AMD's Radeon HD 5870 graphics processor

techreport.com ^ | September 23, 2009 1:43 AM | Scott Wasson

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The graphics game has been nothing if not interesting the past year or so. AMD's Radeon HD 4800 series upended expectations by using a mid-sized chip to serve the bulk of the market and pairing of two of them in an X2 card to create a high-end product. This strategy has worked out pretty well, in no small part because the Radeon HD 4870 GPU has proven to be very efficient for its size. The result? Fast graphics cards have become very affordable, with prices driving to almost-embarrassing lows over time.

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Less than 18 months after the introduction of the Radeon HD 4800 series, AMD has produced a new chip that's roughly the same size yet promises to double its predecessor's power in nearly every respect, including shader processing, texturing, pixel throughput—and, yes, GPU-compute capacity. The Radeon HD 5870 is more capable, too, in a hundred little ways, not least of which is its fidelity to the DirectX 11 spec. And in a solid bonus for its target market, the card based on it looks like the Batmobile.

[TChris]

I remember reading the Read Me files of all different kinds of software over the years an i’d say the vast majority of issues these programs had had to do with either AMD Chips, ATI video cards or both at the same time.

Wow. That's news to me.

There haven't been any compatibility problems with AMD CPUs for 20 years. Intel has fallen on its face more than once, too.

Also, I've never heard of any greater issues with ATI graphics than anyone else. Besides, they've been at this much longer than nVidia. (Since 1985, vs 1993)

Graphics problems, which both ATI and nVidia have from time to time, are solved with the next driver release in every case of which I'm aware.

[mowowie]

I hear you.

There are people out there buying like 3 GTX295’s or whatever going TRI-SLI and getting like 450 FPS on last years big game.
Meanwhile the just spent mucho hundreds GPU’s and there are like hardly any good games coming out and there really hasnt been for a while.

I bought a GTX260 last Dec for 180 bucks that works completely fine with whatever game i happen to try on it.

I have a PS3 and the thing ROCKS.
The only prob is I hate using the joystick with 1st person shooters, including the great Uncharted.
I need a mouse.

It doesn’t matter, I’ve been obsessed with Battlefield 2142 on PC for 3 years now and usually play little else.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

RE: Battlefield 2142

I don't think I have seen that game used in the benchmarks of video cards I have looked at....?

Doesn't load video cards high enough?

[antiRepublicrat]

I have an Xbox 360, and it has some decent games, but at the end of the day, they are just pretty games and not much else too them.

You should try Metal Gear Solid 4 on the PS3. It's far better and more involved than any PC game I've tried. Of course the PS3 allows for a lot more game data due to Blu-Ray.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Another review at Anandtech....just starting to look at it.:

AMD's Radeon HD 5870: Bringing About the Next Generation Of GPUs

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Today’s Launch

3 months ago AMD announced the Evergreen family of GPUs, AMD’s new line of DirectX11 based GPUs. 2 weeks ago we got our first briefing on the members of the Evergreen family, and AMD publically announced their Eyefinity technology running on the then-unnamed Radeon HD 5870. Today finally marks the start of the Evergreen launch, with cards based on the first chip, codename Cypress, being released. Out of Cypress comes two cards: The Radeon HD 5870, and the Radeon HD 5850.

[right way right]

Nnvidea GTX 260 best for the money right now. $200 newegg.com

ATI has been overpricing for some time.

Hell will freeze over before I put more than one vid card in my PC. I refuse to play that game.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The Anandtech article is more about architectural details and other members of the evergreen family...Hemlock and Juniper....higher and lower than the Cypress base chip, respectively...see the link for detail.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

See link at #25 ,...Or direct link to section :

The Race is Over: 8-channel LPCM, TrueHD & DTS-HD MA Bitstreaming

[mowowie]

Battlefield 2142 is over 3 years old now I think.

I don’t think it was ever a game used for GPU bech test reviews really, at least not for too long.
The game is really just a slight improvement from the earlier Battlefield 2 game, Same game engine and stuff.

I’t works superb with the GTX260 and my new 23” 1920x1080 monitor.
The game now averages on max graphic settings around 170FPS up from around 50fps with my old 7800GT, not that anything over 60 really matters anyways.

[mowowie]

I love Newegg.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Well there is a new option coming:

Lucid Hydra 200: Vendor Agnostic Multi-GPU, Available in 30 Days

[TChris]

ATI has been overpricing for some time.

Define "overpricing"?

[right way right]

Define “overpricing”?

What cheap people like me won’t pay.

Heh.

[TChris]

What cheap people like me won’t pay.

FWIW, these new ATI chips are VERY nicely priced for what they bring to the party. nVidia will have to respond with cuts soon.

If you're more in the $100 neighborhood like me, the Radeon 4850 is a very nice GPU for the price.