Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 TOXIC 4GB: explosive single-card performance

[HEXUS]

The fastest graphics card we've ever tested assaults our benchmarks like a bat out of hell.

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[sammorris]

First bench I've seen of the card, but the lack of any tests outside Crysis Warhead that rely on more than 1GB of video memory render this one a little lacking.

[kalniel]

First bench I've seen of the card, but the lack of any tests outside Crysis Warhead that rely on more than 1GB of video memory render this one a little lacking.

Which other games would you recommend as representative of general performance then? Most games run fine on 512mb so looking for >1gb examples seems a little perverse

Heuxs, this is a good review IMHO - haven't seen 480SLI benches before either.. but they got taken off you before you could do the BFBC2 10minute scene render?

Considering the silicon going into one of these 'dual' cards is not far off a single GTX 480 I think ATI can be extremely proud of this generation.

[sammorris]

The GTX480 SLI comparison is welcome, and in my opinion vital. The whole raison d'etre for this card though really, is performance in scenarios where 1GB cards can't cope. You wouldn't buy one for the extra performance it offers over two 5870s.
Most games do not run fine on 512MB at high resolutions, and if you can afford a £750 GPU, you can afford a decent monitor. I would have a 5970 already if 1GB per GPU was enough for 2560x1600. It isn't.

[Jimbo75]

I'd really like to see this in eyefinity.

[sammorris]

Eyefinity is indeed a good way of testing memory stress in more games. For instance, when testing the HD5870 Eyefinity6 they ran benchmarks not at 1680x1050,1920x1200 and 2560x1600 but at 5040x1050 and 5760x1200. Don't think I saw any 7680x1600 benches

[Tarinder]

Which other games would you recommend as representative of general performance then? Most games run fine on 512mb so looking for >1gb examples seems a little perverse

Heuxs, this is a good review IMHO - haven't seen 480SLI benches before either.. but they got taken off you before you could do the BFBC2 10minute scene render?

Considering the silicon going into one of these 'dual' cards is not far off a single GTX 480 I think ATI can be extremely proud of this generation.

Yup, we had the two cards for a very short space of time. More to the point, the second card was taken away before real-world BC2 was benched.

However, we will update the results once a second card is dispatched to us, which should be early next week.

[sammorris]

Probably because it had to be passed around to other review sites, since there are so few of them

[HW_90]

only 15MHz to cause instability?

I though even reference 5970's could beat the 1GHz barrier let alone a top of the line card.

[sammorris]

Nah, not 1Ghz, especially not on a dual card like this. 1Ghz is doable, but very hard on a standard 5870. This card is already at 900, beyond factory specs. Only clocking 15mhz doesn't surprise me. The only thing that worries me is ensuring they are all stable at 900.

[HeliosUK]

It still seems like two 5850's is the best you're going to get for your money then, next upgrade from my 5770 I guess.

[jim]

Nah, not 1Ghz, especially not on a dual card like this. 1Ghz is doable, but very hard on a standard 5870. This card is already at 900, beyond factory specs. Only clocking 15mhz doesn't surprise me. The only thing that worries me is ensuring they are all stable at 900.

Yeah, it seems unlikely that they would've sent one of the least reliable cards for review, so you've got to wonder how many of those cards are going to be shipping within 10MHz of their limits... it wouldn't be the first time people have had to return cards because the factory overclock doesn't actually work properly.

[sammorris]

Helios: Best performance/£ by far is two 5850s. You get something that devastates the GTX480 for the same price. However, if you need 2GB of video memory per GPU, and you want something really fast, the 4GB HD5970 will actually be good value if it comes out at £750, since that's nearly a full £100 shy of what two decent brand Eyefinity6 5870s cost.

[jim]

It still seems like two 5850's is the best you're going to get for your money then, next upgrade from my 5770 I guess.

Maybe, but the extra heat and loss of a slot compared to the 5970 is worth considering.

Admittedly the 5*** range is cooler than the 4*** range, but running dual 4870s in my machine was a nightmare, whilst running a 4870 X2 is a breeze.

[sammorris]

There is no real extra heat with two 5850s versus a 5970, the power difference is very minor indeed. The only benefit there with the 5970 is less idle power, and given how little the 5800s use at idle, that's not much of a bargaining tool compared to the 4870 vs 4870X2 days where it certainly was.

[jim]

And a free slot, and fewer connectors off the power supply.