ASUS ATI Radeon EAH5850 G 2 DIS
Category : AMD
Published by Marc Voser on 25.01.10
With the EAH5850 G 2 DIS ASUS presents their entry card into the 5850-series. The GPU is being manufactured using 40 nanometer process technology. On 334 squaremillimeters there are 2.15 billion transistors which is twice the amount of circuits you found on the predecessor GPU. Furthermore the EAH5850 is based on the reference design and comes with a DualSlot cooler with copper baseplate and heatpipes. We'd like to thank ASUS for providing us with the testsample.
On the following pages we will show you the strenghts and weaknesses of the ASUS ATI Radeon EAH5850 G 2 DIS.
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Technical data / specifications
To power the ASUS EAH5870 you'll "only" need two 6-pin power plugs. Especially owners of older power supplies might be happy about this fact. According to ATI the new RV870 only draws 27 Watts when it's idle. Unter load the maximum TDP (Thermal Design Power) is claimed to be 188 Watt. These are absolute top values for a graphics card with these specifications. Achieving this goal meant that ATI had to lower core and memory clocks from 850/1200 MHz to only 158/300 MHz.
If the 5870 is being compared to it's predecessor the 4890, it looks like nearly all the specs have been doubled. Therefore the number of shader units increased from 800 to 1600, ROPs you'll now find 32 insted of 16 and even the ALU's and TMU's were doubled.
| ASUS EAH5970 | ASUS EAH5870 | ASUS EAH5850 | |
| Chip | 2x RV870 | RV870 | RV870 |
| Process | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm |
| Transistors | ca. 2x 2.15 Mrd. | ca. 2.15Mrd. | ca. 2.15 Mrd. |
| GPU clock | 725 MHz | 850 MHz | 725 MHz |
| Shader (MADD) | 2x 1600 (320 5D) | 1600 (320 5D) | 1440 (288 5D) |
| Shader clock | 725 MHz | 850 MHz | 725 MHz |
| Memory | 2x 1024MB GDDR5 | 1024MB GDDR5 | 1024MB GDDR5 |
| Memory clock | 2000 MHz | 2400 MHz | 2000 MHz |
| Memory interface | 256 Bit | 256 Bit | 256 Bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 2x 128'000 MB/s | 153'600 MB/s | 128'000 MB/s |
| ROPs | 2x 32 ROP | 32 ROP | 32 ROP |
| TMUs | 2x 80 | 80 | 72 |
| TAUs | 2x 80 | 80 | 72 |
| Shader model | SM 5 | SM 5 | SM 5 |
| Maximum board power | 294 Watt | 188 Watt | 170 Watt |
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Preview / Delivery
To connect a displays to the 5850 you'll find two Dual-Link DVI ports which can be driven in Dual-Link mode as well as on HDMI- and a display-port. Looking at the delivery you'll find everything you need and even a bit more. Therefore there is a short manual, a driver CD, two power connector adaptors, a CrossFire bridge, a DVI to VGA adaptor as well as a voucher for the DirectX11 racegame Dirt2 which can be activavted via the online client Steam.
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Overclocking
If the card runs in 2D mode it is very silent and you wont be able to hear it. Also compared to a GeForce 285GTX or a ATI Radeon HD4890 the 5870 is much more quiet. In 3D mode the cards noise level still is on a very reasonable level and this let's us think that it might be an interesting object to be overclocked. Using the delivered software SmartDoctor you can raise the core voltage slightly and achieve quite astonishing clock rates. Generally we can claim that a higher core voltage (max. increase ten percent) results in better overclockability.With the fancontroller set to 40 % we were able to reach a core clock of 820 MHz and memory speeds of 2400 MHz.
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Test conditions
Hardware
| Mainboard |
|
| CPUs |
|
| Speicher |
|
| Grafikkarten |
|
| Festplatte |
|
| Netzteil |
|
Software
Futuremark
- 3DMark 06 @ 3.33Ghz
- Standard
- 3DMark Vantage
- Performance
Furmark
| High | Medium | Low | |
| Benchmarking | yes | yes | yes |
| Fullscreen | yes | yes | yes |
| Resolution | 1920 x 1080 | 1680 x 1050 | 1280 x 1024 |
| MSAA | 8x | 4x | none |
| Time based (ms) | 60'000 | 60'000 | 60'000 |
PT Boats DX10
| High | Medium | Low | |
| DirectX Version | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| Resolution | 1920 x 1080 | 1680 x 1050 | 1280 x 1024 |
| Image Quality | High | Medium | Low |
| Antialiasing | 8x | 4x | none |
| Anisotropic Texture Filtering | 16x | 8x | none |
X3 Terran Conflict
| High | Medium | Low | |
| Resolution | 1920 x 1080 | 1680 x 1050 | 1280 x 1024 |
| Fullscree | yes | yes | yes |
| Texture Quality | High | Medium | Low |
| Shader Quality | high | Medium | Low |
| More Dynamic Ligh Sources | yes | no | no |
| Ship Colour Variations | yes | no | no |
| Automatic Quality Control | yes | yes | yes |
| Antialiasing | 8x | 4x | none |
| Anisotropic Texture Filtering | 16x | 8x | none |
| Glow enabled | yes | no | no |
Streetfighter 4
| High | Medium | Low | |
| FPS-Anzeige | Aus | Aus | Aus |
| Antialiasing | 8x | 4x | none |
| Vollbild | Aus | Aus | Aus |
| Bildschirmauflösung | 1920 x 1080 | 1680 x 1050 | 1280 x 1024 |
| Bildwiederholfrequenz | 60 | 60 | 60 |
| Bildschirm-Vsync | Aus | Aus | Aus |
| Bildwiederholrate | viariabel | variabel | variabel |
| Seitenkorrektur | Auto | Auto | Auto |
| Helligkeit | Standard | Standard | Standard |
| Parallel Rendering | An | An | An |
| Textur Filtering | 16x | 8x | Aus |
| Modellqualität | Hoch | Mittel | Niedrig |
| Hintergrundqualität | Hoch | Hoch | Hoch |
| Soft Shadow | Maximum | Niedrig | Niedrig |
| Self Shadow | Hoch | Niedrig | Aus |
| Motion Blur | Hoch | Niedrig | Aus |
| Particle Rendering | Hoch | Mittel | Niedrig |
| Besondere Effekte | Aus | Aus | Aus |
World in Conflict
| High | Medium | Low | |
| Resolution | 1920 x 1080 | 1680 x 1050 | 1280 x 1024 |
| Graphic Detail | very high | medium | low |
| Antialiasing | 8x | 4x | none |
| Anisotropic Texture Filtering | 16x | 8x | none |
Resident Evil 5 DX10
| High | Medium | Low | |
| Resolution | 1920 x 1080 | 1680 x 1050 | 1280 x 1024 |
| Anzeigen-Modus | Vollbild | Vollbild | Vollbild |
| Vertikalfrequenz | 60 Hz | 60 Hz | 60 Hz |
| Vertikal Sync | Nein | Nein | Nein |
| Bildwiederholrate | Variabel | Variabel | Variabel |
| Antialiasing | 8x | 4x | none |
| Anisotropic Texture Filtering | 16x | 8x | none |
| Motion Blur | Ja | Ja | Nein |
| Schatten Details | Hoch | Mittel | Niedrig |
| Textur Details | Hoch | Mittel | Niedrig |
| Gesamtqualität | Hoch | Mittel | Niedrig |
Crysis DX10
| High | Medium | Low | |
| Resolution | 1920 x 1080 | 1680 x 1050 | 1280 x 1024 |
| Quality Settings | very high | medium | low |
| Antialiasing | 16xQ | 8x | no AA |
| Demo Loops | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Time of day | 9 | 9 | 9 |
| Timedemo | benchmark_gpu | benchmark_gpu | benchmark_gpu |
| 64 bit | yes | yes | yes |
| DX10 | yes | yes | yes |
Call of Juarez
| High | Medium | Low | |
| Resolution | 1920 x 1080 | 1680 x 1050 | 1280 x 1024 |
| Fullscreen | yes | yes | yes |
| Details | High | Balanced | Low |
| Shadowmap size | 2048x2048 | 2048x2048 | 2048x2048 |
| Shadows quality | High | Low | Low |
| Antialiasing | 4x SSAA | 2x MSAA | none |
| Audio | disabled | disabled | disabled |
Far Cry 2 DX10
| High | Medium | Low | |
| Resolution | 1920 x 1080 | 1680 x 1050 | 1280 x 1024 |
| Antialiasing | 8x | 4x | none |
| Direct3D | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| Fire | very high | high | low |
| Physics | very high | high | low |
| Real Trees | very high | high | low |
| Overall Quality | custom | high | custom |
| Vegetation | very high | high | high |
| Shading | ultra high | high | high |
| Terrain | ultra high | high | high |
| Geometry | ultra high | high | high |
| Post FX | high | high | high |
| Texture | ultra high | high | high |
| Ambient | high | high | high |
| HDR | yes | yes | yes |
| Shadow | ultra high | high | high |
| Bloom | yes | yes | yes |
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3DMark 06 @ 3.33Ghz
3DMark 06 is getting older these days. Therefore if you are using really powerful graphic cards you will hit CPU limitation which means that the graphic card isn't the bottleneck in the system. This is also the reason why in recent high-end desktop systems 3DMark 06 scales nicely with the CPU and the graphic card has much less influence on the scores.
| 3DMark06 Total | Score | Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 22'840 | 120.84% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 21'229 | 112.31% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 18'901 | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| 3DMark06 Grafik SM 2.0 Score | Score | Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 8'216 | 122.99% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 8'267 | 123.75% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 6'680 | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| 3DMark06 Grafik HDR/SM 3.0 Score | Score | Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 11'920 | 141.83% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 9'959 | 118.50% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 8'404 | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
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3DMark Vantage
3DMark Vantage is able to squeeze nearly everything out of a recent system. Therefore the feature liste is also pretty long: DirectX10, FP16-HDR, motion blur, parallax occlusion mapping, GPU-physics simulation and different shader effects are being used to even make recent high-end systems struggle.| 3DMark Vantage | Score | Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 18'895 | 135.95% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 16'056 | 115.52% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 13'898 | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| 3DMark06 Vantage Grafik | Score | Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 19'789 | 150.63% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 15'858 | 120.71% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 13'137 | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
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Furmark
| Furmark, 1920 x 1080, MSAA 8X | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 54.21 fps | 166.47% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 32.80 fps | 100.07% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 32.56 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| Furmark, 1650 x 1080, 8x AA 8xAF | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 95.91 fps | 191.89% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 57.51 fps | 115.07% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 49.98 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| Furmark, 1280 x 1024, no AA/AF | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 237.28 fps | 162.98% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 153.78 fps | 105.63% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 145.58 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
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PT Boats
PT Boats Knights of Seas is based on the Direct-3D-10 API, supports multicore CPUs and comes with a physics engine. Also at this point we see a good scaling of the CPU at low resolutions and nearly no influence when applying high resolutions.| PT Boats, 1920 x 1080, high details, 8xAA 16xAF | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 20.45 fps | 155.57% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 13.20 fps | 100.04% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 13.14 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| PT Boats, 1650 x 1080, medium details, 4xAA 8xAF | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 59.85 fps | 101.89% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 59.01 fps | 100.45% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 58.74 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| PT Boats, 1280 x 1024, low details, no AA/AF | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 64.81 fps | 97.65% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 67.53 fps | 101.76% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 66.36 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
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X3 Terran Conflict
| X3 Terran Conflict, 1920 x 1080, high details, 8xAA 16xAF, | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 78.52 fps | 101.09% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 77.67 fps | 100.00% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 77.67 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
Auch beim X3 Terran Conflict bemerkt man mittlerweile dass der Benchmark CPU-limitierend ist, was heissen will, dass die CPU den Flaschenhals bezüglich der Leistung darstellt.
| X3 Terran Conflict, 1650 x 1080, medium details, 4xAA 8xAF, | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 89.82 fps | 114.57% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 88.39 fps | 113.80% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 77.67 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| X3 Terran Conflict, 1280 x 1024, low details, no AA/AF | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 98.22 fps | 100.42% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 97.99 fps | 100.19% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 97.80 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
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Streetfighter 4
Street Fighter 4 comes with an extra benchmark version which makes testing you system childrens play. At low resolutions the system requirements are pretty low and we can see CPU-scaling in the results. At high resolution the graphic card becomes more important and the CPUs clock speed has less influence on the fps.| Streetfighter 4, 1920 x 1080, high details, C16xQ | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 139.48 fps | 180.11% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 92.74 fps | 119.75% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 77.44 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| Streetfighter 4, 1650 x 1080, medium details, 8x AA, | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 161.96 fps | 130.16% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 145.78 fps | 117.15% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 124.43 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| Streetfighter 4, 1280 x 1024, low details, no AA/AF | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 406.01 fps | 103.30% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 395.08 fps | 100.52% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 393.02 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
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World in Conflict
| World in Conflict, 1920 x 1080, high details, 8xAA 16xAF | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 77 fps | 130.50% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 59 fps | 100.00% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 59 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| World in Conflict, 1650 x 1080, medium details, 4xAA 8xAF | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 81 fps | 119.10% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 68 fps | 100.00% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 68 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| World in Conflict, 1280 x 1024, low details, no AA/AF | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 82 fps | 120.58% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 68 fps | 100.00% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 68 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
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Resident Evil 5
Resident Evil uses nearly every modern rendering technology: HDR, Hemisphere Lighting, Soft Shadows, Soft Particles, Field- und Motion-Blur oder auch Alpha to Coverage and static Ambient Occlusion. Furthermore Resident Evil 5 has been optimized for multicore architectures and already comes DirectX11 ready. By using the DirectX9 as well as the DirectX10 benchmark we can again show you CPU-scaling with low resolutions and the compared to the CPU overproportional influence of the graphics card at high resolutions.| Resident Evil 5, 1920 x 1080, high details, 8xAA 16xAF | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 119.50 fps | 124.73% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 97.20 fps | 101.46% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 95.80 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| Resident Evil 5, 1650 x 1080, medium details, 4xAA 8xAF | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 138.60 fps | 100.72% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 137.80 fps | 100.14% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 137.60 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| Resident Evil 5, 1280 x 1024, low details, no AA/AF | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 150.30 fps | 99.73% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 151.00 fps | 100.19% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 150.70 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
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Call of Juarez
| Call of Juarez, 1920 x 1080, high details, 4xSSAA | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 53.60 fps | 134.67% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 41.90 fps | 105.27% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 39.80 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| Call of Juarez, 1680 x 1050, medium details, 4xMSAA | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 130.90 fps | 161.20% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 83.00 fps | 102.21% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 81.20 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| Call of Juarez, 1280 x 1024, low details, no AA | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 235.90 fps | 142.02% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 176.30 fps | 106.14% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 166.10 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
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Far Cry 2
| Far Cry 2, 1920 x 1080, high details, 8xAA | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 80.35 fps | 153.48% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 54.14 fps | 102.30% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 52.92 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| Far Cry 2, 1680 x 1050, medium details, 4xAA | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 130.88 fps | 150.73% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 89.36 fps | 102.91% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 86.83 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
| Far Cry 2, 1280 x 1024, low details, no AA | Percent | |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 80.35 fps | 151.83% |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 54.14 fps | 102.30% |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 52.92 fps | 100.00% |
| more is better | ||
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Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| Looking at ATi's recent high-end line-up the 5850 is the entry card. The GPU clock is at a reasonable 725 MHz which makes it 125 MHz lower than the HD5870. Therefore also lower is the cards power consumption. Under load it will draw 170 Watt and in idle the 5850 only need 27 watts. Also with a length of 28 cm there shouldn't be any problems when putting the card into a computer case. | - Power
consumption - Lenght |
||
| Delivery | + | - | |
| Dual-Link DVI, HDMI and a display port, what do you want more from a recent graphics card regarding connectors. Also the delivery is very good. What you get is a short manual, a driver CD, two power adaptors, a CrossFire-Bride, a DVI to VGA adaptor and a voucher for the race game Dirt2. | - Connectors - Dirt2 Game |
||
| Performance | + | - | |
| Regarding the numbers and figures the HD5850 leaves a very good impression. Compared to the HD5870 it is only about three percent slower on average in our benchmark parcours. Especially astonishing is the card when anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering is activated. There you can clearly see the RV870's strenghts because it doesn't break in as much as its predecessor - the RV790 - did. | - Performance |
||
| Overclocking | + | - | |
| With the standard cooler and the fancontroller at 40 percent we were able to reach a stable GPU-clock of 820 MHz and a memory-clock of 2400 MHz. By integrating a Volterra-Chip ASUS makes it possible that you can also adjust the cards voltages. |
- Temperature |
||
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| The smallest variant of the RV870 chip convinced us completely. The average performance difference to the 5870 is only three percent and therefore not really significant. Also the delivery is exemplary and the package top-quality. We would recommend the card especially to gaming-enthusiasts where the most important point is price/performance. |
- PC-Enthusiasts
|
||
The ASUS EAH5870 G 2DIS can be bought at Digitec to a price of CHF 369.- (est. EUR 248.-).
Author: Marc Voser, m.voser@ocaholic.ch Copy edited by: Marc Büchel, m.buechel@ocaholic.ch
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