Radeon HD 5830 Performance Preview
PrintAMD exploits a price point with the Radeon HD 5830, but the implementation is so weird, we’re scratching our heads.
If you’ve got $250 to burn for a graphics card, you’ll find a dearth of cards at that price point. Hit any of the major web retailers for PC gear looking for $250 cards, and you’ll find a couple of models of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 275 and… that’s it. The much faster Radeon HD 5850s are around $300, and you’ll find older GTX 260s and not much more.
AMD decided to fill the gap with the Radeon HD 5830. But the HD 5830 is a really odd duck. It’s slower than a Radeon HD 5850, but the reference implementation is huge – the same size as the Radeon HD 5870. The 5830 also consumes more power at full throttle than the HD 5850 – hence the larger cooler on the reference design.
Four Radeons HD 5xxx cards lined up, in order of performance. The HD 5870 is at the top, the HD 5770 at the bottom. Note how much longer the HD 5830 reference card is, compared to the Diamond HD 5850, which is based on the reference design.
AMD is apparently aware of these inconsistencies, so you won’t find many reference designs for sale. In a departure from the norm, most of the cards you’ll be able to buy at retail ship with OEM customized cooling solutions. So we’ll be seeing a lot of cards that at least look different at launch date, such as this board for XFX:
This board from Sapphire:
And this board from Gigabyte:
The HD 5830 is still based on the same Cypress GPU as the higher end Radeon HD 5870 and HD 5850 boards. So what exactly is different? And how does it differ from the sub-$200 Radeon HD 5770? Let’s take a look.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Radeon HD 5770 | Radeon HD 5830 | Radeon HD 5850 | Radeon HD 5870 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Core | Juniper | Cypress | Cypress | Cypress |
| Transistor Count | 1.04 Billion | 2.15 Billion | 2.15 Billion | 2.15 Billion |
| Core Clock | 850MHz | 800MHz | 725MHz | 850MHz |
| Stream Processors | 800 | 1120 | 1440 | 1600 |
| Compute Performance | 1.36 TFLOPS | 1.79 TFLOPS | 2.09 TFLOPS | 2.72 TFLOPS |
| Texture Units | 40 | 56 | 72 | 80 |
| ROPs | 16 | 16 | 32 | 32 |
| Z/Stencil (Gsamples / sec) | 54.4 | 51.2 | 92.8 | 108.8 |
| Memory Clock | 1200MHz | 1000MHz | 1000MHz | 1000MHz |
| Memory Bus | 128-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 76.8 GB/Sec | 128 GB/Sec | 128 GB/Sec | 153.6 GB/Sec |
| Idle Power | 18W | 25W | 27W | 27W |
| Full Throttle Power | 108W | 175W | 151W | 188W |
The oddities just jump out at you.
Find out what we make of it, and see the all-important benchmarks on page two!
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avenger48
March 07, 2010 at 3:35pm
Why does the XFX card appear to be around 3" shorter than the others?
AntiHero
February 26, 2010 at 8:20am
I don't see why they're wasting their time with doing a bunch of cards for the 5 series. 5570, 5670, 5750, 5770, 5830, 5850, 5870 and 5890. The differential between the 5830 is so miniscule that I can't justify the 50 dollars less when I can get a 5850 and do a better justice for myself. Or get the 5770 for budget and still get some decent performance.
Neufeldt2002
February 25, 2010 at 9:59am
I am thinking this is a price grab. Until nVidia's Fermi comes out, Ati rules the roost and is setting the price the way they want. (For a change)
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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Cooketh
February 24, 2010 at 11:40pm
I agree with this article. I'm an ATi fan, but given the pricing, it would be silly to get a 5830 when it's so close in price to a 5850. put it at 200-220 bucks, and then we can talk.
Scootiep
February 25, 2010 at 5:47am
I have to agree with you there. I was looking at this and the 5770 recently and as far as bang for your buck goes, if you can't afford the 5850, the 5770 trumps the 5830 in spades.
To start press any key...ohh, where's the "Any" key. - Homer Simpson
Danthrax66
February 24, 2010 at 9:31pm
I really want to see what nvidia has up their sleeve and what it does to the market when the 5850 was released it was a $250 card. And if you want a really nice card get the 5850 toxic edition from sapphire it outperforms reference 5870's and is $70 cheaper.
loyd
February 25, 2010 at 9:57am
Sorry about the omission -- the Crysis results should be folded into the article later today, but here they are if you're interested:
Crysis, AA Off:
Radeon HD 5770: 20
Radeon HD 5830: 25
Radeon HD 5850: 29
Crysis, AA On:
Radeon HD 5770: 17
Radeon HD 5830: 21
Radeon HD 5859: 25
Loyd Case
vbiggar
March 01, 2010 at 11:09pm
Loyd I saw you are writing for MaximumPC. You are probably the best writer/reviewer out there. Your reviews are interesting, informative, and easy to read. You might not be as cute as Veronica Belmont but she won't be able to talk me into buying a particular video card.
I bought a year subscription to the magazine. I hope to see more articles written by you in the future.
Check out my web site for High Tech Solutions on a Budget thinkbiggar.blogspot.com
vbiggar
March 01, 2010 at 11:10pm
Look at the crysis scores. This tightens the gap. I'm not going to apply any logic based on current pricing and performance. The pricing numbers for the most part are artificial. Especially since all of the R&D on this chipset is bought and paid for. I am the average consumer of this type of card. I have been in this performance vs. price catagory for 10 years. I would expext this card to come in at $200. Much more than that then your going to compete with a 5770 crossfire setup, not the 5850. Beyond that at $200 you would have a convincing argument for a 5830 crossfire setup.
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