Hardware Gigabyte Radeon HD 5870 SOC Graphics Card Review

This Super Over Clock edition Radeon HD 5870 aims to deliver GeForce GTX 480-beating performance

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/07/01/gigabyte-hd-5870-soc-graphics-card-review/1

 

yet another overpriced oveclocked 5870.

 

anyone else read the card name and think "System On (a) Chip"?

makes the card sound a lot more impressive than just "super over clock"

 

("Size: 267m long, dual-slot" - missing the extra m for mm)

interesting review.. however for that price you could almost get a 5970.

 

what i was precisely about to post.

 

ForceWare 257.21 needed, the 480 and 470 will thank you for it :-D

Like I said, they'll only get faster as time goes by......

/own trumpet blowing.

If your gonna get a 5870 get the cheapest 2gb model you can find. all other variations are just NOT worth jack.

 

my tft is 1,680 x 1,050 the gtx 470 does better than the 5870 with aa on .
1,680 x 1,050 4xAA 16xAF, DirectX 11, Maximum Detail dirt 2 gtx 470 ahead
1,680 x 1,050 4xAA 16xAF, DirectX 11, Maximum Detail, HBAO off bad com 2 gtx 470 ahead
my real concern though is power and heat as im sure it will be for most people energy efficiency is a must in todays climate even if we the jerks that dominate this Glorious earth dont think were responsible for its current and future heatwaves that might bring some more delicate species to thier death and eventual xtinction . after reading the rules for free scan dels i hope this post is ok. cause im going for a GTX 470 .

 

"The card still only requires a pair of 6-pin power connections though, rather than the beefier 8-pin connector of a GTX 480 or a HD 5870."

*ahem* It IS a 5870... End of the fourth paragraph on the specifications page (First page)

 

A 5970... Fixed, thanks!

 

Waste of money little else to say

2gb version is even bigger waste of cash

 

In the review you say this card its 10.5'' lenght.

Why the Regular HD is rated at 11.2'' lenght?.. is this just because of the "batmobile" case?... im goin for my HD 5870 in a couple of hours and im about to make a litle mod in my case to fit this card (i had a 9800 GTX and fited perfectly)

THNX, great review

 

Ouch! Gigabyte don't normally drop balls like this very often but they have here. You could get a Gigabyte standard card for over £150 cheaper.

 

Yeah, the reference cooler overhangs the PCB by that much

 

I only wish I had the finances for any of the cards in the tests. Was quite amazed at the power consumption and was expecting better from AMD.
Any donations for graphics cards welcome.

 

Dude, just look at the prices. A stock 5870 is an excellent buy, as on average it delivers around 90% of a gtx480 card, while consuming over 100W less while loaded, about 30W less while idling + quite often matching or exceeding it's performance.
Get your fanboism under control.

 

He never said anything about getting a GTX card, he just said get a 2GB model, for a bit of futureproofing.

I think it's whack to get a 2GB model, but what he says still has some merit.

Even if he did suggest getting a Fermi card though, it's not like it's the end of the world.

 

and what I meant was that from his post you could understand that any 5870 is a bad buy, and new drivers for gtx4xx series work magic for them - while ignoring the power and heat issues totally.
of course the 2GB card is a long shot, a too long one in my opinion: the only games i know that benefit from 2GB are GTAIV and Crysis at 2560x1600x4AA, which makes Crysis unplayable anyway. My point is simple: a 5870 is just a much better buy, giving you almost all the performance of a GTX480 without the power or heat issues. Granted, in some cases - like Farcry 2 - the nvidia card is stronger, but those cases are too rare in my opinion to matter.

 

not this 5870 vs gtx480 debate, we all know gtx480 is fastest.

unlike 4870, where it requires a 1GB memory to make it run smoothly in many games. 2GB in can 5870 only show benefit in 1 game at extreme resolution. 1GB is perfectly fine in 5870 for at least a year.

the only game that will be remotely demanding is Crysis 2, it is optimised for console so that we can be sure texture won't need more than 1GB.

 

4870 512 vs 4870 1gb was a huge dif

problem is the 5870 1gb vs 5870 2gb only comes into play at obsence rez were you get 8 fps anyway so is unplayble.

when you need 2gb of ram every card will ship with 2gb of ram till then its just a dream that doesnt even give performance increases

the 480 isnt faster cause it has more memory.

 

Just picked up my new videocard from the store, its an XFX and it doesnt have the reference cooler, I took a piece of steel out of my case for nothing ¬ ¬'