Hardware Asus Radeon HD 5870 Voltage Tweak Review

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2009/10/20/asus-ati-radeon-hd-5870-volt-tweak-review/1

The ATI Radeon HD 5870 is the fastest single GPU graphics card available right now, but Asus looks to have a way to make it even faster with its Voltage Tweak edition. Allowing you to alter the card's Vcore voltage and unlock even more overclocking headroom, just how fast can the HD 5870 go? We find out.

 

<3 You guys for including an 8800GT on there. I can actually see how much of a performance jump I'd get if I upgraded!

What version of SmartDoctor are you running? I've got 5.34 (I think) and that allows saving your Overclock between reboots. Unless you meant Overclocks + Voltage settings - I have no idea if my version supports that.

 

why didn'y you benchmark the asus 4870 oveclocked in games? i want to see how good this card is at overclocking and the performace boosts

 

I wondered that too. I get that the card doesn't come overclocked and not all cards will clock equally, but given that this product is aimed at overclockers it surely makes sense to run it overclocked in the benchmarks - how many people are going to buy this and run it at stock?

Looks like a nice card though. Every day we fail to see any sign of activity in the nvidia camp is another day for AMD to pull ahead!

 

You mean those Crysis performance graphs on the "overclocking" page showing stock vs overclocked performance we're enough?

Realistically though, the overclocked settings will only have an affect under certain cirumstances. Some games will be core clock limited, other more memory dependant, and others still will be driver based when it comes to performance. The Overclocking graphs we've included give you an idea of what we got from the card, but there's no way to say you'll get the same due to differences in the GPU between cards.

The stock performance we've given here is what the card WILL deliver, not what it might deliver if you get the voltage tweak right.

 

It looked very promising until I saw the temperature. Without better/water cooling that beast it is a nice proof of concept, nothing more nothing less. I don't think I want a card that goes all the way up to 80+, maybe even 90 degrees.

 

You've never owned a reference HD4850, have you perplekks?
Those babies run right up to 90C without any throttling. I think ATI chips just run hotter because they can handle it, unlike nVidia's bull**** chips that die if they go over 65C.

 

This does indicate that with some process tweaks, AMD will have some room to play with in terms of GPU speeds once Nvidia releases its new product. That should be interesting.

 

No I haven't, true.
My 8800GTS/640 runs nicely <70 and I like it.

Still I think fewer heat sources in a system are a good thing. And Roto might be right there: New process, cooler, very good performance, low heat >> me likey!

 

What's to stop one from flashing their other partner 5870 BIOS with the Asus one to unlock the over-volt potential?
Just a thought if it's even doable.

 

erm, we couldn't possibly comment on whether this was possible....

 

Voiding your warranty?

 

The STALKER: Clear Sky looks like a real power drainer. I own the HD4850 but it ran at minimum 10fps on that card!

 

I wish I had £300+ I could spend on a 5870.

 

1) You'll void your warranty.
2) The card I tried to do it on ended up as a paperweight.

 

Theres probably an Asus chip on there somewhere....like they have on their motherboards....

 

For a side grade in performance?

 

Nope, physically it's just the same as any other HD 5870 - all the Asus tweakery is done in the VBIOS.

 

i wish Asus gave out these instead of gtx285's.

 

my 9800GT runs at up to 105C at full load and has done for months (folding)
there rated to 125C