The Radeon HD 5970: Completing AMD's Takeover of the High End GPU Market
by Ryan Smith on November 18, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Crysis: Warhead
As Crysis is the only game that particularly struggled under even a single 5870, this is the only game we’ve gone ahead and captured data for at resolutions other than 2560.
The 5970 gains the distinction of being the only single-card setup we have tested that can break 30fps on Crysis at 2560 – it’s enough to at least push Crysis in to playable territory here, even though we’ll gladly take more performance if we can get it. So Crysis hasn’t quite fallen yet, but it’s very close. It’s also something where the 5970CF results would be quite interesting if we had them.
Interestingly, the 5970 manages to lose not only to the 5870CF, but the 5850CF by a very slight amount. The 5970 is clocked exactly the same as the 5850CF and has 2 more SIMDs, so we certainly aren’t expecting it to lose here. This may be driver related or it may be PCIe bandwidth related (each half of the 5970 only gets 8x bandwidth) but we aren’t sure which.
Meanwhile the GTX 295 sees the first of many falls here. It falls behind the 5970 by 30%-40%. The 5870 gave it a run for its money, so this is no surprise.
Finally, overclocking the 5970 to 5870 speeds nets you another 14%-18% in performance, which is quite interesting since the theoretical difference is only supposed to be 15%. But these numbers are repeatable; the 5970 likes being overclocked here.
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hechacker1 - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
I once had that problem too. Even if my display went to sleep it would reset the monitor configuration.I think disabling this helped:
http://www.tomstricks.com/how-to-disable-or-enable...">http://www.tomstricks.com/how-to-disabl...multimon...
I think eventually catalyst was updated to fix the display loosing connection during sleep (in my case).
The0ne - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
I think we all seen enough data on this poorly programmed game to removed it from the test. There's really not point as even this card, 5970, can choke on it. Seriously, utter crap of programming.lifeblood - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
Three 30" monitors? Dude, I had to work hard just to afford a single 24" monitor. And because I'm salary I don't get overtime (although they do make me work it). If I get a second job flipping burgers at the local fast food joint I might be able to afford two more 24" displays. I bet Eyefinity would still look awesome on that.And I was only kidding about you getting paid too much. The article was great. Now I am eagerly awaiting Nvidia's response.
haplo602 - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
nice review.but PLEASE MARK THE REVIEWED CARD to STAND OUT in the GRAPHS next time. going top down through the list and reading each caption to finaly find the card for EACH GRAPH is realy annoying.
The0ne - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
Anand graphs are really annoying at times. I wish they were more consistent. Xbitlabs are easy and consistent which makes it a breeze for people like me who just wants to look at the specifics.Dante80 - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
I concur, the graphs can be a little confusing without some sort of color coding...Here is a suggestion Ryan. Use light green and orange for Nvidia and AMD single cards, dark green and red for SLI and Xfire setups and lastly, blue for the card reviewed (you can differentiate with light and dark blue readings for the same card in Xfire or OCed readings). I think the graphs would look much better this way, and its a very easy to implement feature anyway...
cheers...^^
SJD - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
Great and interesting article, but I'm confused about this Eyefinity situation again.You state that your monitor didn't support mini-DP, just 'regular' DP, and go on to talk about buying an adapter. Yet, it appears (according to the wiki page at any rate) that mini-DP is electrically identical to regular DP, so only a mini-DP to regular DP cable would be needed. Indeed, other reviews of the 5970 show such an adapter cable included with the card...
What's the score, and why the comment that you need an *active* adapter to go from mini-dp to regular dp?
Simon
strikeback03 - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
The active adapter went to DVI, I was wondering the same about a simple mini-DP to DP cableAnand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
I've clarified :)Once you move to three displays AMD runs out of timing sources, the miniDP port must use an active adapter if you're using three displays.
Take care,
Anand
mczak - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
This is however incorrect. You need active adapters because rv870 only supports 2 clock sources for display outputs. However, DP (or mini-DP) don't need any such clock source because they use a fixed clock independent from display timings. Hence, if you want to connect more than 2 monitors using DVI/HDMI/VGA you need active DP-to-something adapter. But for DP outputs this isn't needed. And mini-DP is the same as DP anyway electrically.