may 8 2010 review by neoseeker
The HD 5870 reference design HD 5870 has been out now for a while, Gigabyte is trying to get your attention with the
overclocked HD 5870 Super OverClock, but is the extra performance worth the money (app. $100) you'll have to pay for it?
Conclusion:
The HD 5870 SOC costs app. the same as the GTX 480. Often the HD 5870 Super Overclock was beaten by the Nvidia GTX 480
in the benchmarks. If you want pure performance, the GTX 480 might be a better choice for DirectX 11 titles.
The HD 5870 SOC uses less power, is cooler and runs quieter, than the GTX 480, besides that it's a far better
overclocker.
Overclocking:
The Gigabyte HD 5870 has a very high factory overclock, this can be done because of a high-quality construction.
The OC Guru program is the overclocking tool that comes with the bundle, though the interface is complex, it has great
functionality.
Testing without boosting the voltage resulted in 990MHz / 1295 MHz (GPU / memory) clockspeeds. With a little voltage
bump ( +0.10V) the reviewers were able to reach 1 GHz for the core clock. 1030MHz / 1305MHz was the final OC reult, this
is the fastest HD 5870 up till now.
Benchmarks:
Batman: Arkham Aslyum, Blunderbuss, Crysis: Warhead, DiRT 2, Elevated, Far Cry 2, Furmark, HAWX, Metro 2033, Operating
Temperatures, Resident Evil V, StoneGiant, Street Fighter IV, Unigine Heaven 2.0, WIC.
Test Setup:
- Processor: Intel Core i7 920
- Mainboard: MSI Eclipse
- RAM: 3x2GB 1600MHz DDR3 Redline PC3-12800
- Case: Thermaltake Armor
- PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W
- HDD: 250 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA
- Heatsink: Noctua NH-U 12
- OS: Windows 7 x64
Compared to:
Nvidia GTX 480, PowerColer HD 5870, BFG GTX285, Sapphire HD 5850 Toxic.
