Hardware AMD ATI Radeon HD 5970 Review

Yep, there was a dodgy tape measure in the labs that day. The card (from the end of its cooler to its output backplate) is 12.2in long. The screw-down kink adds a bit more, but that's irrelevant - the main chamber of your case needs to be 12.2in deep in order to fit this card.

Apologies for any confusion.

 

About all the comments here - as I wrote, it should be an OC-d core i7 cpu. Why I suggested it is that so you could get the best possible reflection on what the card is actually capable of. Coupled with highest settings, lots of AA etc, I believe your conclusion could be different.
While I also know, that bit has very accurate review information always, so I do not have any grudge there Just maybe, a card like this could use a review that would explore the limits of what it' can and can not take - crysis on 'high' does not seem to be it's limit

 

What are you talking about?

 

I don't know, it's hard to get over the £520 asking price frankly, regardless of what CPU we used. At US price (~£360) plus VAT, it should be £420, maybe £430 max. It needs to do a lot more than just perform in games to actually represent value for money at £520. I'd like it to make cups of tea for me as well at that price.

 

Really? wow Im not even a major review site but I got the drivers early, same goes for a few other sites, if I was you guys I would contact Terry aka Catalyst Maker so that you guys can get the most recent drivers for when you test and what not.

 

You sure?

4gb - 512mb video ram and some other gubbins =3.25gb

 

"I do not even want those ultra high end dual GPU cards" thankfully, your not in charge at Array technologies Incorporated....

 

Well, the thing is they don't reflect 'at time of launch' because outdated drivers were used, and coincidentally there are driver issues with the card.

 

FYI there is a hotfix for the 5970, might want to look into that.

 

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts and consistent asking, AMD does not afford us this luxury.

The European team we have to deal with is, to put it nicely, "overstretched". If they supply us with a card and don't tell us drivers are dropping hours before launch, how are we to know? Telepathy?

 

Yes, telepathy. Is that too much to ask from a professional e-publication in this day and age?

 

Crystal balls have existed before the dawn of binary, why dont you just use one of them if telepathy is too hard?

 

remember that batfink? Requardless of drivers provided, Bit-tech when on nubers THEY OBTAINED!! The next drivers arn't gonna suddenly magic every problem out of exsistance. At most 10fps which I doubt will make a huge difference and wanna know why? I doubt you will even get the card. The only people who get cards on launch are people who want the best no matter what. If anything bit-tech highlighted the potential problems with the card rather than trying to polish a turd. At least be greatful for that.

Remember, not everything is 100% all over the world, different cards will perform differently, within a certain margin. Bit-tech test differently from some review sites, not happy? **** OFF!!

Most likely 1 and 2 are related. Maybe a faster processor would be nice, but it does highlight that you will need a hell of a fast clock to run it. Think its time to start looking where and when cpu bottlenecks occur with each card.

 

Actually we are developing an in house RSS feeder that links directly to our brains so we can read everything, simultaneously. `

 

most other sites have the i7 clocked at 3.7Ghz (bit tech is at 3.2Ghz) for the 10-30% Drift

i got an 3x9800GX2 setup (6 video cards) thats running XP32 and it has 1.5GB of usable ram, not sure what an 5970 would use thought (most likely be 3gb or 2.5gb usable under 32bit, Moot point as you be running windows 7 x64 (maybe vista) with 4-6gb of ram any way if you can afford an 5970 i guess your not going to be using an out of date OS now)

 

how many people will actually buy this card on this site

id guess 0

so rather irelivent

id also agree about the comments above. £520 for one card no matter how good it performs. Is simply inconcievable amount of money for a graphics card. You can build a whole pc for £400 that will play games that are released now

The people who buy this will own a intel extreme cpu chip so the i920 is rather irelivent. If your willing to spend £1000 on your cpu and £520 on your graphics card. Your in a planet 99% of this community cant afford to be in

 

I am sitting here floored reading the best graphics card ever made called a "turd".
LOL!!

 

After seeing this review I had to join the site. I've been reading reviews on this site for about a year now, and i'm sorry to say but this review was trash!

This is for the staff and all the comments who think this review was accurate and on point.

Read these reviews

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5970.html

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/11/18/amd_ati_radeon_hd_5970_video_card_review/

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3679

Get another 5970 and redo the numbers please!

 

careful they are sensitive about their reviews and although they will argue the way they test and blah blah when so many other review sites get consistent numbers and then when you throw their numbers on to the graph, BT are way outside of "norm" you have to wonder whats up but ehh thats just me.

 

Like many of you i've been reading reviews for quite sometime, so it not uncommon to see reviews like this where the numbers are way off. However anyone that is a first time reader to the site and doesn't read multiple reviews for a product will be put off by this one.