Hexus.net - Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 TOXIC 2,048MB

[sciwizam]

Link

Specs and Cost

With GeForce GTX 470/480 firmly in mind, Sapphire receives the best GPUs and runs this TOXIC model at a core speed of 925MHz and 2GBs of GDDR5 memory at 5,000MHz, compared with the regular Vapor-X's 870MHz/5,200MHz and reference's 850MHz/4,800MHz.

Equipped with the Vapor-X (VCT) heatsink found on the production HD 5870 1GB card and improved by a double-sized frame-bufer and higher shipping clocks, Sapphire's Radeon HD 5870 TOXIC 2GB card should arrive with an etail price of £375 or so.

Most interesting result:

The results are not a mistake. A 2GB frame-buffer enables the Radeon HD 5870 GPU to breathe when really taxed. Indeed, it's faster than a Radeon HD 5970 - a card that has to share its frame-buffer between the GPUs.

A near-30 per cent performance increase over a generic HD 5870 is down to more than just clock-speed, clearly.

Other than that, not much else going on with the rest of the game scenarios they tested.

 

[Hauk]

A premium over the 2GB Eyefininity cards, but damn nice card. Very nice. Hmm..

 

[OVerLoRDI]

faster than a 5970? Surprised that much video memory makes a difference. I think I remember seeing cards with 2gb of video memory not performing any real amount faster with the last generation cards.

 

[toyota]

faster than a 5970? Surprised that much video memory makes a difference. I think I remember seeing cards with 2gb of video memory not performing any real amount faster with the last generation cards.

its only one bench that it made a difference and even then the game was at unplayable settings. 1gb is plenty and having 2gb only makes sense if you are going to run at 2560 or higher and run crossfire. GTA 4 is the only game I know of where having more than 1gb would be useful at just 1920.

 

[dookulooku]

No Eyefinity testing makes this review rather uninteresting.

 

[SolMiester]

faster than a 5970? Surprised that much video memory makes a difference. I think I remember seeing cards with 2gb of video memory not performing any real amount faster with the last generation cards.

+1, that is an impressive speed bump with the extra memory.....

 

[dook43]

Crysis bogs down at eyefinity resolutions WITHOUT AA.

 

[toyota]

Crysis bogs down at eyefinity resolutions WITHOUT AA.

well duh. lol. just adding more video memory isnt going to fix that as you will need more gpu power too.

 

[FalseChristian]

For resolutions of 1680x1050 and below 512MB is more than enough. 2GB is absolutely a marketing gimmick.

 

[toyota]

For resolutions of 1680x1050 and below 512MB is more than enough. 2GB is absolutely a marketing gimmick.

well you can actually make a few games go over 512mb at just 1680 with the right settings. 2gb is MOSTLY a gimmick at this point but for insane eyefinity resolutions it could certainly be useful if you want to crossfire a 5870 and fully push it.

 

[Daedalus685]

For resolutions of 1680x1050 and below 512MB is more than enough. 2GB is absolutely a marketing gimmick.

It made a massive difference in Cysis at 30" resolutions.. Certainly not just a gimmick though useless for most people. While it will still take 2 cards in CF to have close to 30fps at those resolution, crossfire 1gb would not be enough frame buffer.

Limited use for sure.. but it has it's market.

 

[ExcaliburMM]

I for one am happy to see some more 2GB single GPU cards out there. TOXIC cooler and all just makes it better.

 

[Allio]

The card was like 1-2% faster in every other game, even 2560x1600 with 8xAA. You'd expect better peformance than that just from the rather hefty increase in clocks. Not sure what's going on with that card...

 

[ElFenix]

i just can't help thinking of this

 

[evolucion8]

The additional VRAM will help greatly in a Crossfire setup, but as a single card I really doubt it.

 

[SolidSnake42]

Just wow, for once, memory really does make a difference. And I like it lol.

 

[Paratus]

They needed to run eyefinity resolutions and not for Crysis. I bet you would see some interesting results at 3x1680 & 3x1920.

 

[Lonyo]

They needed to run eyefinity resolutions and not for Crysis. I bet you would see some interesting results at 3x1680 & 3x1920.

+1 on that.

Not a huge amount of point in benching at "regular" resolutions when you've got a card basically designed to overcome a significant potential pitfall of 'regular' cards in Eyefinity mode.