AMD's Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 31, 2010 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The first time I laid eyes on this card I was visiting AMD's headquarters in Sunnyvale before the Radeon HD 5800 series launch event. I could take photos of the 6 displays it was driving, but not the card itself. So we'll start off with a picture of the things that set the Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition card apart from its 3-display counterpart.
The most obvious changes are the display outputs. While your standard 5870 has two DL-DVI, one DisplayPort and one HDMI output, the Eyefinity 6 Edition has six mini Display Port connectors.
You can further convert two of those DP outputs into any combination of DVI, HDMI (only one can be HDMI) and VGA. The remaining four connectors must remain Display Port due to the limited number of timing sources on the 5870. The card will come with two mini DP to DP adapters, 2 passive mini DP to SL-DVI dongles and one passive mini DP to HDMI dongle.
Clock speeds have not changed. The GPU still runs at 850MHz core and the memory runs at a 1.2GHz clock speed (4.8GHz data rate). Memory size did change however, the Eyefinity 6 Edition card ships with 2GB of GDDR5 to accommodate the resolutions this thing will be driving. As 256MB GDDR5 is still not available for mass production (and won't be until later this year), AMD is using 16 x 128MB GDDR5 chips in 16-bit mode.
| AMD Radeon HD 5970 | AMD Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 | AMD Radeon HD 5870 | AMD Radeon HD 5850 | |
| Stream Processors | 2x1600 | 1600 | 1600 | 1440 |
| Texture Units | 2x80 | 80 | 80 | 72 |
| ROPs | 2x32 | 32 | 32 | 32 |
| Core Clock | 725MHz | 850MHz | 850MHz | 725MHz |
| Memory Clock | 1GHz (4GHz data rate) GDDR5 | 1.2GHz (4.8GHz data rate) GDDR5 | 1.2GHz (4.8GHz data rate) GDDR5 | 1GHz (4GHz data rate) GDDR5 |
| Memory Bus Width | 2x256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| Frame Buffer | 2x1GB | 2GB | 1GB | 1GB |
| Transistor Count | 2x2.15B | 2.15B | 2.15B | 2.15B |
| TDP | 294W | 228W | 188W | 151W |
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 40nm | TSMC 40nm | TSMC 40nm | TSMC 40nm |
| Price Point | $699 | $479 | $390-420 | $300 |
As a result of the added memory, power consumption has also gone up slightly. The Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition now requires both a 6-pin and an 8-pin PCIe power connector instead of the two 6-pin connectors of the stock 5870:
The extra memory and five adapters that you get in the box do come at a price. The Radeon HD 5870 E6 Edition is expected to retail for $479. That's $100 more than the MSRP of the 5870 but only $59 more than its actual street price. It remains to be seen what the street price of the 5870 E6 will end up being given that TSMC 40nm production is still limited with improved but not yet perfect yields. These cards should be available immediately.
Update 4/1/2010: Launch prices appear to have missed their target. We're seeing the 5870E6 sold out at $499, and in-stock elsewhere at $549. This puts it at an $80 premium over the reference 1GB 5870.
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cactusdog - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Ok it might not be ideal for gaming right now but i could see ATI selling heaps of these cards for commercial purposes. Should be good for security people , finance sector, research and education, advertising dispalys etc the list goes on.OMG i just had a thought of connecting 6 HD TV's, you could make your own billboard lol.
eduardoandradeiturribarria - Monday, May 3, 2010 - link
I have 4 hdtv's to watch football games. Of course Monday nights or the Super Bowl would be may main objective. Do you think it can be done through eyefinity?nuudles - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Hi Anand,I suppose it is not possible, but would it be possible to crossfire a normal 5870 and a 5870 E6?
If AMD can enable that then I think they will sell quite a lot more: people who bought a single 5870 + use eyefinity might want an even more immersive experience, and if they could add a 5870 E6 + x-fire it with their normal 5870 they might be a lot more tempted to buy one, even if they lose 1 or 2 frames (due to 1GB+2GB vs 2x2GB, the driver would probably need to treat both cards as 1GB models) in comparison with 2 5870 E6's x-fired (still a lot more performance than a single 5870 E6)?
Thanks!
Kind regards,
Morne
GiantPandaMan - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Just wondering if you guys have tried putting 3 projectors in portrait mode and seeing how that worked. Figured 3 1280x720 projectors would make a pretty sweet wall of gaming...then use the other 3 display ports for your actual desktop monitors. Anything in the works for that? Would be a fun little project to put in Anand's theater room. :)Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
This is unbelievably tempting however I foresee two hurdles:1) Wall space. My theater has a 2.35:1 screen, I'd need something much wider (or end up with a really skinny display) for a 3x1 projector setup. I don't think I even have a room that has enough uninterrupted wall space for this to work well at a good size. Perhaps I'm thinking too big though. I could just stitch together three 80" screens or something like that.
2) Inputs. Most 16x9 projectors don't use DisplayPort, although a quick Google search reveals a few options.
I'll give it some more thought :)
Take care,
Anand
GiantPandaMan - Monday, April 5, 2010 - link
How about 3 projectors, 3 screens stitched together, and just hang them from the ceiling so you can create a curved screen? That's the beauty of using 3 projectors anyway. Figure a 5970 could drive a 2160x1280 curved screen perfectly.Patrick Wolf - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
This is just craziness. Dunno how someone couldn't just be happy with a single big 1080p TV. Ok, you can see the pixels, so what?; You can also the entire image. I'd like to see a video showing a nice (60"?) set up right next to this E6 display showing the same game or video and do a poll: "Which would you choose?"DanNeely - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
To show the difference between 1080p and 5760x2160 in a video you'd need a greater than 1080p video and display to keep it from just being down sampled away.Calin - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - link
This isn't for video - it's for things like - let's say - playing a war plane simulator and seeing actual planes in the distance, not a black dot, or for seeing at decent quality text from several large sources (like seeing several of the very large Excel spreadsheets some of the financial people use). FPS gaming still has issues, I'd say using 3 old, 1600x1200 displays in portrait mode would be best for FPS (a 2.25 aspect ratio). Even with 5 very wide monitors in portrait, you'd end up with almost 3:1 view ratio (which might be good or bad)Roland00 - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Does the extra memory make a difference in crossfire benches? I am curious for each frame buffer has to keep track of what the other frame buffer is doing, thus having a larger frame buffer would make sense. Is there any chance we can see these results?