ATI Radeon HD 5870

Prepare to experience a riveting high-definition gaming experience with ati radeon™ hd 5870 graphics processors. distend your visual real estate across up to three displays and procure missing in the action with revolutionary ati eyefinity engineering. using ati stream technology ,  accelerate plane the most demanding applications and effect more than ever with your pc. the basic to deliver full help for microsoft directx® 11 ,  these gpus enable affluent ,  realistic visuals and explosive hd gaming operation inequity you may dominate the competition.

Way back in 1965 ,  intel co-founder gordon e. more released a paper stating that the number of transistors that can be placed economically upon an integrated circuit would double with Regards To every two years. this was later named moore's law ,  and it accurately describes a driving force of technological and sociable adjust in the late 20th and primal 21st centuries.

While the trend has continued for more than half a century and is not expected to stop until 2015 or even later ,  with the introduction of the radeon hd 5870 graphics card amd claims they are breaking moore's law -- and accurately accurately. specifically ,  they are going from a transistor count of roughly 956 million to a staggering 2150 million within a 15 month period between 2008 and 2009.


There own also been a Heap Of notable improvements in terms of efficiency over the past few years. the radeon x1800xt released in late 2005 provided simply 1.07 gflops/w ,  for specimen ,  while in primal 2006 the x1900xtx was capable of 2.01 gflops/w. progression then seemed to stall for a Heap Of time ,  coincidentally around the time of the amd/ati merger ,  as 18 months down the road the radeon hd 2900 pro reached 2.21 gflops/w.

Finally a few months later the radeon hd 3870 was released featuring a die quail which improved efficiency to 4.50 gflops/w. then along came the radeon hd 4870 providing 7.50 gflops/w ,  and now we own the radeon hd 5870 with an efficiency rating of 14.47 gflops/w.
Behind this vast leap is the 40nm plan of the late “cypress xt” gpu ,  which also allowed for a very complex outline. putting matters into perspective ,  while the radeon hd 4870 featured 800 spus along with 40 taus (texture dissertation units) and 16 rops (rasterization operator units) ,  the late and improved 5870 boasts double everything -- 1600 spus ,  80 taus and 32 rops. this has bumped compute efficacy from 1.2 tflops to an demented 2.72 tflops out of a single gpu.the core clock speed has also been increased from 750mhz to 850mhz compared to the radeon hd 4870 ,  instead matching the 4890 variant. the radeon hd 5870 tranquil utilizes gddr5 reminiscence ,  which is now clocked at 1200mhz ,  allowing for a reminiscence bandwidth of 153.6gb/s ,  or a whopping 33% more than the 4870

Core i7 Test System Specs
- Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition (Overclocked @ 3.70GHz)
- x3 2GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 (CAS 9-9-9-24)
- Asus P6T Deluxe (Intel X58)
- OCZ GameXStream (700 watt)
- Seagate 500GB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA300)
- ATI Radeon HD 5870 (1GB)
- VisionTek Radeon HD 4870 X2 (2GB)
- Asus Radeon HD 4890 (1GB)
- Palit Radeon HD 4870 (1GB)
- Asus GeForce GTX 295 (1792MB)
- Asus GeForce GTX 285 (1GB)
- Asus GeForce GTX 280 (1GB)
- Asus GeForce GTX 275 (896MB)
- Palit GeForce GTX 260 (896MB)
Software
- Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit)
- Nvidia Forceware 190.38
- ATI Catalyst 9.9

We ran 3DMark Vantage's synthetic tests to start, and the results were pretty impressive. With a score of 6248pts at 2560x1600, the single-GPU Radeon HD 5870 managed to outperform the 4870 X2 by a 10% margin, while delivering 1.6x more performance than the standard Radeon HD 4870 card. The only contender to defeat the Radeon HD 5870 in this test was the dual-GPU GeForce GTX 295, which was about 8% faster. 

 

The radeon hd 5870 is gigantic ,  even Though given the specifications and the fact that this is a high-end graphics card ,  its size is far from surprising. the dimensions match that of the radeon hd 4870 x2 ,  making it very similar to the geforce gtx 285 as duly. the amd allusion card measures 28cm long and weighs roughly 1kg. cooling the cypress xt gpu is a fairly gigantic aluminum heatsink ,  made up of 36 fins measuring 13.5cm long ,  6.5cm wide ,  and 2.5cm high. connected to the servile of the heatsink are four copper heatpipes which befriend improve efficiency. finally ,  cooling this heatsink is a 75x20mm blower fan that draws air in from within the case and pushes it out through the rear of the graphics card. for the most installment this fan operates very duly ,  helped by the impressively servile 27 watt lazy consumption of the radeon hd 5870. when gaming the fan will of course whirl up ,  as the card may consume up to 188 watts under load ,  but flat with the increased thermal stress the 5870 does not whoop at intolerable levels.the heatsink and fan own been enclosed within a custom built housing that conceals the entire graphics card -- a first for amd. we in Truth liked this setup as it helps screen the product very well; nvidia has been performing this for numerous time with their most prized graphics cards ,  such as the geforce gtx 295

In enjoin to food the graphics card sufficient might amd has included a twosome of 6-pin pci express might connectors. this is the same type that you will find on the radeon hd 4870/4890 and geforce gtx 285 cards.

The radeon hd 5870 naturally supports crossfire applied Science ,  and hence in the standard situation we find a twosome of connectors for bridging two or extra cards together. the merely other connectors may be initiate on the i/o panel; our amd sample featured two dual dvi connectors along with hdmi and displayport sockets. it is worth noting that all radeon hd 5870 graphics cards may befriend a maximum boldness of 2560x1600 on not one but rather three monitors.

Might consumption levels on the ati radeon hd 5870 were quite notable. while inert it was the lowest we have seen from a mid-range to high-end graphics card ,  with a complete system consumption of just 148 watts. the next best result was seen from the geforce gtx 275 with 154 watts ,  while the radeon hd 4870 x2 idled at 203 watts and the geforce gtx 295 at 245.

When gaming the radeon hd 5870 consumed the same amount of might as the geforce gtx 260 ,  343 watts; this is just very impressive given how much faster this unprecedented radeon graphics card was in comparison. the test system with the radeon hd 4870 x2 sucked down an incredible 460 watts while under load ,  which meant that it required 34% extra might than the radeon hd 5870.
Although the radeon hd 5870 was light on fuel ,  it tranquil tends to scuttle quite hot when gaming. temperatures reached a sizzling 87 degrees ,  making this one of the hottest graphics cards we tested ,  nearly on par with the radeon hd 4870 x2. that said ,  the radeon hd 5870 ran at just 38 degrees when at the windows 7 desktop.