Ask any man, 1 is never enough. Mul puts a pair of fast women on the bench to see how 2 Sapphire 5850 shaped ladies perform under preasure.
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OC3D Review: Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 CrossfireX
- Thread starter tinytomlogan
- Start date
MeltedDuron
New member
Great review as usual Mul. The 5850's look like a good buy! They should be awesome around christmas when the price drops kick in, ATI's cards are the real working class hero's of graphics 
name='MeltedDuron' said:Great review as usual Mul. The 5850's look like a good buy! They should be awesome around christmas when the price drops kick in, ATI's cards are the real working class hero's of graphics
Cheers MeltedDuron.
As for price drops, I fear it may well go the other way until nVidia has a direct competitor. Given that the production of GeForce GTX 260/275/285's, VAT increases and a (currently) low supply of Cypress cards to meet demand, prices could even rise. We'll see how things pan out though.
Rastalovich
New member
Great review.
Got a few questions I'm not sure of:
Unless there's a non-clock answer to the 1st question, I don't see any point in any1 buying 2x 5870 to xfire. There's a difference of some %age of fps in games that the 2x 5850 are already scoring over 100s. To that end, I don't see the cream.
Need to revisit this once there are some/few Dx11 comparisons to be had. Making comparisons of these cards in Dx10 at best doesn't seem to present much visible differences.
Decent card on the face of it. Nothing being made of AMD scoring nice pricing, and perhaps more to come, from the fact they have the only Dx11 out in this window. We know it would, and will, be different in a months time, and I'm sure there will be some shouting from the roof tops then - especially when these cards get cut.
Got a few questions I'm not sure of:
- Is the difference between the 5850 & 5870 purely clock speed, or is there something capability-wize the 5870 can do that the 5850 can't ?
- Why does the i7 cpu score in the FutureMark benchie vary so much with the differing 4 setups ?
Unless there's a non-clock answer to the 1st question, I don't see any point in any1 buying 2x 5870 to xfire. There's a difference of some %age of fps in games that the 2x 5850 are already scoring over 100s. To that end, I don't see the cream.
Need to revisit this once there are some/few Dx11 comparisons to be had. Making comparisons of these cards in Dx10 at best doesn't seem to present much visible differences.
Decent card on the face of it. Nothing being made of AMD scoring nice pricing, and perhaps more to come, from the fact they have the only Dx11 out in this window. We know it would, and will, be different in a months time, and I'm sure there will be some shouting from the roof tops then - especially when these cards get cut.
Cheers for your thoughts Rastalovich,
The answer to the first question is no unfortunately. Aside Frequencies, the 5850 variant of the Cypress core has 8 5 Way Shading Units disabled, resulting in a 1440 Stream Processors overall, which is 10% less than the HD 5870 at 1600. The consequence is that you'd need to push a HD 5850 to slightly higher core frequencies in order to match the HD 5870.
As for the second question, I'm unsure as to why the CPU Score varied so much. Identical testbeds were used, and the same goes for the drivers.
With regards to revisiting these cards with DX11 hits, I completely agree.
The answer to the first question is no unfortunately. Aside Frequencies, the 5850 variant of the Cypress core has 8 5 Way Shading Units disabled, resulting in a 1440 Stream Processors overall, which is 10% less than the HD 5870 at 1600. The consequence is that you'd need to push a HD 5850 to slightly higher core frequencies in order to match the HD 5870.
As for the second question, I'm unsure as to why the CPU Score varied so much. Identical testbeds were used, and the same goes for the drivers.
With regards to revisiting these cards with DX11 hits, I completely agree.
Rastalovich
New member
The variation of the cpu score concerns me.
If u were to lay out a flat comparison of 5850/5870/5890, I'd personal need a serious answer to why the likes of the i7 cpus are either being held back or being used to bolster deficiencies.
Moreover, would it mean that if u had <i7, the issue becomes greater ?
If u were to lay out a flat comparison of 5850/5870/5890, I'd personal need a serious answer to why the likes of the i7 cpus are either being held back or being used to bolster deficiencies.
Moreover, would it mean that if u had <i7, the issue becomes greater ?
It's a shame I didn't publish the results on the Futuremark ORB so at least the scores could've been dissected further. It's also interesting that the HD 5850 CPU scores are similar to each other, as are the HD 5870 CPU scores. One couldn't rule out an anomalous result for one of the two but I couldn't see how the differences could be so considerable. Prior to testing, I had confirmed the system's CPU and DRAM frequencies at 3.40GHz and as mentioned, the same driver sets and testbed was carried forward for both tests. Strange.
"Straight off the bat, a quick Google Shopping search reveals a 25% saving incurred in opting for Radeon HD 5850's in Single or Multi GPU format over the equivalent HD 5870 configuration."
£300 - > £200
or £600 -> £400 ?
Thats a 33% saving or a 50% increase in price, dependant on which way oyu look at it
. Sorry to be picky just annoyed me
£300 - > £200
or £600 -> £400 ?
Thats a 33% saving or a 50% increase in price, dependant on which way oyu look at it
. Sorry to be picky just annoyed mename='Talonaer' said:"Straight off the bat, a quick Google Shopping search reveals a 25% saving incurred in opting for Radeon HD 5850's in Single or Multi GPU format over the equivalent HD 5870 configuration."
£300 - > £200
or £600 -> £400 ?
Thats a 33% saving or a 50% increase in price, dependant on which way oyu look at it
School boy error quite frankly. Fixed
