Video cards. Video cards Power consumption, thermal conditions, noise and overclocking

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Both in price and in terms of performance, the difference between them is quite large. Some kind of intermediate model was required, which, moreover, could finally completely replace the company's old single-chip flagship in the form of the Radeon HD 4890.

Without wasting effort on developing a new GPU, AMD did it quite simply and released another stripped-down version of the RV870. But unlike the popular Radeon HD 5850, the new video adapter turned out to be a real “bitter”. Of the 20 SIMD cores of a full-fledged Cypress, the Radeon HD 5830 has only 14 left, i.e. instead of 1600 universal stream processors, the low-end model costs 1120. Accordingly, the number of texture units has decreased to 56 (4 per SIMD core). As you can see, the number of computational units has decreased by as much as 42%. And the number of rendering units was completely cut in half - to eight. Just like the RV840 or the old RV770.

With such characteristics, you should not initially count on a high level of performance. But if we compare it with older solutions of the Radeon HD 4800 series, the new Radeon HD 5830 accelerator is still a little better. There are even more advantages over the Radeon HD 5770, because the latter is equipped with a 128-bit memory access interface, while the new card still has a full 256-bit bus.

To slightly compensate for the huge number of disabled computing units, the core operating frequency is set to 800 MHz, which is 10% higher than the older Radeon HD 5850, but lower than the top-end Radeon HD 5870 (850 MHz). But GDDR5 memory operates at the same 4 GHz as the Radeon HD 5850. Considering the good overclocking potential of the RV870 and the new generation GDDR5 chips, we can still hope for good overclocking relative to the initial characteristics.

Video adapter	Radeon HD 5870	Radeon HD 5850		Radeon HD 5770	Radeon HD 4890
Core	Cypress (RV870)	Cypress (RV870)	Cypress (RV870)	Juniper (RV840)	RV770
Number of transistors, million pieces	2154	2154	2154	1040	959
Technical process, nm	40	40	40	40	55
Core area, sq. mm	334	334	334	170	282
Number of stream processors	1600	1440	1120	800	800
Number of texture blocks	80	72	56	40	40
Number of rendering units	32	32	16	16	16
Core frequency, MHz	850	725	800	850	850
Memory bus, bit	256	256	256	128	256
Memory type	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5
Memory capacity, MB	1024	1024	1024	1024	1024
Memory frequency, MHz	4800	4000	4000	4800	3900
Supported DirectX Version	11	11	11	11	10.1
Interface	PCI Express 2.1	PCI Express 2.1	PCI Express 2.1	PCI Express 2.1	PCI Express 2.0
Declared power consumption, load/idle, W	188/27	170/27	175/25	108/18	190/60

In terms of power consumption, the Radeon HD 5830, unfortunately, does not have low performance compared to its peers. According to official data, the peak power consumption of this adapter is even slightly higher than that of the Radeon HD 5850. However, everything is not so bad if we take into account the old Radeon HD 4890, which have even greater “appetites”.

But we will try to find out whether the Radeon HD 5830 can compete with older solutions based on the results of our tests. But first, let's look at the real product of this series.

We received a video adapter from Sapphire in OEM configuration. The card is packed in a simple bubble bag with a set of the following accessories:

DVI/D-Sub adapter;
power adapter "molex-PCI-E";
CrossFire bridge;
driver disk.

The graphics accelerator is completely different from standard video cards of this series, standing out both in its PCB design and in its unique cooling system.

The video card is equipped with two DVI connectors, one HDMI and one Display Port.

What catches your eye is the large (if not huge) fan of the cooling system covering the entire width of the board (90 mm) with the original curved shape of the blades.

The radiator is not large in size. But the entire structure is permeated with five heat pipes.

The tubes are slightly flattened at the base and soldered onto a copper plate of the heat sink.

A separate simple finned radiator is provided to cool the power supply elements.

The board itself looks like this:

The main difference from the reference lies in the redesigned power subsystem. The Sapphire HD5830 1GB GDDR5 is built on R2J20602 DrMOS chips manufactured by the Japanese company Renesas. Such chips are usually used in motherboards, and DrMOS from Renesas is used in expensive top-end products, for example, the MSI 790FX-GD70 board uses the R2J20604.

The RV870 graphics chip operates at its assigned 800 MHz.

The board contains GDDR5 Samsung K4G10325FE-HC04 chips with an access time of 0.4 ns, so you can count on an effective 5 GHz instead of the nominal 4 GHz.

To repeat all of the above, a screenshot of the CPU-Z program with the characteristics of the Radeon HD 5830 video card.

In 2D, frequencies are reduced from 800/4000 MHz to 157/1200 MHz.

The cooling system demonstrated excellent efficiency. In the Fur Rendering Benchmark stress test at a resolution of 1680x1050, the chip temperature did not exceed 66 degrees Celsius (at 21 °C indoors). At 44% fan speed, this is simply an excellent result. In simple 3D applications (i.e. real games), the peak temperature was even lower, and the fan speed did not exceed 40% of the maximum (about 1500 rpm), while the noise level was minimal. When idle, the fan is generally almost silent, its speed remains within 36% (1360 rpm).

In terms of overclocking, the Sapphire video card did not disappoint us either. Unlike the reference models of the HD 5800 series, this copy does not have the ability to programmatically control the GPU voltage, which, however, did not prevent it from achieving full stability at a frequency of 960 MHz (20% higher than the nominal). Samsung memory also demonstrated excellent overclocking capabilities and full stability at an effective frequency of 5512 MHz (37% higher than the nominal and 10% higher than the capabilities of the chips themselves).

It should be noted that for overclocking we did not change the original CO, but we increased the fan speed to 85%, which was fraught with a very high hum, and such a mode cannot be called practical. But initially we carried out all tests in automatic fan speed control mode. However, the card could not withstand the intense load and after five hours of testing, minor problems began. After letting it cool for five minutes, we set it to higher speeds and passed all tests at the same frequencies without any problems. So, in practice, for everyday use you will either have to limit yourself to slightly lower frequencies, or still sacrifice acoustic comfort and slightly raise the fan speed. But even the fact that, with significant overclocking, the native cooler was able to provide long-term operation in the standard “quiet” mode indicates its high efficiency.

Competition is a cruel thing. As soon as one of the market players gives up, the other immediately takes advantage of it. The spectacular release of AMD Radeon HD 5xxx series video cards was a serious blow to the position of its main competitor - NVIDIA. Almost five months have passed since the release of the Radeon HD 5870, and during this time AMD managed to bring to the market not only the super-efficient dual-chip accelerator Radeon HD 5970, but also presented consumers with a whole set of inexpensive solutions with support for DirectX 11. Naturally, while the competitor is “silent”, AMD is introducing more and more new solutions designed for a wide range of customers. Today, February 25, the official announcement of the AMD Radeon HD 5830 video card took place. The reference sample of this video accelerator came into our laboratory, so let's take a look at its characteristics and see what it is capable of “in battle.”

Specifications

	Radeon HD 5770	Radeon HD 5830	Radeon HD 5850	Radeon HD 5870
Technical process, nm	40	40	40	40
Number of transistors, billion pieces	1,04	2,15	2,15	2,15
GPU frequency, MHz	850	800	725	850
Number of stream processors	800	1120	1440	1600
Theoretical computing power, Tflops	1,36	1,79	2,09	2,72
Number of texture processors	40	56	72	80
Number of ROP blocks	16	16	32	32
Video memory type	GDDR-5	GDDR-5	GDDR-5	GDDR-5
Video memory bus width, bits	128	256	256	256
Memory frequency, MHz QDR	4800	4000	4000	4800
Video memory bandwidth, GB/s	76,8	128	128	153,6
Maximum power consumption, W	108	175	151	188
Energy consumption at rest, W	18	25	27	27

So, the Radeon HD 5830 video card is nothing more than a slightly stripped-down version of the Radeon HD 5870. The heart of the HD 5830 is the same AMD Cypress GPU. In addition to lower clock speeds, the new chip received fewer ROP units and stream processors, as well as only 56 texture processors out of a possible 80. All these modifications significantly reduced the theoretical computing power of the Radeon HD 5830, which turned out to be approximately 1.5 times lower than that of the Radeon HD 5870. However, the manufacturer is positioning the new product as a high-performance solution for enthusiasts. The recommended retail price of the new product is $230, and let's hope that when video cards go to Russian retail, prices will not change much upward. Already today, on the day of the official announcement, it became known that AMD partners are preparing to release their own solutions based on the Radeon HD 5830, and, judging by the photographs received, the new video cards differ not only in the sticker on the cooling system. As an example, here are photos of solutions produced by XFX, HIS and PowerColor: Our test laboratory received a reference sample of the Radeon HD 5830, let's take a closer look at the new product. Externally, the AMD Radeon HD 5830 video accelerator is not much different from its older brothers. The design of the cooling system has not undergone any changes. Since we received the board in OEM configuration, no accessories were included with it, but retail copies will certainly be equipped properly. The output panel contains all the necessary connectors - two DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort.

The video card was originally scheduled for release on February 5th, and we had to wait more than three weeks before AMD finally launched the high-performance Radeon HD 5000 series video card based on the Cypress LE core. The reason for the delay is not completely clear and, as usual, there are a lot of different rumors and theories floating around it.

Some say that AMD is simply playing (or even bullying) behind-the-scenes games with Nvidia, others think that the problem is with late deliveries of components for this product. On the one hand, it is difficult to intimidate Nvidia more than it was intimidated by the existing Radeon HD 5000 series; on the other hand, AMD has never suffered from a shortage of components.

We think that the story is more prosaic - AMD could simply give time to its partners so that they have time to prepare their versions of the video card. In this case, the company’s partners were given a large role in the distribution of the 5830, as a result of which today we see a lot of options for the Radeon HD 5830 video card on the market.

The launch of this video card turned out to be unusual. Video cards are launched in such a way that the consumer can buy “special edition” video cards immediately after their release. Instead of waiting several months for models with improved coolers to come out.

Be that as it may, improved coolers and modified versions of printed circuit boards are not the most remarkable thing for which the Radeon HD 5830 model was born. The AMD Radeon HD 5830 has become the most affordable video card from the expensive Radeon HD 5800 series, this video card costs about 50 $ less than the existing Radeon HD 5850. Even though the Radeon HD 5830 is a stripped down version of the 5850, which is itself a stripped down version of the 5870, it's still an impressive product.

In fact, the new Radeon HD 5830 and 5850 are quite similar to each other than we initially expected. Before the Radeon HD 5830 appeared, the $135 price gap between the Radeon HD 5770 and 5850 video cards was filled by the previous generation device - the Radeon HD 4890. At the moment, the Radeon HD 4890 is becoming a thing of the past and stocks in warehouses are sold out.

Moreover, a graphics card from competitors, the GeForce GTX 275 is a better solution than the Radeon HD 4890 in the same price category. And a person who wanted to buy a video card for $200 - $250 at that time had no other choice. But all this was a matter of time; with the Radeon HD 5000 series, AMD can fill almost any niche, just to have time to develop models for the corresponding price categories.

Being in the $250 price category, the Radeon HD 5830 video card will easily beat both the GeForce GTX 275 and Radeon HD 4890 in speed, and may also be able to compete with much more expensive solutions like the GeForce GTX 285. For AMD, the Radeon HD 5830 video card has become important strategic product, so we think it will live up to expectations...

Appearance and features

When we first took the Radeon HD 5830 out of the box, we were somewhat impressed. As expected, a video card designed to fill the gap between the Radeon HD 5770 and 5850 in terms of both price and performance should impress. The Radeon HD 5770 is 21 centimeters long, while the 5850 is already 24 centimeters long, and finally the 5870 is an impressive 28 centimeters long!

We expected that the length of the 5830 video card would not exceed the 24 centimeter mark; the length was expected to be about 22-23 centimeters. Be that as it may, when we took the Radeon HD 5830 out of the box and applied a ruler to it, it turned out that the video card was a whopping 28 centimeters long! The same as in the case of the top AMD 5870.

Moreover, the reference sample of the Radeon HD 5830 that was sent to us was otherwise extremely similar to the 5870 model. Most likely, AMD did not spend extra money on the board design and simply copied it from the 5870 model, entrusting this responsible task to its video card manufacturing partners. Although if you look at the Radeon HD 5830 made by Gigabyte, HIS, PowerColor or Sapphire, most of them are the same 28 centimeters in length...

In fact, we did not find a clear explanation for such a long length of the Radeon HD 5830 video card, despite the fact that the 5850 model is a full 4 centimeters shorter. In theory, the Radeon HD 5830 consumes 16% less power than 5850 cards under load.

We hope that in the future manufacturers will present more or less compact 5830 models. We admit that this conclusion was not made out of nowhere - we have already seen the Radeon HD 5830 from XFX, which is only 17 cm long. Unfortunately, so far we have only seen photographs , the specifications of this product have not yet been confirmed. But if XFX manages to shorten the graphics card by 40%, that will be something.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves and go back to our Radeon HD 5830 sample that we currently have. This sample is equipped with a fairly large aluminum radiator, 13.5 cm long, 6.5 cm wide and 2.5 centimeters high, which has 36 fins. The radiator is connected to the base of the cooler by four copper tubes, which can significantly increase the efficiency of heat removal. This radiator is blown by a fan measuring 75x20 millimeters, which takes air from the case, blows it through the radiator and throws it out from the back wall of the system unit, through the video card mount.

As with the Radeon HD 5850, we found the Radeon HD 5830 to be a fairly quiet graphics card when idling. When running “idle”, the power consumption of the video card is only 27 watts. Be that as it may, when we start to load the video card, the fan increases the rotation speed and the card begins to make a slight noise, comparable to the noise emitted by other high-end Radeon video cards, so in this regard we did not see anything unusual.

The new Radeon HD 5830 chip is built on the 40nm process technology that was first introduced by AMD in the Radeon HD 4770 video card. This process technology allows AMD to be a little aggressive in terms of core clock speed, with the GPU running at 800 Megahertz. GDDR5 video memory operates at an even more impressive frequency of 1000 MHz. The GPU configuration also left us indifferent - it is equipped with 1120 stream processing units (SPUs) along with 56 texture addressing units (TAUs) and 16 raster operation units (ROPs).

As we mentioned above, the Radeon HD 5830's idle power consumption is low, but under load the device can consume up to 175 watts. In order to provide the video card with guaranteed power, AMD installed a pair of 6-pin PCI Express power connectors. You will find exactly this configuration in the old Radeon HD 4870 or 4890 or GeForce GTX 285, for example.

The Radeon HD 5830 also supports Crossfire technology; moreover, it is possible to use two Crossfire connectors to connect two or more video cards together. On the external panel of the video card you can find a pair of DVI connectors, one HDMI connector and one Display Port connector. It is also worth mentioning that all Radeon HD 5830 video cards can support a maximum resolution of 2560x1600 on three monitors simultaneously.

Testing: Test System Specifications and 3Dmark Vantage

Test system specifications:

Iron

Processor: Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition (overclocked to 3.70 GHz)
RAM: three G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 modules, 2GB each (CAS 9-9-9-24)
Hard drive: Seagate 500GB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA300)
Motherboard: Asus P6T Deluxe (based on Intel X58 chipset)

Tested video cards:

Radeon HD 4870 (1 GB)
Radeon HD 5770 (1 GB)
GeForce GTX 260 (896 MB)
Radeon HD 4890 (1 GB)
Radeon HD 5770 (1 GB) Crossfire
Radeon HD 5830 (1 GB)
GeForce GTX 275 (896 MB)
Radeon HD 4870 X2 (2 GB)
GeForce GTX 285 (1 GB)
Radeon HD 5850 (1 GB)
GeForce GTX 295 (1792 MB)
Radeon HD 5870 (1 GB)
Radeon HD 5970 (2 GB)
Radeon HD 5870 (1 GB) Crossfire

Software

Operating system: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit)
Video drivers: Nvidia Forceware 196.34 / ATI Catalyst 10.1 / ATI 8.703 RC2 Win7 Vista (from February 11)

According to 3Dmark Vantage, the Radeon HD 5830 is 12% faster than the GeForce GTX 285, which is clearly visible when tested at 2560x1600 resolution. The excellent result of this test is that the Radeon HD 5830, which scored 4848 points, is only 4% slower than the 5850. If we follow the fact that the Radeon HD 5830 was designed to replace the Radeon HD 4890, occupying its price niche, then 37% The performance gain here is simply impressive.

Testing: Batman Arkham Asylum, Call of Duty

The performance shown when testing in the game Batman Arkham Asylum is not as impressive as it was in the case of testing in the 3Dmark Vantage synthetic benchmark suite. However, the Radeon HD 5830 was still faster than the 4890 by 9% at a resolution of 2560x1600. Meanwhile, it was only 5% slower than the GeForce GTX 275 and 12% slower than the GTX 285. The Radeon HD 5830 was also 14% slower than its older brother, the Radeon HD 5850.

In the game Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, the results simply impressed us; in this test, the Radeon HD 5830 outperformed the 4890 by as much as 19%, and was only 5% slower than the GeForce GTX 285. Moreover, the Radeon HD 5830 video card lagged behind the 5850 by a relatively small the percentage is 6%, which means only 4 frames per second at a resolution of 2560x1600 - quite a bit when we are talking about performance of about 60 frames per second.

Testing: Company of Heroes, Crysis Warhead

When tested in the game Company of Heroes (2560x1600), the Radeon HD 5830 video card showed the same performance results as the GeForce GTX 275. The product in question was also 4% (or 2 frames per second) faster than the Radeon HD 4890. While the Radeon HD 5830 was 11% slower than the GeForce GTX 285, it was also 29% slower. Radeon HD 5850, in terms of frame rate, this is a noticeable 20 frames per second.

In the game Crysis Warhead at a resolution of 2560x1600, the results for the reviewed product turned out to be completely unimpressive, and the same can be said about other video cards. The Radeon HD 5830 showed similar performance at all resolutions. In terms of performance, our HD 5830 video card matched the Radeon HD 4890 and GeForce GTX 275, and at the same time, at a resolution of 2560x1600 it was slower than the GeForce GTX 285 and Radeon HD 5850 by only 2 frames per second.

Testing: Dawn of War, Far Cry 2

When tested in the game Dawn of War II, the Radeon HD 5830 video card showed much higher performance than the previous generation Radeons of the HD 4800 series. At a resolution of 2560x1600, we saw an average frame rate of 40fps, which allowed the Radeon HD 5830 to reach GeForce performance levels GTX 275, while it was only 7% slower than the GeForce GTX 285. Moreover, while the Radeon HD 5830 could be 17% slower than the 5850, it is a whopping 25% faster than the Radeon HD 4890!

The frame rate in Far Cry 2 is very low, which is explained by the huge resource intensity of the game (as is the case with Crysis Warhead). Please note that in this test we enabled 8xAA anti-aliasing, which further reduced the performance of all video cards. The Radeon HD 5830 stopped at just 36fps at 1680x1050 and 20fps at 2560x1600 in this test. This means that the Radeon HD 5830 is a whopping 29% slower than the Radeon HD 5850 and GeForce GTX 285 graphics cards.

Testing: Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X, Resident Evil 5

Before testing in the game Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. All graphics settings were turned up to maximum, and anti-aliasing (4xAA) was also enabled. Please note that all Nvidia video cards were tested on DX10, while ATI video cards were tested on DX10.1, otherwise all parameters were the same. As you can see, the Radeon HD 5830 in this test was noticeably slower than the Radeon HD 4890, and lost to the outdated video card for the first time in the reviewed product.

It is also interesting that in this game the Radeon HD 4890 performed very well, even beating the 5850. The Radeon HD 5830 still caught up with the Radeon HD 4870 and GeForce GTX 285 video cards at a resolution of 2560x1600 with a frame rate of 39fps, so in general the result was not bad.

For the second time, the Radeon HD 5830 lost to the outdated HD 4890 in Resident Evil 5. With an average framerate of 47fps at a resolution of 2560x1600, the Radeon HD 5830 was only 4% faster than the Radeon HD 4870 and 2% slower than the GeForce GTX 285, in while the reviewed product lagged behind the Radeon HD 5850 by as much as 20 percent.

Testing: Street Fighter IV, World in Conflict

In Street Fighter IV, the Radeon HD 5830 was 16% faster than the Radeon HD 4890 at 2560x1600, with an average rendering speed of 92 frames per second. At the same time, the video card under review turned out to be 17% slower than the older model Radeon HD 5850. An interesting fact was that Nvidia GeForce video cards had to fight in this toy, and the fight was not as successful as we would like. The rendering speed of the GeForce GTX 285 was only 61 frames per second.

World in Conflict was another game in which the Radeon HD 5830 was inferior to its predecessor, the Radeon HD 4890, this time the difference was already noticeable - 11%, in this test the 5830 could only match the performance of the 4870 video card. Performance difference between Radeons HD 5830 and 5850 at a resolution of 2560x1600 became quite large - 20% (not in favor of 5830).

Testing: Wolfenstein

Wolfenstein was launched with eight times anti-aliasing and eight times anisotropic filtering, as a result of which the frame rate of average-performing cards dropped below 60 frames per second at a resolution of 2560x1600. At a resolution of 1920x1200, however, the Radeon HD 5830 video card flashed an impressive 71 frames per second, which allowed it to catch up with the GeForce GTX 285. The Radeon HD 5830 turned out to be 17% weaker than the Radeon HD 5850, although it beat the Radeon HD 4890, ahead of it by 13%.

Overclocking potential

For some reason, AMD began to limit the overclocking potential of its video cards using a software limiter built into the device BIOS. Such a limiter forces the software to stop at a predetermined frequency during overclocking, without exceeding it. This story happened with video cards Radeon HD 5450, 5570 and some others.

When testing the Radeon HD 5830, we encountered the same problem - limited overclocking potential.

At the same time, a certain margin in frequencies was left on this video card; the core was allowed to be overclocked by 100 MHz, the memory by 300 MHz. Despite such a “soft” overclocking, it allowed for a noticeable increase in performance.

Overclocking the Radeon HD 5830 allowed it to achieve the performance of the GeForce GTX 285 in Company of Heroes, the average frame rate increased by as much as 12% and reached 56fps. In the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R we saw a 17% increase in performance, which allowed the Radeon HD 5830 to outperform the Radeon 5850.

Power consumption and temperatures

Under load, the Radeon HD 5830 consumes 6% less power than the Radeon HD 4890, matching the performance of the 4870. Although the Radeon HD 5830 is slower than the Radeon HD 5850, it consumes more power due to the high clock speed of its GPU. As a result, we see a 13% increase in power consumption compared to the 5850.

The Radeon HD 5830 sample that arrived to us had exactly the same board and cooling system as the Radeon HD 5870. And so we were not very surprised when it turned out that the 5830 has the same operating temperature as the 5870 and even the 5850. True. As accurate as these results are, they are also useless - AMD partners will use their own board design and their own cooling system when producing their 5830 variant.

Conclusion

The Radeon HD 5830 is a noteworthy member of the updated Radeon HD 5000 line, delivering an impressive level of performance at a much more modest price than its big brothers Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon HD 5870. In fact, the Radeon HD 5830 is an excellent choice for those who wants to spend $250 on a new video card, and interestingly, this particular model will put a lot of pressure on NVidia GeForce GTX 200 series video cards.

The Radeon HD 5830 is about 17% cheaper than the 5850, and on average 17% slower. It should be mentioned that when purchasing a Radeon HD 5830, the consumer receives the same set of functions and technologies as in the 5850, only the price of the new video card is lower. The Radeon HD 5830 graphics card will be good for those with a 22” (or smaller) monitor.

At resolutions around 1680x1050 or lower, the Radeon HD 5830 will deliver the same gaming performance as the 5850. At least with the exception of Crysis Warhead, all games ran fine at 1680x1050 with graphics settings set to maximum.

For example, the Radeon 5830 video card showed a frame rate of as much as 88 frames per second in the game Wolfenstein running at a resolution of 1680x1050 with 8xAA/8xAF. The average frame rate of the game Company of Heroes was 87 frames per second, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat produced 65 frames per second, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 even showed 90 frames per second, not to mention Street Fighter IV with its hundred fps.

At a resolution of 1680x1050, almost all games produced more than 60 frames per second, which makes the Radeon HD 5830 an ideal product for gamers playing at low resolutions. Of course, in a large number of games, the Radeon HD 5830 coped well with large resolutions of 1920x1200, and even 2560x1600, providing a “playable” framerate in most games.

Another tangible plus for the Radeon HD 5830 video card is its overclocking potential. We managed to reach a core frequency of 900 MHz and a memory frequency of 1300 MHz, but despite such a seemingly small increase in frequency, the increase in performance was very noticeable. The frame rate in toys has increased by an average of 17%, imagine if the core could be overclocked to 1 GHz!

At the moment, we still don’t understand why AMD limits the overclocking frequency of its video cards. Perhaps they are trying to avoid problems like the one we had when testing an early sample of the Radeon HD 5970 (http://hard.. To be honest, AMD’s fears about extremely high frequencies are incomprehensible, because any enthusiast knows what they are getting into.

But the fact that performance can still be increased by overclocking by 17% is already a big plus for the product under review. Another plus is the design of the third-party boards and cooling - we've already seen some amazing 5830 graphics cards with excellent cooling systems, and if these graphics cards stick to the $250 price range, we suspect they'll be hard to resist buying.

Website verdict: Have you bought a 22’’ monitor and saved up $250 for a video card? What are you waiting for? Radeon 5830 is made for you!

pros

Excellent performance
Low price
Relatively good overclocking potential

Minuses

Bulky board
Limited frequency

Video adapter	Radeon HD 5870	Radeon HD 5850		Radeon HD 5770	Radeon HD 4890
Core	Cypress (RV870)	Cypress (RV870)	Cypress (RV870)	Juniper (RV840)	RV770
	2154	2154	2154	1040	959
Technical process, nm	40	40	40	40	55
Core area, sq. mm	334	334	334	170	282
	1600	1440	1120	800	800
Number of texture blocks	80	72	56	40	40
Number of rendering units	32	32	16	16	16
Core frequency, MHz	850	725	800	850	850
Memory bus, bit	256	256	256	128	256
Memory type	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5
Memory capacity, MB	1024	1024	1024	1024	1024
Memory frequency, MHz	4800	4000	4000	4800	3900
	11	11	11	11	10.1
Interface	PCI Express 2.1	PCI Express 2.1	PCI Express 2.1	PCI Express 2.1	PCI Express 2.0
Declared power consumption, load/idle, W	188/27	170/27	175/25	108/18	190/60

But we will try to find out whether the Radeon HD 5830 can compete with older solutions based on the results of our tests. But first, let's look at the real product of this series.

We received a video adapter from Sapphire in OEM configuration. The card is packed in a simple bubble bag with a set of the following accessories:

DVI/D-Sub adapter;
power adapter "molex-PCI-E";
CrossFire bridge;
driver disk.

The graphics accelerator is completely different from standard video cards of this series, standing out both in its PCB design and in its unique cooling system.

The video card is equipped with two DVI connectors, one HDMI and one Display Port.

What catches your eye is the large (if not huge) fan of the cooling system covering the entire width of the board (90 mm) with the original curved shape of the blades.

The radiator is not large in size. But the entire structure is permeated with five heat pipes.

The tubes are slightly flattened at the base and soldered onto a copper plate of the heat sink.

A separate simple finned radiator is provided to cool the power supply elements.

The board itself looks like this:

The RV870 graphics chip operates at its assigned 800 MHz.

The board contains GDDR5 Samsung K4G10325FE-HC04 chips with an access time of 0.4 ns, so you can count on an effective 5 GHz instead of the nominal 4 GHz.

To repeat all of the above, a screenshot of the CPU-Z program with the characteristics of the Radeon HD 5830 video card.

In 2D, frequencies are reduced from 800/4000 MHz to 157/1200 MHz.

As competitors from the opposite camp, we took the GeForce GTX 275, which in terms of price is close to the cost of the new Radeon HD 5830, as well as the GeForce GTX 260 model from XFX from the Black series, significantly overclocked relative to standard specifications. In view of the existing shortage of freshly baked GeForce GTX 465 from the new NVIDIA lineup, for comparison we will take the GeForce GTX 470. Yes, this card is noticeably more expensive not only than the Radeon HD 5830, but also the Radeon HD 5850, but it’s all the more interesting how the younger Cypress will perform against such a rival.

	Club 3D HD 5850 1G CGAX -58524IDP		ASUS EAH4890/HTDI/1GD5/A	Gigabyte GV-R577D5 -1GD-B	GeForce GTX 470 (ZT-40201 -10P)	Gigabyte GV-N275UD -896	XFX GF GTX260 666M 896MB DDR3 Black
Core	RV870	RV870	RV770	RV840	GF100	GT200b	GT200
Number of transistors, million pieces	2154	2154	959	1040	3200	1400	1400
Technical process, nm	40	40	55	40	40	55	65
Core area, sq. mm	334	334	282	170	530	487	576
Number of stream processors	1440	1120	800	800	448	240	216
Number of texture blocks	72	56	40	40	56	80	72
Number of rendering units	32	16	16	16	40	28	28
Core frequency, MHz	725	800	850	850	608	633	666
Stream processor frequency, MHz	725	800	850	850	1215	1404	1404
Memory bus, bit	256	256	256	128	320	448	448
Memory type	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR3	GDDR3
Memory capacity, MB	1024	1024	1024	1024	1280	896	896
Memory frequency, MHz	4000	4000	3900	4800	3348	2376	2304
Supported DirectX Version	11	11	10.1	11	11	10	10
Interface	PCI-E 2.1	PCI-E 2.1	PCI-E 2.0	PCI-E 2.1	PCI-E 2.0	PCI-E 2.0	PCI-E 2.0

Test bench

The test bench configuration is as follows:

processor: Core 2 Quad Q9550 ([email protected] GHz, 465 MHz FSB);
cooler: Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme;
motherboard: ASUS Rampage Formula (Intel X48 Express);
memory: OCZ OCZ2FXE12004GK (2x2GB, DDR2-1200@1162 MHz, 5-5-5-15);
sound card: Creative Audigy 4 (SB0610);
hard drive: WD3200AAKS (320 GB, SATA II);
power supply: Seasonic SS-850HT (850 W);
operating system: Windows 7 Ultimate x64;
Video card drivers: ATI Catalyst 10.2, NVIDIA ForceWare 197.41.

User Account Control, Superfetch, and visual interface effects were disabled in the operating system. The page file was fixed at 1 GB. The video card driver settings have not been changed.

In gaming applications, testing was carried out in resolutions of 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 at maximum quality settings. Additional tests when antialiasing was activated were carried out only in those applications that initially support it, without forcing it through drivers. The testing methodology is described in one of the previous articles. We will not duplicate it, but note that the number of runs of the built-in performance test in Colin McRae: DiRT 2 has been increased to 4 times in all modes. The game “Metro 2033” has been added; the nuances of testing are described in it immediately before the results.

Separately, it is necessary to say about the drivers. While all Radeon video cards were tested using the official version of Catalyst 10.2, the Radeon HD 5830 used video driver version 8.14.10.0728. CPU-Z identifies it as Catalyst 10.3 (you may have noticed this in one of the top screenshots), but in fact this is a special driver specifically for the Radeon HD 5830, which before the release of Catalyst 10.4 was the only driver that supported this video card.

On the left in the diagrams the minimum fps is indicated, on the right - the average. The bottom block includes results in nominal modes, the top shows data from overclocked video cards.

Battlestations: Pacific

In the very first application, the Radeon HD 5830 demonstrates an advantage over its previous generation rival, the Radeon HD 4890. Although in the highest mode with anti-aliasing, the difference between them is practically absent. NVIDIA adapters demonstrate higher average game fps, but the minimum frame rate of the Radeon HD 5830 is slightly higher.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

The Radeon HD 5830 has mixed results in this game. The average frame rate does not differ from the Radeon HD 4890, but the minimum fps is noticeably lower than that of this rival and even the GeForce GTX 260. According to this criterion, the advantage over the younger Radeon HD 5770 is not particularly significant - about 15%.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

The Radeon HD 5830 shows slightly better results than the Radeon HD 4890 at a lower resolution; at 1920x1200 the difference between them is again negligible. The overclocked version of the GeForce GTX 260 turns out to be more productive in all modes.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

As you can see, quantity does not always mean quality. It seems that the Radeon HD 5830 has more computing units than the Radeon HD 4890, but the results in this game are lower. Of course, the difference is small - only 5-7%, but its very presence is not an advantage of the new video adapter. It is noteworthy that the Radeon HD 5770 again lags behind very slightly.

Traditionally, we evaluate the results of video cards when NVIDIA PhysX is activated. But in this case, what is of interest is not so much the results of the Radeon HD 5830 (the performance is the same on all AMD video cards, since it depends on the CPU’s ability to calculate a given physical engine), but rather the difference between NVIDIA video cards, since we have not previously seen the GF100 on our pages predecessors based on the GT200b.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

And again, the Radeon HD 5830 video card does not please us with its results. In simple modes, its performance is at the level of the Radeon HD 4890; when anti-aliasing is activated, the newcomer is even worse. The gap from the older Radeon HD 5850 is traditionally huge and in anti-aliasing modes reaches 40% in minimum fps. Overclocking in such situations brings the Radeon HD 5830 up to a 20% increase in minimum frame rate

Borderlands

Before moving on to the results, we note that in the native Borderlands performance test, all GeForce cards have a fairly large spread in the minimum frame rate, which can range from 25 to 32 frames in all 7 runs. The average value is about 29 fps on all models, starting from the GeForce GTX 260. The Radeon results also vary, but the range of this “spread” is much smaller, which gives an average value higher - 31 frames. Taking into account this feature of this test, when the minimum fps remains unchanged and does not depend on the potential of the video card, you should not pay much attention to this parameter, although we present it. The average score gives a fairly accurate impression of the level of performance in this game.

Well, in this application the Radeon HD 5830 is a complete fiasco compared to the Radeon HD 4890, being inferior to the card by up to 11%. But relative to the Radeon HD 5770, the model in question has a stable advantage of 17-18%.

Divinity 2: Ego Draconis (Blood of Dragons)

Once again, we have to observe not the most outstanding results from the Radeon HD 5830, although there is still a tiny (2-4%) advantage over the Radeon HD 4890 in average frame rate. Radeon HD 5850 again separates the “gap” of 30% or more. The overclocked Radeon HD 5830 just reaches the performance level of the GeForce GTX 275.

If the Radeon HD 5830 video adapter disappointed us a little with the results in games under DirectX 9, then in the 3DMark Vantage synthetic test this graphics accelerator looks just fine, beating both the Radeon HD 4890 and GeForce GTX 275. And with the Radeon HD 5850 the difference in performance is no more than 14 %. With overclocking, the Radeon HD 5830 easily outperforms its older brother running at nominal.

Let's take a look at how the situation will turn out in real games running DirectX 10.

But here everything is not as rosy as in 3DMark. At lower settings, the performance of the Radeon HD 5830 is higher than the Radeon HD 4890, but with increasing resolution and when anti-aliasing is activated, the latter demonstrates a higher frame rate. But with overclocking, the Radeon HD 5830 in simple modes without antialiasing even reaches the level of the older Radeon HD 5850.

Far Cry 2

Common situation. At 1680x1050 without AA, the Radeon HD 5830 has a 6-8% advantage over the Radeon HD 4890, at 1920x1200 the cards reach approximately the same level, and when anti-aliasing is activated, the old Radeon HD 4890 has the best performance. The same is true for the older Radeon HD 5850 The largest lag is with active anti-aliasing.

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

Results in H.A.W.X. for the Radeon HD 5830 are generally bleak; it is inferior not only to the old one based on the RV770, but also to the overclocked version of the GeForce GTX 260 from XFX. But it should be noted that even the Radeon HD 5850 has a slight advantage over the Radeon HD 4890.

Resident Evil 5

In this application, NVIDIA solutions have an advantage; the GeForce GTX 275 even manages to outperform the Radeon HD 5850 in simple modes. The Radeon HD 5830 we are considering is inferior to the Radeon HD 4890 by about 7%, and it outperforms the younger Radeon HD 5770 by 13-15%.

James Cameron's Avatar: The Game

A little resuscitation of the Radeon HD 5830, which finally demonstrates performance higher than the Radeon HD 4890. But at the same time, again we see a typical situation when in high resolution with anti-aliasing the difference between these cards is reduced to nothing. But the younger Cypress turns out to be faster than the “old guys” NVIDIA.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

But in the latest game Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the Radeon HD 5830 looks more convincing against the Radeon HD 4890, although, again, at 1920x1200 with active anti-aliasing, the difference between the rivals almost disappears. The advantage of the Radeon HD 5850 is 25% in all modes. Overclocking adds up to 18% performance to the Radeon HD 5830.

Crysis: Warhead

First, we evaluate the results in a simpler mode with High settings (Gamer profile).

And again, a slight advantage of the Radeon HD 4890 over the Radeon HD 5830. Let's see how the situation turns out in heavier graphics modes.

Finally, the Radeon HD 5830 demonstrates a noticeable advantage over its predecessor, outperforming the Radeon HD 4890 at 1680x1050 by 16-20%. As the resolution increases, the difference decreases sharply, and already at 1920x1200 at AA4x it is tiny and insignificant. However, this does not play any significant role due to the low performance of both cards in this mode. It is noteworthy that the overclocked Radeon HD 5830 even reaches the level of the GeForce GTX 470.

In DirectX 11, compared to more expensive video cards, the Radeon HD 5830 looks decent only in the simple 1680x1050 mode - the difference with the Radeon HD 5850 and GeForce GTX 470 is from 10 to 17%. In heavier graphics modes, the lag of the Radeon HD 5830 increases.

The second part of Colin McRae's popular car simulator: DiRT exclusively supports DirectX 9 and the new DirectX 11. We present tests in both of these APIs together so that we can immediately evaluate the performance drop when switching to the new DirectX.

Under DirectX 11, we can only compare the Radeon HD 5830 with older video cards or with the younger Radeon HD 5770. The game as a whole is not very demanding and the video adapter in question is sufficient even for the heaviest of the tested modes at 1920x1200 with multisampling. The lag behind the Radeon HD 5850 in simple modes is up to 25%, with anti-aliasing - up to 29% in minimum fps. The performance gain from overclocking to 960/5512 MHz reaches 20%.

Metro 2033

Let's move on to the last and most demanding game in our list of test applications. Unfortunately, we did not have time to test all video cards in this game, so their number in the lower diagrams is noticeably smaller than in the previous ones. Radeon HD 4890 and GeForce GTX 260 are present only in nominal modes and in one resolution.

Testing was carried out at the Alley location. The above-ground level was specially chosen, since it is in open spaces that fps is lower than in tunnels and enclosed spaces. The selected episode is also notable for the fact that you can do without large-scale shootouts and perform the same sequence of actions on each run. A short 40 second walk was taken along a specific route. For each mode, the test was repeated three times. Graphics settings are Very High, the “Advanced PhysX” option was not enabled.

There is no need to talk about the ability to play under DirectX 11 on the Radeon HD 5830; we can simply state that it is a third behind the Radeon HD 5850

conclusions

Speaking of performance, it should be noted that compared to its predecessor and main competitor Radeon HD 4890, which was supposed to be replaced by the Radeon HD 5830, the latter does not look very impressive. Among the tested applications, the beginner side has an advantage in only half of the games: Battlestations: Pacific, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, Divinity 2: Ego Draconis, James Cameron's Avatar: The Game, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat , Colin McRae: DiRT 2 and Metro 2033. And even then, the difference with the Radeon HD 4890 is sometimes negligible, and as the resolution increases and when anti-aliasing is activated, it tends to zero. Given the quantitative advantage in the number of computing units, this is a little strange. But then no one is talking about a linear increase in performance with a corresponding increase in the number of computing units.The Radeon HD 5870 also does not demonstrate results twice as high as its predecessors, so it was not worth expecting anything outstanding from the “stub” on which the Radeon HD 5830 is based Let's not forget about the small frequency advantage of 50 MHz for the Radeon HD 4890, which at a minimum should have limited the ROP potential of the Radeon HD 5830, the number of which is similar to that of its predecessor. This, perhaps, is precisely the reason for the observed decrease in the performance of the newcomer to the level of the Radeon HD 4890 in heavy modes. But this 6% difference in operating frequency should have had a much smaller impact on the performance of a larger array of stream processors in the Radeon HD 5830.

The overclocking potential of HD 5830 video cards, like all RV870-based video adapters, is quite good. Using the Sapphire graphics accelerator as an example, we were convinced that performance primarily depends on the frequency of the graphics chip: with a 38% memory overclock, the actual increase in games did not exceed 20%, which exactly corresponds to the increase in GPU frequency during overclocking. The situation was predictable from the very beginning, considering how much the Cypress graphics chip was “lightened” in this video adapter.

The younger model is separated by 20-30% performance from its older brother Radeon HD 5850. In some applications in heavy modes with anti-aliasing, this figure can even reach 35-40% in terms of minimum fps (Battlestations: Pacific, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2), in Far Cry 2 this parameter is between maps "gap" of 50%. No overclocking will help compensate for this, and you shouldn’t expect to reach the level of the older model by raising frequencies when buying a Radeon HD 5830. It seems that in this case, AMD was guided not so much by the idea of creating another graphic solution that was successful in all respects, but by the desire to get rid of defective RV870 with a large number of non-working functional blocks.

But we are not at all talking about the complete failure of the Radeon HD 5830. On the contrary, this model is more preferable to older video cards, because it is slightly more economical than the Radeon HD 4890, and it also has an advantage in performance in most of the latest gaming applications. Of course, this advantage is small, but the lag from its predecessor, where it occurs, cannot be called significant either. So this is a full-fledged replacement for the Radeon HD 4890 with DirectX 11 support.

For the end buyer, everything will be decided by price, as usual. So far, the cost of the Radeon HD 5830 seems a little overpriced, which is fully explained by the lack of adequate competition in the market for new generation video cards that support DirectX 11. In this situation, we can only talk about the advisability of purchasing individual models. In particular, the Sapphire HD5830 1GB GDDR5 we reviewed has a very affordable price. At the same time, this video adapter can still boast of an effective and quiet cooling system, which is a sore point of the reference Radeon HD 4890, the standard cooler of which is quite noisy.

Test equipment was provided by the following companies:

DCLink - Gigabyte GV-R587D5-1GD-B, Sapphire HD5830 1GB GDDR5 video cards and ASUS Rampage Formula motherboard;
Eletek - OCZ memory OCZ2FXE12004GK;
Syntex - Seasonic SS-850HT power supply (S12D-850);
Equipment for business - video card Club 3D HD 5850 1G CGAX-58524IDP;
— hard drive WD3200AAKS;
Zotac - GeForce GTX 470 video card (ZT-40201-10P).

Video cards. Video cards Power consumption, thermal conditions, noise and overclocking

Appearance and features

Testing: Test System Specifications and 3Dmark Vantage

Testing: Batman Arkham Asylum, Call of Duty

Testing: Company of Heroes, Crysis Warhead

Testing: Dawn of War, Far Cry 2

Testing: Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X, Resident Evil 5

Testing: Street Fighter IV, World in Conflict

Testing: Wolfenstein

Overclocking potential

Power consumption and temperatures

Conclusion

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