pin and one 8 pin. He had to buy the connectors because his PSU although being 650w and of good quality and brand, was old and didn't have those connectors. He ended up paying muh more. I don't know if that is the norm in light retail packages, but what you certainly don't get is games or software usually licensed for 1 year, while full retail packages tend to have them. Again it is debatable if you want that game and software, but it's not the same product you are getting. Basically as an enthusiast that buys a card every 6 months, you could blame Nvidia's partners for not offering these light packages as widely as Ati does, but when talking about prices is essential to compare apples to apples, IMO.
Furthermore, what counts is not the price right now. It's the price when most reviews are written. When most HD4870 vs. GTX260 c216 reviews were being written, the GTX260 was always more expensive than the HD4870.
Yeah, maybe the lowest priced ATI cards don't bundle unimportant stuff, but who cares? The reviewers also had that into account.
And there are nVidia cards with weak bundles. I once bought a 8800GT that came only with the PCI-E power cable and a DVI->D-Sub adapter, from Club3D.
Also I supose there are weak bundles for Nvidia cards, I just stated what I saw in 10+ stores around 5 countries. There's no such light packages where I live.
And as a side note. Where it matters the GTX260 216 destroys the 512 MB HD4870 which is the only one that is much cheaper. It takes the 1 GB version to average more or less the same as the GTX260 you can get today.
When you buy the card now, what you read is the reviews from 8 months ago, because no reviewer cares about those cards right now.
nVidia even increased the price of the 8800GT, after most of the reviews were done, saying it was better than the HD3870 for the same price.
What's more important is that prices can change from day to day, in fact, they do, so the price that a reviewer posts means absolutely nothing if a change occurred the next day after he posted his review.