Last week we reported on the official public unveiling of AMD’s brand new HD 5800 graphics card series.

The brand new GPU design, formerly code named Evergreen, boasts impressive specs and on paper it is easily the most powerful GPU ever developed, which is what we would expect from a next-generation offering.

With a brand new 40nm die shrink, as well as an unforeseen number of stream processors, texture units, ROPS and a transistor count exceeding 2 billion, it comes as no surprise that the GPU has a mammoth compute performance output of 2.72 TFlops and a memory bandwidth of 153.6 GB/s.

Official HD 5800 specs

This is all very well, but considering that the primary purpose of this hardware is to run games, the most important thing to look at is how much of an in-game performance boost it offers in comparison to outgoing HD 4800 and GTX 200 series products.

After receiving an engineering sample of the HD 5870 in London three weeks ago, MyGaming has had time to burn the card in and test it out in a number of different benchmarks and games.

The first thing that we noticed is that the HD 5870 is a big card. It is easily 5cm longer than a typical HD 4870, and is comparable in size to outgoing dual-GPU products such as the HD 4870X2 and GTX295.

 

The HD 5870 is a hi-end performance product; however, unlike other current similar performing cards it only requires two 6-pin power connectors as opposed to the 8-pin connectors required by the HD 4870X2 and GTX 295. This makes it a viable option for those with slightly older power supplies.

The reference model HD 5870 includes 2 DVI ports, an HDMI port and a DisplayPort.

Having four different outputs on the back of the card reduces the size of the ventilation grill. This should mean that the card will produce high temperatures, however, despite its increased performance and slightly greater power draw than the HD 4870, it maintains similar operating temperatures to its predecessor.

While the HD 5870 draws 18W more than the HD 4870 at load, it manages to come all the way down to 27W at idle, indicating a real world drop in idle consumption of around 63W when compared to the HD 4870. This means that the card will draw very little power when users are doing things like web browsing and emailing. This will make for an overall quieter, cooler and more efficient daily operating system than was possible with the HD 4870.

Performance

Test Rig

CPU AMD Phenom II 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz

Motherboard Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P

RAM 2x2GB Mushkin DDR3 1600MHz

Graphics cards

AMD HD 5870

AMD HD 4870X2

AMD HD 4870 1GB

AMD HD 4890

Nvidia GTX 295

Nvidia GTX 285

Nvidia GTX 260 core 216

The first game we tested was Crysis Warhead. This is still the most demanding, and arguably the best looking PC game currently available.

While all the cards tested handled everything we threw at them well, Crysis Warhead managed to get even the HD5870 sweating a bit at the higher resolutions.

Crysis Warhead at 1920×1200 – 4XAA – Enthusiast settings – Frost benchmark

Nvidia GTX 295 – 34.5fps
AMD HD 5870 – 29.5fps
AMD HD 4870X2 – 23.5fps
Nvidia GTX 285 – 22.5fps
AMD HD 4890 – 20fps
AMD HD 4870 – 18fps
Nvidia GTX 260 core 216 – 17.5fps

Crysis Warhead at 1680×1050 – 4XAA – Enthusiast settings
Nvidia GTX 295 – 40.5fps
AMD HD 5870 – 35.5fps
AMD HD 4870X2 –27.5fps
Nvidia GTX 285 – 26fps
AMD HD 4890 –25.5fps
AMD HD 4870 – 22.5fps
Nvidia GTX 260 core 216 – 22fps

Unfortunately for AMD, its new performance king is still beaten by Nvidia’s monster dual GPU card in the world’s most demanding game. The HD 5870 does a great job of outperforming the dual GPU variant of its predecessor, making it a worthy update for AMD fans.

H.A.W.X at 1920 x 1200 – DX11 – Maximum visuals

Nvidia GTX 295 – 104fps
AMD HD 4870X2 – 95fps
AMD HD 5870 – 83fps
Nvidia GTX 285 – 73fps
AMD HD 4890 – 65fps
AMD HD 4870 – 56.5fps
Nvidia GTX 260 core 216 – 55.5fps

H.A.W.X at 1680×1050 – DX11 – Maximum visuals
Nvidia GTX 295 – 125.5fps
AMD HD 4870X2 – 116fps
AMD HD 5870 – 88fps
Nvidia GTX 285 – 80fps
AMD HD 4890 –72fps
Nvidia GTX 260 core 216 –63fps
AMD HD 4870 – 59.5fps

Once again, Nvidia’s GTX 295 reasserted its title as the world’s fastest graphics card. The HD 5870 was also beaten by AMD’s own dual GPU monster, the HD 4870X2, but comfortably outperformed the nearest single GPU competitor, Nvidia’s GTX 285.

Far Cry 2 at 1920×1200 – Ultra High Quality

AMD HD 4870X2 – 64.5fps
Nvidia GTX 295 – 57.5
AMD HD 5870 – 57fps
Nvidia GTX 285 – 43fps
AMD HD 4890 – 42.5fps
AMD HD 4870 – 35fps
Nvidia GTX 260 core 216 – 34.5fps

Far Cry 2 at 1680×1050 – Ultra High Quality
AMD HD 4870X2 – 69.5fps
AMD HD 5870 – 68fps
Nvidia GTX 295 – 65fps
Nvidia GTX 285 –  53fps
AMD HD 4890 – 49fps
Nvidia GTX 260 core 216 – 44fps
AMD HD 4870 – 42fps

Yet again, the HD 5870 just was not enough to best both of the dual-GPU chips, although the Dunia engine which runs the game does seem to prefer AMD to Nvidia with the HD 5870 edging out the GTX 295 for a change.

Conclusion

The HD 5870 is not quite the performance beast we had hoped it would be when AMD first unveiled its specs. While it sits comfortably as the fastest single GPU product in the world, this was expected as Nvidia has yet to respond with an equivalent product.

If the performance of the HD 5870 had been just slightly superior to the current dual-GPU products then it would have been a clear winner, but as it stands, many high-end users will already own a GTX 295 or HD 4870X2 and there is no reason for them to consider the HD 5870.

However, it is not all bad for AMD. Firstly, anyone looking to upgrade from something in the region of an 8800GTX/9800GT would do well to look at the HD 5870.

At launch the card will sell for R3 999 locally, making it significantly cheaper than its dual-GPU competitors.  Of course it also opens up the possibility of purchasing another HD 5870 a year down the line once prices have come down. While we did not get a chance to test two HD 5870s in Crossfire, based on other reviews it is safe to say that we will see the same kind of performance boost as we do with the dual-GPU variants of other AMD cards.

Then there is the low power consumption at idle which many will appreciate. Of course the HD 5870 will also have an advantage over its dual-GPU competitors when it comes to games that have poor Crossfire optimization.

Finally, the HD 5870 was tested on its launch drivers. While this is no excuse, history shows that driver maturity brings increased performance, so we can hope for as much as a 15% performance increase for the HD 5870 over the next 12 months.

Of course there is also the fact that the HD 5870 will support DX11, a feat that only its baby brother, the HD 5850 can also boast. With the much anticipated Windows 7 launching in just a few months, it is likely that DX11 will enjoy far deeper market penetration than DX10 did with Vista.

The only reason we would hold off on the HD 5870 right now is that Nvidia is busy readying to launch its own next generation platform. While Nvidia traditionally releases better performing products at higher prices, it is now in a position to enter the market with a competitively priced higher performing product.

The HD 5870 is easily the best single-GPU graphics card on the market. Easily beating the GTX 285 and getting close to the GTX 295 and HD 4870X2, both dual-GPU solutions, at R4 000 you cannot go wrong with AMD’s latest high-end offering.

Score (out of 100)

Overall 89

Performance  85

Fastest single-GPU graphics card in the world.

Value 86

Will not find equal performance, features and future proofing for R4 000.
Features 92

DX11, HDMI, 2xDVI ports, Display Port, quiet, cool and 27W idle power consumption and EyeFinity edition supports up to 6 monitor setup. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Futureproof 95

The most future proof graphics card on the market. Exclusively supports DX11. Can look forward to Crossfire if performance begins to slip.

Discus HD 5870 benchmarks in the forums