ATI HD5XXX Series Discussion

[djisas]

My local shop has the sapphires for 231/336€...

 

[stinzza]

in my norway the sapphire 5870 cost 345,67 EUR and the club3d costs 334,8 EUR

 

[Wile E]

I've seen temp changes in the case up to 10degrees Celcius during card load when the air isn't vented straight out, so I don't know where your 1 or 2 degrees notion is from.:shadedshu

Then it's a poor setup, and not the fault of the gfx card cooler. That's purely the fault of the person that designed the system's airflow.

It shouldn't be the responsibility of the gfx card manufacturer to worry about case airflow. Their responsibility extends no further than the card's cooling itself.

 

[eidairaman1]

not even my machine has cooling problems and my card doesn't exhaust out the back.

 

[Benetanegia]

Then it's a poor setup, and not the fault of the gfx card cooler. That's purely the fault of the person that designed the system's airflow.

It shouldn't be the responsibility of the gfx card manufacturer to worry about case airflow. Their responsibility extends no further than the card's cooling itself.

I don't agree. Both share responsability. Most people that buy hardware are not enthusiast and have no clue about what airflow inside the case means. Even the ones that know something, can have a hard time choosing the proper case, most will simply go for the case with more fans, big mistake. The reality is that probably more than 3/4 of the PCs, that will eventually buy a HD5870 or similar card during their lifetime, have bad airflow. Sure that someoe that will buy such a card now will be an enthusiast and thus have good airflow, but what about when the card is selling for $150 like HD4870 or GTX260 are now? I know a lot of people that needed an overhaul of their cases in order to not fry those cards, but they didn't notice it, it was me who discovered that in one of my friends' and word of mouth did the rest.

IMO when a card's coling is designed they should test it in worst case scenarios, not in clean ambient and proper case ventilation. Now, I'm not saying these cards have bad cooling, it looks like the contrary indeed, but in case that they did not cool well in bad scenarios I would have to say they do.

 

[Ben_UK]

Can anyone comment on the board?

Two things I am seeking...

1, Do custom coolers that fitted the 4870 series fit the 5870?

2, Adjusting voltages. With my X1900 it was possible to adjust the voltage on the fly via software apps like ATT etc, with my Sapphire 4870 this was not possible (due to I think the kind of voltage regulator used). Does anyone know if its possible to simply adjust card voltage (avoiding BIOS hacks) using a driver based 3rd party app?

Thanks.

Ben.

 

[erocker]

Can anyone comment on the board?

Two things I am seeking...

1, Do custom coolers that fitted the 4870 series fit the 5870?

2, Adjusting voltages. With my X1900 it was possible to adjust the voltage on the fly via software apps like ATT etc, with my Sapphire 4870 this was not possible (due to I think the kind of voltage regulator used). Does anyone know if its possible to simply adjust card voltage (avoiding BIOS hacks) using a driver based 3rd party app?

Thanks.

Ben.

1. Unfortunately not. Different configuration.

2. Yes! So far all of the reference 58xx series cards support software voltage control. I just have no idea if any 3rd party app. supports it yet. Hopefully GPUTool will work.

Wait... this works: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1641/AMD_GPU_Clock_Tool_v0.9.26.0_For_HD_5870.html

Cheers.

 

[Ben_UK]

1. Unfortunately not. Different configuration.

2. Yes! So far all of the reference 58xx series cards support software voltage control. I just have no idea if any 3rd party app. supports it yet. Hopefully GPUTool will work.

Wait... this works: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1641/AMD_GPU_Clock_Tool_v0.9.26.0_For_HD_5870.html

Cheers.

Thanks for the prompt reply, gutted that I am having to replace my TRAD2 then, fantastic cooler.

Good news about the voltage adjustments though.

 

[jessicafae]

Just found this on VR-zone with timelines for both Nvidia and ATi.

http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-vs-nvidia-dx11-gpu-war-heats-up-this-christmas/7740.html?doc=7740

This states that there is a Radeon HD 5890 and is slated for launch Q4 2009 alongside 5870x2 and Juniper.

On the Nvidia side, this states that NVidia dropped the GT212 due to the Cypress performance.
A strange thing about this lineup is that the Nvidia GT240 part is put in the "performance" category (same category as Cypress) but is only a 96shader product. Looks like there is a huge gap from the GT300 (512? shader, 384-bit GDDR5) products to the GT240 products (96 shader, 128bit GDDR5). It does state that GT300 has a 384-bit interface (not the 512bit like rumored)

 

[erocker]

Great, now we get to speculate what a 5890 is going to be! I'm thinking (hoping) that it's a reworked PCB with a larger memory bus. Plus, I suppose it's something to launch along with he 5xxx X2 series to try to spoil the release of the GT300.

 

[jessicafae]

the folks on the VR-zone forum are speculating that the 5890 is same as the Cypress eyefinity edition with 2GB, 6 displayport and maybe a performance boost (memory, clock).

 

[r9]

AMD isn`t missing any chance of charging for every mhz increase. For every 1 MHz that technology matures they are slapping new model number and price tag. Instead of great clocking 4870 we got 4890 instead of great clocking 5870 we will have 5890 instead same story with cpus 945 to 955 to 965 with those they did not even waited to get better samples they just overclocked the 945 and simple charged more.

 

[trt740]

AMD isn`t missing any chance of charging for every mhz increase. For every 1 MHz that technology matures they are slapping new model number and price tag. Instead of great clocking 4870 we got 4890 instead of great clocking 5870 we will have 5890 instead same story with cpus 945 to 955 to 965 with those they did not even waited to get better samples they just overclocked the 945 and simple charged more.

Well they all do this from Intel, Geforce to AMD whats new about this. I get the point and don't like it either but this is not new.

 

[jessicafae]

AMD isn`t missing any chance of charging for every mhz increase. For every 1 MHz that technology matures they are slapping new model number and price tag.

while this is true from the point of view of consumers, this is caused by the nature of chip manufacturing, yields, and performance binning. Intel, AMD, NVidia and others all do this. All chips of a particular design are the same ASIC, but during quality-control(QC) and testing, they pass QC at different grades. The highest performing samples (all cache, core, shaders are perfect, higher clocks) are more rare so they rightfully charge more for these. Those that fail a particular QC test are binned at a lower grade (and hence lower price).

Also we are all speculating what/if the 5890 will be.

 

[Bo_Fox]

1. Unfortunately not. Different configuration.

2. Yes! So far all of the reference 58xx series cards support software voltage control. I just have no idea if any 3rd party app. supports it yet. Hopefully GPUTool will work.

Wait... this works: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1641/AMD_GPU_Clock_Tool_v0.9.26.0_For_HD_5870.html

Cheers.

Awesome, man, I wish I could thank you twice for this! The 5870 is already using much lower voltage than a 4890, which clearly explains why it's only eating roughly the same amount of power under load with more than 2x the trannies, at the same 850Mhz clock. IIRC, a 5870 uses little over 1.1v while a 4890 uses nearly 1.3v, correct?

 

[Bo_Fox]

AMD isn`t missing any chance of charging for every mhz increase. For every 1 MHz that technology matures they are slapping new model number and price tag. Instead of great clocking 4870 we got 4890 instead of great clocking 5870 we will have 5890 instead same story with cpus 945 to 955 to 965 with those they did not even waited to get better samples they just overclocked the 945 and simple charged more.

Hey, the 4890 was a tweaked RV790 chip with 3m more trannies than a 4870 (RV770). I still wish ATI would've released a 4890X2 to try to counter the GTX295, but ATI probably realized that it was pointless since they were going to beat Nvidia to the punch with a 5870 within a few months.

I hope that VR-Zone did not do this to try to hurt ATI by announcing a 5890 which would obviously make some of us want to skip the 5870. It better be a completely true rumor after all..

Is it possible at all that ATI has secret plans to expand its bandwidth to 512-bit with the 2GB version (5890)? Could it be that they are secretly using a ring-bus like with the HD2900XT?

I find it a bit shocking that Nvidia is only going to use a 384-bit bus. That would probably mean only 1.5 GB of GDDR5 memory. Well, at least the GTX 285 still has more memory bandwidth than a 5870, even if it's still using only GDDR3 (note, with 512-bit bus).

A 5870 has only 33% more memory bandwidth than a 4890. I'd expect a GT300 to have 50% more total bandwidth than a GTX 285. (512-bit x 2.5 GHz for GTX 285, 384-bit x 5 GHz for GT300)

Bring it on, ATI!!! The more competition, the better!

 

[Benetanegia]

Somehow I find it hard to believe the 384 bit thing, although it does make sense.

This makes no sense, I know.

 

[TooFast]

just got my 5870! running it @900/1300 10000% stable

 

[wahdangun]

^
^ i think you must test it with benches to know what ever your OC is working, because AMD use error correction, and it won't have artifact, so it's just lowering your performance

 

[Plug]

good score ?

 

[TooFast]

^
^ i think you must test it with benches to know what ever your OC is working, because AMD use error correction, and it won't have artifact, so it's just lowering your performance

I did with vantage x8000 stock x8700oc

 

[wahdangun]

I did with vantage x8000 stock x8700oc

good score and great oc too

so how the temp is? and can you show us some benches? and compare it with stock card

and can you just OC your GDDR5 memory? because i want to see if there is a different. and i want to proof if HD 5870 bandwidth was bottlenecked.

 

[shevanel]

isn't someone going to start the official "hd 5870 club" over at the CH section?

 

[largon]

just got my 5870! running it @900/1300 10000% stable

Please run Furmark at default settings (1280x1024, no AA/AF) and post your result here.

 

[1Kurgan1]

AMD isn`t missing any chance of charging for every mhz increase. For every 1 MHz that technology matures they are slapping new model number and price tag. Instead of great clocking 4870 we got 4890 instead of great clocking 5870 we will have 5890 instead same story with cpus 945 to 955 to 965 with those they did not even waited to get better samples they just overclocked the 945 and simple charged more.

3 million more transistors on a 4890 over a 4870, thats not a OC and new sticker. 3 million may not sound like a lot when it has the numbers it has, but there is a reason the chip OC'd WAY better.