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Sapphire Radeon HD5870 Video Card Review
Author: Will West
Published: Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Conclusion
Sapphire has created a very impressive package with the Radeon HD5870 that tends to make up for the fact this card is based on the ATI reference design. However none of that should matter considering the overall gaming experience and included care package, which is all but gone from many of the high end products you can buy today.
Gaming performance was a bit of a letdown considering that the Radeon HD5870 wasn't really much faster than any card from the previous generation. Despite this the overall gaming experience was rock solid, and once you consider that the HD5870 is a single GPU card, and its nearest competition is a dual card in Crossfire you can see the benefits.
Scalability is a huge factor when looking at a high-end video card and the ability to link up to 4 GPUs in a single system can provide a huge boost in performance.
It is time to also hit into one incredibly strong point that the Radeon HD5870 proven in our tests. When we tested Dirt 2 all of the settings were cranked up and the new DirectX 11 was enabled. Despite this the card still outscored completion. This just goes to show that the Radeon HD5870 does have processing power despite its lackluster performance numbers using the older titles. This does let us know that extreme resolutions are not going to be an issue with the Sapphire Radon HD5870 and with it Eyefinity may have a strong chance of starting a new gaming revolution beyond the console.
Gaming performance was a bit of a letdown considering that the Radeon HD5870 wasn't really much faster than any card from the previous generation. Despite this the overall gaming experience was rock solid, and once you consider that the HD5870 is a single GPU card, and its nearest competition is a dual card in Crossfire you can see the benefits.
Scalability is a huge factor when looking at a high-end video card and the ability to link up to 4 GPUs in a single system can provide a huge boost in performance.
It is time to also hit into one incredibly strong point that the Radeon HD5870 proven in our tests. When we tested Dirt 2 all of the settings were cranked up and the new DirectX 11 was enabled. Despite this the card still outscored completion. This just goes to show that the Radeon HD5870 does have processing power despite its lackluster performance numbers using the older titles. This does let us know that extreme resolutions are not going to be an issue with the Sapphire Radon HD5870 and with it Eyefinity may have a strong chance of starting a new gaming revolution beyond the console.
Good Things
DirectX 11 ready and enough power to use it
Enough power to use Eyefinity to its full potential
Great start on a new generation of GPUs
Plays everything at maximum settings
Easily taking the fastest single GPU chip video card to date
Enough power to use Eyefinity to its full potential
Great start on a new generation of GPUs
Plays everything at maximum settings
Easily taking the fastest single GPU chip video card to date
Bad Things
Horrible overclocking results
Sapphire Radeon HD5870 Video Card Review
Furious 5 of 5
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