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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Lennie - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
If so, then one could suspect it's the same issue with games due to VRMs of this particular card getting heated up and throttling the card. Perhaps not enough contact between VRM and HSF or a complete lack of TIM on VRM by accident. I would have reseated the HSF if I owned that card.Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
I suspect it is VRM/heat related. The 'biggest' slaves Volterra currently supply are rated at 45 amps each afaik. Assuming ATI used the 45 amp slaves (which they must have), you've got around 135 amps on tap. Do the math for OCP or any related throttling effects kicking in. Essentially, 1.10VGPU puts you at 150w per GPU before things either shut down or need to be throttled (depends on how it's implemented as it nears peak). Any which way you look at it, ATI have used a high end VRM solution, but 4 slaves per GPU would have given a bit more leeway on some cards. I wonder what the variance is in terms of leakage from card to card as well. Seeing as there's not much current overhead in the VRM (or at least there does not appear to be), a small change in leakage would be enough to stop some cards from doing too much in terms of overclocking on the stock cooler.later
Raja
Silverforce11 - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
It could be your PSU, some "single rail" PSU arent in fact using a single rail but several rails with a max limit on AMPs. Its deceptive.Guru3D uses 1200W PSU and manages 900 core, which is typically what a 5870 OC to on air. Essentially the chips are higher quality cypress, maybe you should retry it again with a different PSU then conclusions can be drawn.
Bolas - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
Yep, there is certainly a market for 5970CF. Can't wait!tajmahal - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
Big deal, another paper launch where only a tiny handful of people will be able to get one.LedHed - Tuesday, November 24, 2009 - link
My question is why do the OC the 5970 but not the 295...We all know the 295 is memory bottlenecked at resolutions at/over 2560x1600
But considering the GTX 295 is down below $450 and no one can find these cards in stock with a god awful price of $600 ($100 more than 295 at launch).
mschira - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
newegg list 5 different models, they come and go quite fast.I managed to get one of them in my shopping card.
All it would need now is pay. (which I don't want to...).
So yea they are not exactly easy to get, but far from impossible.
So not a paper launch.
Be real, it's day two after the launch, and you CAN get them. That's not bad at all.
M.
MrPickins - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
At the moment, Newegg shows two different 5970's in stock. A HIS and a Powercolor.tajmahal - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
Listed, but not available. I guess newegg sold both of the ones they had available, and the 5850 and 5870 ?......... not available either.Silverforce11 - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link
Plenty of 5870s around at retails and etailers, what do you mean by "another paper launch"?