Product Listing

Sibling Rivalry - ATI Radeon HD 5850

By Kenny Yeo - 27 Oct 2009

Test Setup

Test Setup

The tests will be conducted on our usual Windows Vista, Intel X38 based system:

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

Judging from the specifications of the Radeon HD 5850, we think its performance would be somewhere in between the Radeon HD 5870 and the older Radeon HD 4890. But the more pressing question is how much slower than the HD 5870 would it be? We'll have also thrown in NVIDIA's GT200 class of cards to see how the HD 5850 stacks up against NVIDIA's finest.

Here's the complete list of cards tested and the driver versions used:

  • HIS Radeon HD 5850 1GB GDDR5 (Beta 8.65)
  • ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5 (Beta 8.66)
  • ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 (Beta 8.66 RC9)
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB GDDR5 (Catalyst 9.8)
  • ATI Radeon HD 4890 1GB GDDR5 (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)
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB GDDr3 (ForceWare 190.62)

And the cards were tested using the following benchmarks:

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