Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in

ATI Radeon HD 5870: DirectX 11, Eyefinity, And Serious Speed

ATI Radeon HD 5870: DirectX 11, Eyefinity, And Serious Speed
By , Fedy Abi-Chahla

Originally, I titled this piece ATI Radeon HD 5870: Learning From Nvidia's Mistakes. That was an unfair way to kick things off, I decided. But I still want to explain my justification for that idea. When Nvidia launched the GeForce GTX 260 and GTX 280 boards more than a year ago, the company knew it had the fastest board on the market and wasn’t afraid to charge a premium for it; $650, to be exact.

How utterly devastating, then, when the Radeon HD 4870 launched a couple of weeks later, besting the $400 GeForce GTX 260 with a $300 price point. It’s not that ATI had snatched away the performance crown—Nvidia still had the fastest card around. But enthusiasts (especially those who actually bought one of the GeForce GTX 200-series boards) were certainly left feeling gouged when the cards immediately fell to more competitive prices. Good way to earn extra margin on a big GPU. Bad way to encourage brand loyalty.

Without spoiling too much of today’s story, ATI seems to have learned a thing or two from the green faux pas. It’s launching a flagship just under $400 and a second-in-command board based on the same design at $259. That’s still a lot of money, but the two cards are being positioned as GeForce GTX 295 and GeForce GTX 285 killers. Could these boards really knock down Nvidia’s fastest pair at even lower prices?

They Began By Scaring Me

ATI’s Radeon HD 5870 briefing, held in the belly of the decommissioned U.S.S. Hornet aircraft carrier, mixed mainstream press and the more enthusiast-oriented tech folks. So, when the presentation began and the company started talking about buying graphics based on a fuzzy-wuzzy user experience, I started to worry that we’d next hear how 3D gaming was fast enough already. The message was that end-users don't care about megahertz, shader units, or cache repositories; they want smooth gaming, easy transcoding (but call it something cozier, please), and flawless Blu-ray playback. Hopefully that's not entirely true for the enthusiasts here to learn about Cypress, ATI's 2+ billion transistor, 40nm GPU. I'd like the think the engine powering Radeon HD 5870 is actually full of stuff you'll want to know more about.

Fortunately, after a group hug and a round of Kumbaya, ATI switched gears and dove into a much more technical round of info-sharing on its Evergreen-series GPUs: everything from the chip's design to the dual-GPU Hemlock, mainstream Juniper, and entry-level Redwood and Cedar, slated for a launch in 2010.

We also took away plenty of information about DirectX 11, Windows 7, stream computing, ATI’s Eyefinity technology, power consumption, video playback, and of course, performance. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so let’s start with a look at the Cypress GPU sitting at the heart of today’s two newcomers.

Ask a Category Expert

Create a new thread in the UK Article comments forum about this subject

Example: Notebook, Android, SSD hard drive

Display all 31 comments.
This thread is closed for comments
  • 1 Hide
    Anonymous , 23 September 2009 14:49
    anyone seen these in the uk?
  • 1 Hide
    jimishtar , 23 September 2009 15:25
    now this is someting. cant wait to see what nvidia will come up with.
  • 1 Hide
    jimishtar , 23 September 2009 17:40
    does this mean that the prices of existing 48xx cards will go down?
  • 0 Hide
    siunit , 23 September 2009 19:13
    They are scheduled for release on the 25th in the UK according to major online retailers expected stock date.
  • 0 Hide
    dopeydog , 23 September 2009 19:25
    check out novatech and ebuyer.

    http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Graphics-ATI/ATIHD5800Series/

    http://www.ebuyer.com/search?store=2&cat=48&subcat=2999

    best price for 5870 £299.99 delivered ebuyer
  • 1 Hide
    cyber_jockey , 23 September 2009 20:57
    My god the 4870x2 finally got a rival
  • 0 Hide
    Anonymous , 23 September 2009 21:10
    Smooth gaming again!?!? YAY
  • 0 Hide
    plasmastorm , 23 September 2009 22:07
    available for pre order on scan.co.uk now £320
  • 0 Hide
    ainarssems , 23 September 2009 22:48
    All those connectors are nice but first thing I thought when I first saw pictures was there is not enough vents on the backto cool that card properly. Hopefully some board partners will come up with versions with full PCI slot cooling. Eyfinity looks better, but all I need is two DVI connectors one for monitor and other for projector.

    Now lets see what Nvidia brings out, lets hope something competitive in performance and price. I hope prices drop by Cristhmas to £200-259 for 5870
  • 0 Hide
    ainarssems , 23 September 2009 22:53
    At guru3d they overclocked to 925 core/ 5400 memory could not go further because of temp problems. I wonder what would they do with better cooling. 1GHZ/6GHz?...Now that would be sweet.Link: http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5870-review-test/26
  • 0 Hide
    atomdrift , 24 September 2009 00:54
    ainarssemsAll those connectors are nice but first thing I thought when I first saw pictures was there is not enough vents on the backto cool that card properly. Hopefully some board partners will come up with versions with full PCI slot cooling.


    Anandtech addressed this concern in their review: "As far as the 5870 is concerned, this is solid proof that the half-slot exhaust vent isn’t going to cause any issues with cooling."
  • 0 Hide
    atomdrift , 24 September 2009 00:58
    Here's the source link to the above quotation.

  • 0 Hide
    atomdrift , 24 September 2009 01:00
    Third time's the charm?

  • 0 Hide
    ainarssems , 24 September 2009 02:03
    I have seen Anandtech's article, however they did hit 100C and started to throtle in /crossfire on Toms review and Guru3d temps limited overclocking so there is room for improvement in cooling.

    Also I wonder if 2GB version would perform better at high resolutions with AA
  • -5 Hide
    jcwbnimble , 24 September 2009 03:46
    No Crossfire? Really? What was ATI thinking releasing a top of the line video card that can't support a major feature set? One of the major selling points is that you can run 3 displays off this one card, yet you need to Crossfire two of these to get playable frame rates. Problem, you can't Crossfire these cards (yet?).

    They should have dispensed with the third video connection in favor of extra ventilation, which it sounds like this card needs. If users are so gung ho about running 3 or more dispays, then wait for the Eyefinity card.

    Glad to see ATI releasing a product that puts a boot up Nvidia's arse, but they shouldn't have released it without solving the Crossfire issue.
  • 0 Hide
    ainarssems , 24 September 2009 04:45
    Must be mistake. Check benchmarks, they include crossfire results so it is working. They probably had the cards for some while for testing and started writing article and drivers did not support crossfire at the start and does support now. They just forgot to edit part of the article where it says that it does not support crossfire.
  • 0 Hide
    shrex , 24 September 2009 15:55
    any word on when the 5670 is gonna come out
  • -1 Hide
    deepblue69uk , 24 September 2009 16:52
    Yes, try www.overclockers.co.uk
  • -4 Hide
    chockimon , 24 September 2009 18:28
    £320 ouch, what a rip off and no Physx. I think this time round Nvidia's mid range card, the GTX360 will trounce all over this card from a great height.
  • 0 Hide
    wikkus , 24 September 2009 19:39
    chockimon£320 ouch, what a rip off and no Physx. I think this time round Nvidia's mid range card, the GTX360 will trounce all over this card from a great height.


    Wow, 8 minutes before the first fanboi commentard...

    As someone who holds allegiance with neither vendor -- both have a place in our house -- this looks great from a stirring-up the market perspective.

    R.

Display more comments