Changing the Game - ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5

The next round of the graphics card war begins with the launch of the world's first fully DirectX11 compatible graphics card - the ATI Radeon HD 5870. Manufactured using a 40nm process, packing a staggering 2.15 billion transistors, and with twice the stream processor count of the Radeon HD 4870, we put it through its paces to see what ATI's new GPU is capable of.

The Road to Evergreen

The ATI Radeon HD 4000 series made its debut with the Radeon HD 4870 and HD 4850 in June last year. Little did we know that these were the cards that heralded the comeback of ATI. More importantly, it marked the beginning of a new strategy for the graphics chip giant. Instead of going all out with NVIDIA for the performance crown, ATI focused their efforts on producing an efficient mainstream performance GPU that would have an unbeatable price/performance ratio.

The end result was the RV700 chip. With the chip in hand, expanding their line-up from thereon was simple. Enthusiast-class products would make use of a multi-GPU solution, whereas mainstream and budget-class cards were achieved by having cut down versions (by disabling stream processors) of the original chip. This strategy proved to be a huge success as the value offered by the Radeon HD 4800 series was so compelling that it forced NVIDIA to slash prices of their equally new GeForce GTX 280 and 260. It would not be hyperbole to say that NVIDIA severely underestimated the performance and value of ATI's Radeon HD 4800 cards.

Following the success of the Radeon HD 4870 and HD 4850, ATI invaded the budget segment with the Radeon 4600 series and later the Radeon 4350 and 4550, while the massive dual-GPU Radeon HD 4870 X2 satiated enthusiasts' lust for power. The Radeon 4000 series ended on a forward-looking note with the Radeon 4700 series, a low to mid-end graphics solution, the first GPU manufactured on a 40nm process that would be the bedrock for the next-gen Radeon. And rounding it off, ATI introduced the formidable Radeon HD 4890, the first GPU in the world to achieve 1GHz clock speeds

at the core. All in all, the Radeon 4000 series was a great success, firmly marking ATI's return to "the game".

It won't be easy to follow up on success of the Radeon 4000 series, but it is finally here, ATI's next-generation graphics chip. Codenamed Evergreen, the new Radeon 5000 series debuts with the Radeon 5800 line of mainstream performance graphics cards. These new cards utilize the latest 40nm RV800 chip which boasts many technical advances. Before we continue, here's a quick look at how ATI's latest card compares against its predecessors and competition.

PowerColor has ditched the warrior girl for a fresh look on their packaging with the new Radeon HD 5870.

PowerColor has ditched the warrior girl for a fresh look on their packaging with the new Radeon HD 5870.

What's New?

One of the biggest changes of the new Radeon HD 5000 series is ATI's decision to implement a completely new nomenclature. As you may already know, Evergreen is the designated codename for all of ATI's DirectX 11 capable GPUs and instead of numbering them, ATI has given each GPU proper names. As befits the Evergreen moniker, each GPU is named after a species of coniferous trees. Incidentally, coniferous trees are those that do not lose their leaves in winter, hence Evergreen.

The Radeon HD 5800 series has been bestowed with the codename Cypress, and more specifically, the GPU found in the Radeon HD 5870 is known as Cypress XT. The Radeon HD 5850, on the other hand, is known as Cypress PRO.

Lots of greenery heading our way. After the Cypress, we'll be seeing the Hemlock, Juniper, Redwood and Cedar. This forms ATI's new Radeon 5000 series.

Lots of greenery heading our way. After the Cypress, we'll be seeing the Hemlock, Juniper, Redwood and Cedar. This forms ATI's new Radeon 5000 series.

Names aside, the Cypress GPU is a technological marvel that showcases Moore's Law. First and foremost, it is the first commercially available DirectX 11 capable GPU in the world. Apart from that, ATI is still the only graphics chip maker to offer GPUs built using a 40nm process.

Next, the Radeon HD 5870 and HD 5850 offer tremendous amount of computing might. Refining on the TeraScale architecture seen on the Radeon 4800 GPUs, the improved TeraScale 2 architecture on the Radeon 5800 GPUs doubles on what its predecessors had. Both Radeon HD 5800 GPUs pack over 2 billion transistors and the HD 5870 is capable of churning out nearly 3 teraFLOPS of sheer computing power. Furthermore, the Radeon HD 5870 has a whopping 1600 stream processors, 80 texture mapping units and 32 raster operator units, as we said, it is effectively double that of the Radeon HD 4870.

Raw power aside, ATI also claims to have vastly improved the Radeon 5800 series' appetite for power. Amazingly for a card packing so many transistors, the Radeon 5870 has a rated maximum TDP of only 188W, which is just about the same as the previous generation Radeon HD 4890 and HD 4870. Even more impressive however, is that it is rated to consume only 27W of power at idle.

ATI says this is achieved by more intelligent PowerPlay technologies, which throttles GPU and memory clock speeds as well as voltage according to GPU load. For instance, the GPU will have much reduced clock speeds when running your desktop application as compared to a 3D intensive game. We'll definitely be putting this claim to the test.

ATI Eyefinity

With the Radeon HD 5800 series, ATI is also introducing something new called Eyefinity. In a nutshell, what this means is extended support for multi-monitor setups, with up to six screens in fact. With the standard Radeon HD 5870, you'll be able to power up to three screens at up to 2560 x 1600 resolution each.

But with a special Eyefinity variant of the Radeon HD 5870 however, you'll be able to hook up to six monitors at full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution via DisplayPorts . Although this feature is for a decidedly niche audience, it looks pretty impressive especially if you are into flight and racing simulators, or if you're the kind who needs multiple applications open for viewing at the same time, like monitoring the stock markets. Eyefinity is also fully customizable, allowing you to arrange the screens as you wish and you can have your monitors in landscape or portrait mode.

Eyefinity is probably only for the most extreme hardcore power-users, but it opens up a world of possibilities of what you can do with your system. Here are some ways that you can set your monitors up.

Eyefinity is probably only for the most extreme hardcore power-users, but it opens up a world of possibilities of what you can do with your system. Here are some ways that you can set your monitors up.

The Eyefinity 6 variant of the Radeon HD 5870 comes with six DisplayPorts, allowing you to drive up to six monitors at full HD resolution. DVI was not an option since that would mean a tri-slot card at least.

The Eyefinity 6 variant of the Radeon HD 5870 comes with six DisplayPorts, allowing you to drive up to six monitors at full HD resolution. DVI was not an option since that would mean a tri-slot card at least.

DirectX 11

When talking about ATI's latest graphics cards, there's also a need to elaborate a bit on the improvements and new features that are found in DirectX 11, the latest version which is only found in the upcoming Windows 7 (and for Vista with an update). One of the most important new features that DirectX 11 brings to the table is compute shaders, made possible by DirectCompute. This feature makes it possible for the GPU to take on non-graphics related tasks such as physics acceleration. In fact, with DirectX 11 integral in Windows 7, ATI has previously shown demos of a drag and drop video transcoding function native in Windows 7.

On this related note about GPU computing, AMD has also partnered with software vendors like Adobe, ArcSoft, CyberLink and Sony to offer ATI Stream support on the Radeon HD 5800 series for applications involving video transcoding, encoding, DVD upscaling and other tasks which can take advantage of GPU computing.

Apart from DirectCompute, multi-threaded rendering is another eagerly anticipated feature. Traditionally, commands to the GPU are handled by a single CPU core, which underutilizes the other CPU cores and hampers the GPU. But in DirectX 11, multiple CPU cores can now be used to queue commands to the GPU. This makes better use of the CPU cores and will also greatly speed up the rendering pipeline.

Last but not least, another notable feature that DirectX 11 introduces is called tessellation. What tessellation does is increase the number of polygons visible in real time dynamically by means of a complex algorithm. This results in greater detail and translates to a higher level of realism. To get a better understanding of tessellation, here's a demo video by ATI below. While tessellation has been touted and supported by ATI GPUs since 2001, it did not get broad support previously. With this feature now in DirectX 11, expect developers to make greater use of it.




The ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5

The new ATI Radeon 5870 is not a small card, measuring a hefty 11 inches, it is noticeably larger than the Radeon HD 4890 and about the same size as the dual-GPU Radeon HD 4870 X2. Its core is clocked at 850MHz (identical to the Radeon HD 4890), whereas its GDDR5 memory is running at a hyper-fast 4400MHz DDR.

One criticism that is often leveled at the older Radeon 4800 series was that it uses a 256-bit memory interface, instead of a 512 or 448-bit one like cards from NVIDIA. Sadly, the new Cypress series GPUs are still using a 256-bit wide memory interface. But since GDDR5 memory offers twice the bandwidth of GDDR3 memory and the memory on the Radeon HD 5870 is clocked at a staggering 4400MHz DDR, overall memory bandwidth of the HD 5870 is still a highly respectable 153.6GB/s - this is significantly greater than that of the HD 4890 and comparable to NVIDIA's top SKUs. Speaking of memory, the Radeon HD 5870 will be launched with 1GB of frame buffer, with 2GB variants appearing only later.

Heat was also a problematic issue for the older generation 4800 series cards and ATI has drastically redesigned the cooler to ensure a cooler graphics card this time round. In terms of noise, this new cooler is fantastically quiet.

Take your time to ogle at the new Radeon HD 5870.

You might not be able to tell from this shot, but the new Radeon HD 5870 is a massive 11 inches long.

You might not be able to tell from this shot, but the new Radeon HD 5870 is a massive 11 inches long.

As this shot clearly shows, the new ATI card is markedly longer than the Radeon HD 4890 and trounces even the GeForce GTX 295, albeit by a slight margin.

As this shot clearly shows, the new ATI card is markedly longer than the Radeon HD 4890 and trounces even the GeForce GTX 295, albeit by a slight margin.

The new card has two DVI, a single DisplayPort and a single HDMI port. The card can drive up to three monitors using the DisplayPort and any combination of DVI and HDMI port. Do note that with two TMDS transmitter still, one cannot drive three monitors without using the DisplayPort. Worryingly, the exhaust vent seems small and we hope it won't adversely affect the operating temperatures of the card.

The new card has two DVI, a single DisplayPort and a single HDMI port. The card can drive up to three monitors using the DisplayPort and any combination of DVI and HDMI port. Do note that with two TMDS transmitter still, one cannot drive three monitors without using the DisplayPort. Worryingly, the exhaust vent seems small and we hope it won't adversely affect the operating temperatures of the card.

In an attempt to compensate for the tiny exhaust vent, ATI has two vents round the front to draw in cool air.

In an attempt to compensate for the tiny exhaust vent, ATI has two vents round the front to draw in cool air.

The card has two CrossFire connectors. Quad-CrossFire setup is possible, and one can only imagine what kind of performance that'll give.

The card has two CrossFire connectors. Quad-CrossFire setup is possible, and one can only imagine what kind of performance that'll give.

Test Setup

The graphics cards were tested using our Vista system which has the following specifications:

Windows Vista SP1 Test System:

  • Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 (3.00GHz)
  • Gigabyte X38T-DQ6 motherboard
  • 2 x 1GB DDR3-1333 Aeneon memory in dual channel mode
  • Seagate 7200.10 200GB SATA hard drive
  • Windows Vista Ultimate with SP1

The Radeon HD 5870 will be compared against the Radeon HD 4890 and HD 4850 from ATI. The two cards were chosen because the Radeon HD 4890 is presently ATI's most powerful single GPU, while the HD 4850 was first launched alongside the Radeon HD 4870 when the HD 4000 series made its debut last year. From the green camp, the top three GPUs were selected to do battle. Will the Radeon HD 5870 outperform the GeForce GTX 285 to take the title of fastest single GPU in the world? Can it stand up to the might of the monstrous GeForce GTX 295? To find out, do read on.

The full list of cards and driver versions used:

  • ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5
    (ATI Driver 8.66 Beta)
  • ATI Radeon HD 4890 1GB GDDR5
    (Catalyst 9.8)
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB
    GDDR3 (Catalyst 9.8)
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295
    1792MB GDDR3 (ForceWare 190.62)
  • NVIDIA GeForce

    GTX 285 1GB GDDR3 (ForceWare 190.62)
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 896MB
    GDDR3 (ForceWare 190.62)

The cards were tested using the following benchmarks:

  • Futuremark 3DMark06
  • Futuremark 3DMark Vantage
  • Crysis Warhead
  • Far Cry 2
  • Warhammer: Dawn of War 2

Windows Vista Results - 3DMark06

The new Radeon HD 5870 lived up to its high-end billing by clocking an incredible 17122 3Dmarks on the lowest setting. At the highest, most demanding setting, it was still able to notch up an impressive 14629 3DMarks. In some cases, the new Radeon HD 5870 can score as much as 36% greater than the older HD 4890.

It also comprehensively defeated the reigning single GPU champ, the GeForce GTX 285. In fact, its scores were greater than that of the dual-GPU GeForce GTX 295. Obviously, the new Radeon packs some serious firepower.

Windows Vista Results - 3DMark Vantage

The new Radeon HD 5870 continued to do well in 3DMark Vantage, completely obliterating the Radeon HD 4890 and even the fearsome GeForce GTX 285. Its scores were about 20% greater than those of the GeForce GTX 285.

The Radeon HD 5870 didn't do too badly against the GeForce GTX 295 either. In most cases, it was only slightly behind and definitely gave the twin-GPU monster something to think about.

Windows Vista Results - Crysis Warhead & Far Cry 2

The impressive Radeon HD 5870 maintained its fine performance in Crysis Warhead as well. It was the fastest single GPU card, miles ahead of the Radeon HD 4890 and GeForce GTX 285, and wasn't too far off from the GeForce GTX 295, especially at the highest resolution. Perhaps the 2GB variant of the HD 5870 may be able to pose a bigger threat to the GTX 295.

ATI's latest card was absolutely stellar on Far Cry 2, and absolutely blitzed the competition on the lower resolution settings. With 4x anti-aliasing enabled, it more than matched the GeForce GTX 295 and left the GeForce GTX 285 in the dust. However, the GTX 295 did fight back in the more intensive run with 8x anti-aliasing enabled, and that is most probably due to its significantly larger 1792MB frame buffer.

Windows Vista Results - Dawn of War 2

In Dawn of War 2, the Radeon HD 5870 was still the best performing card by far, consistently recording scores above 40fps. By now, it's evident that ATI has a monster GPU on their hands and NVIDIA would certainly do well to take note.

Temperature

Even with a 40nm manufacturing process and a redesigned cooler, the Radeon HD 5870 remains a hot card. The card felt warm to touch during operation and it was emitting much warm air through its rear exhaust vents. Nevertheless, 78 degrees Celsius for a card with such high performance is acceptable.

Power Consumption

ATI promised lower power consumption with the Radeon HD 5870 and it duly delivered. At idle, it recorded a lowly 141W, which is considerably lower than both the Radeon HD 4890 and the GeForce GTX 285. In fact, its idle power draw is lower than that of the Radeon HD 4850.

At load, a reading of 285W was still hefty, but taking into its account its performance, it certainly delivers a higher performance per watt ratio than the older generation Radeon 4800 series cards and NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 295 and GTX 285.

Overclocking

The Radeon HD 4890 was famous for being the first GPU to cross the 1GHz barrier. We intended to replicate that with the new card, but sadly, ATI's Overdrive overclocking utility limited us to only 900MHz at the core and 1300MHz (5200MHz DDR) for the memory. We could safely run the Radeon HD 5870 at those speeds and it gave us a 5% increase in performance when running the Extreme preset on 3DMark Vantage. We could be lucky with our card, but it seems to us that the Radeon HD 5870 has much untapped overclocking potential. Hopefully we'll be able to explore this aspect in the coming weeks.

The Game Changer

As the benchmark results clearly showed, the Radeon HD 5870 is outstanding. By packing double the stream processors, ATI has quite simply created a monster of a GPU. It easily outperformed the GeForce GTX 285, and was more than a match for the GeForce GTX 295. We cannot imagine how fast the upcoming Radeon HD 5870 X2 (aka Hemlock) would perform.

Performance aside, ATI has also done exceedingly well in terms of improving the power efficiency. Idle power draw is the lowest we've seen yet, and its rated TDP is amazing considering the performance it offers. Right now, the Radeon HD 5870 is easily the best performance per watt ratio GPU in the market. What's disappointing however, is that ATI couldn't bring operating temperatures down. Despite the new cooler, the HD 5870 remains quite the heat producer like its predecessors, and that's a bit of a downer since heat is one key consideration when pondering a CrossFireX multi-GPU setup. This is one area that ATI could certainly improve on.

When it comes to pricing, ATI is banking on its sweet spot strategy, which is to offer the best performance at each price point. At US$379, the Radeon HD 5870 is certainly not what you would call an affordable card, but it seems that ATI has chosen a very good price point. At that price, the new Radeon card costs only slightly more than a GeForce GTX 285, while remaining much less expensive than the costly GeForce GTX 295. Therefore, US$379 is a very reasonable asking price, since the 5870 more often than not, matches the GTX 295, while it easily outperforms the GTX 285.

As it is, the Radeon HD 5870 is a very quick card, but if it's too much firepower (or cost) for you to handle, the US$259 Radeon HD 5850 (which we hope to cover soon in an upcoming review) is a viable option. It packs lesser stream processors than the HD 5870, but should still be a really fast card. Looking ahead, the dual-GPU monster Radeon HD 5870 X2 is in the works, and mainstream variants of the Radeon HD 5870, codenamed Juniper, Cedar and Redwood, should become available early next year.

An outstanding card at a reasonable price, NVIDIA needs something really special to beat this.

An outstanding card at a reasonable price, NVIDIA needs something really special to beat this.

During a Radeon HD 5800 series launch event recently, ATI told the press they wanted to change the game. Well, it seems that they have done it. The new Radeon HD 5870 is nothing short of spectacular, as it provides great performance and class-leading power efficiency. The next six months will be interesting as they'll be expanding the Radeon 5000 series. Meanwhile, the green camp has remained suspiciously quiet, and not much, if anything at all, has been heard of the upcoming GT300 series.

To conclude, it is without a shadow of a doubt that the Radeon HD 5870 is the new GPU kingpin. ATI has drew first blood, now it's time to see how NVIDIA will retaliate.

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