AMD’s Radeon HD 5850: The Other Shoe Drops

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• ThePooBurner - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link

  A good repeatable test would be to have a RAID group in an instance and have them all cast a set of spells at once. the instance server separates from the rest of the server load and allows for a bit better testing. While it's true that the game is generally more CPU/RAM limited than GPU limited, especially if you have a lot of add-ons doing post processing on all the information that is shooting around. However, having been in raids with and without add-ons and such, i can tell you that i can get 45-50fps when we are just standing there waiting to attack, and then as soon as the spell effects start going off my frame rate drops like a rock. The spell effects are particle effects that overlap and mix and are all transparent to one degree or another. All those effects going off on a single target creates a lot of overlap that the GPU has to sort out in order to render correctly.
  
  What you might try is to see if you can get Blizz to put a target dummy in an instance to isolate it from the rest of the masses, and allow for sustained testing with spell effects going off in a predictable manner. (not having every testing go balls to the wall, but simply repeat a set rotation in a timed manner so that you can get an accurate gauge.

• Per Hansson - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link

  I second your question
  And also just want to say that with a very heavily volt modded and overclocked 8800GTS 512MB the performance in WoW at maximum settings with 2xAA will totally kill my card
  For example in heavily populated areas it will use more than 512MB video ram (confirmed using rivatuner)
  
  And in heavily populated areas I get like 20FPS, for example in Dalaran at peak hours (like, when I play :P)
  
  The numbers you provide for WoW are welcome, very few sites do these tests
  But more realistic numbers would be nice, representing what a big guild would see in a 20 or 40 man RAID...
  
  Perhaps you could setup a more realistic test with private servers, or if you are unwilling to go that route ask Blizzard if they could setup a testserver for you to use so you can get reproducible tests?

• biigfoot - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link

  I can't wait till we find out if those extra SIMD engines can be unlocked like the good ol' ati2mtag softmod for the 9500 -> 9700 :) Even if not, this looks like the card for my new HTPC :)

• The0ne - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link

  The charts are a bit confusing. My main focus is at the 2560x1600 and the review references 5850 CF and 285 CF but they are not to be found in any of the charts. Same for 285 SLI
  
  "With and without ambient occlusion, the 5850 comes in right where we expect it. The 5850 Crossfire on the other hand loses once again to the GTX 285 SLI in spite of beating the GTX 285 in a single card matchup."
  
  

• Ryan Smith - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link

  Whoops. The full 2560 w/o SSAO chart went AWOL. Fixed.

• giantpandaman2 - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link

  Should be heels, not heals. Unless you're referring to some MMORPG priest. :)

• KeithP - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link

  I understand you want a consistent platform to test all the video cards, but is there any possibility of testing the 5850 on a more realistic platform?
  
  Maybe something like a dual core 2.8GHz machine? I have to think the bulk of the potential buyers for this card won't have a machine anywhere near as powerful as the one you are testing on.
  
  -KeithP

• v1001 - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link

  I wonder if we'll see a single slot card. I think this is the card for me to get. I need a lower watt single slot card to work in my tiny case.

• RDaneel - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link

  Ryan, I know it's not the focus of this article, but it would be great to get a small paragraph (or a blog post or whatever) on what ATI has said in reference to the lower-spec 40nm DX11 parts. I simply don't need 4850 power in a SOHO-box, but the low 40nm idle power consumption and DX11 future-proofing are tempting me away from a 4870/90 card. What kind of prices and performance scaling are we likely to see before the end of 2009? Thanks for any info!

• Ryan Smith - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link

  We covered this as much as we can in our 5870 article. If it's not there, it's either not something we know, or not something we can comment on.
  
  http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3643...">http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3643...