Official ATI HD 5970 reviews and discussion

Tomshardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2474.html

Anandtech:
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3679&p=1

Bit-tech:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/g [...] 0-review/1

PC-Per:
http://pcper.com/article.php?aid=820

Extremetech:
http://www.extremetech.com/article [...] 032,00.asp

Hothardware:
http://hothardware.com/Articles/AT [...] owerhouse/

Bjorn3D:
http://bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1738

HardOCP:
http://hardocp.com/article/2009/11 [...] ard_review

Firingsquad:
http://firingsquad.com/hardware/at [...] e_preview/

Hardwarezone:
http://hardwarezone.com/articles/c [...] =3&id=3072

Guru3D:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/rade [...] view-test/

Techpowerup:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/EAH5970/
and
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews [...] CrossFire/

Trustedreviews:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/grap [...] HD-5970/p1

Techreport:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/17986

Legitreviews:
http://legitreviews.com/article/1141/1/

Driverheaven:
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=885

Tweaktown:
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3 [...] index.html

Hexus:
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=21179
and
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=21212

OverClockers Club:
http://www.overclockersclub.com/re [...] deon_5970/

Message edited by randoMIZER on 05-29-2010 at 07:48:42 AM

Reply to Maziar

techPowerUp
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/EAH5970/
and
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews [...] CrossFire/

Reply to Kari

Thanks added those too

Reply to Maziar

ZOMG:

http://www.*****/forum/hardware-ca [...] eview.html

Edit:... ok, what about hardwarecanucks is censored?
I give up...

Message edited by daedalus685 on 11-19-2009 at 04:03:21 AM

Reply to daedalus685

That is why we have TinyURL, although it should not be needed, and if I was to guess why it is, it's thanks to one user in the comments sections for articles advertising the site.

http://tinyurl.com/whyisthissitecensoredaswell

Reply to randoMIZER

People just ruin it for everyone.. though I must say the internet has given me a life long hate for tinyURL.. Just cant bring myself to use it given the strong distrust for everyone else who does.. lol

Evidently it needs the .com for the filter to pick it up

Anyway.. lots of review now. Strange how varied the overclocking results are.

Message edited by daedalus685 on 11-19-2009 at 04:04:09 AM

Reply to daedalus685

They are pre-production models, so there's going to be alot of variance as they get tweaked for mass production. Also, the platforms are probably different, and of course, so are the reviewers

Reply to randoMIZER

k tell me something, I haven't been able to really read that much into it, is this card basically a 5850 X2 or a 5870 X2? because it performs more like 2 5850s than 2 5870s???

Reply to L1qu1d

Its basically 2 5850's in CrossFire.
And links updated.

Reply to Maziar

its 2 5870s clocked down to fit ATX spec, the 5850 only has 1440 shaders and 72 texture units

The 5970 has the full 1600 and 80. Its designed to be overclocked, but can't be sold that way due to power constraints.

Reply to noob2222

Yep, it's two slow HD5870s. I also believe it's the PCIe 2.0 spec, not the ATX spec, that it's conforming to

Reply to randoMIZER

But i read in the Toms review that because of 300W PCI-SIG,they lowered the clock speeds to 5850.
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 474-2.html
"For example, ATI reduced the voltages it used and correspondingly dropped the 5970’s clock rates to Radeon HD 5850 levels. This was done to keep maximum board power to 294W—under the defined 300W PCI-SIG electromechanical specification"

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by Maziar on 11-19-2009 at 09:19:09 AM

Reply to Maziar

Yes, the 225W/300W High Power Card Electromechanical Specification, that's the one I was thinking of, not PCIe 2.0.

Reply to randoMIZER

Maziar wrote :

But i read in the Toms review that because of 300W,they lowered the clock speeds to 5850.
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 474-2.html
"For example, ATI reduced the voltages it used and correspondingly dropped the 5970’s clock rates to Radeon HD 5850 levels. This was done to keep maximum board power to 294W—under the defined 300W PCI-SIG electromechanical specification"

Clock speeds and voltage were lowered, but the chip on the card itself is a full blown cherry picked 5870. Its cherry picked because it will operate at lower than standard voltages, which allows them to stay under 300W.

Consider this card an unofficial BE GPU.

Anandtech probably had the best explanation of the whole thing here http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] i=3679&p=4

If you want to overclock this thing, make sure your Power Supply is ready for it.

Reply to noob2222

Yup i was a little disappointed with the voltage change for OC,by changing the voltages the card draw a lot more power.

Reply to Maziar

Makes sense.

I just read the guru3D review, they managed to OC it to 900 MHZ (23-25 mhz lower than what I could achieve with the 5870 I had before) but at a 90 degree temp I dunno if its a fair trade off

Reply to L1qu1d

You think my PSU Corsair TX650 could handle this baby ?

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to ronka

It should handle it fine:
http://www.amd.com/us/products/des [...] ments.aspx
"650 Watt or greater power supply one 75W 6-pin and one 150W 8-pin PCI Express® power connectors recommended (850 Watt with two 75W 6-pin and two 150W 8-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode)"

Reply to Maziar

no 650w is enough for crossfire or sli

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to sunnyp_343

sunnyp_343 wrote :

no 650w is enough for crossfire or sli

That is a rediculous statement to make, and entierly false.

If you are talking about 650W for 2 5970s then sure.. but 650 is enough for the vast majority of crossfire/SLI rigs. 650 is right in spec to power one 5970, though if you have a hundred HDDs it might not be ideal.

Reply to daedalus685

OverclockersClub.com did a review of Sapphire's version: http://www.overclockersclub.com/re [...] deon_5970/

They include the specs of the test computer, what they test it against, and they even take their best shot at overclocking it using the drivers that Sapphire provided with the card.

Reply to RogerDeath

thanks added that too

Reply to Maziar

I hate to be off topic, but i have been away too long. Maziar and randomizer are mods now? woah.
congrats.

Reply to customisbetter

Horatio is back whoo!

Reply to randoMIZER

Would 70Amp corsair 850W be enuff for overvolting the card? Because Im afraid of breaking the powersupply as I saw on XtremeSystems that the card draw 80amp??@ 1.26volt is that true? http://www.xtremesystems.org/forum [...] 970&page=2
Or is that 80amp is from the wall and depends on psu efficiency?

Message edited by Anonymous on 12-07-2009 at 02:41:53 AM

Reply to Anonymous

80 amps is butt-load of current. the wall will only give you 15 amps i believe...

and thanks Randomizer. its good to be back.

Message edited by customisbetter on 12-07-2009 at 03:27:26 AM

Reply to customisbetter

apparently some of the vrms are not cooled by the cooler, limiting overclocking.
[url=http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=657][/url]

Reply to epkfaile

Why the horrendous manufacturing problems that are delaying shipment. Virtually no news except for the 40ns chip problems in manufactures. Wish there was some inside information when these cards will become more readily available. When the few hit newegg.com they are gone in an average of 14.5 minutes. I have a new build and no GPU.

Reply to cybian

Well you can blame TSMC for that.

Reply to randoMIZER

Are any manufacturers making OC versions with 2 8-pin connectors?

Reply to sabot00

Could you crossfire these things?! Not that I would ever have the money...but I just wanna know... 4 GPU's would be entirely AMAZING!!!

Reply to Cash091

But QuadFire doesn't always scale well

Reply to Maziar

So I believe it is time someone asked the question.

Can it, or can it not..RUN CRYSIS

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to ckaz

ckaz wrote :

So I believe it is time someone asked the question.

Can it, or can it not..RUN CRYSIS

A 7300GT runs Crysis.

Specify settings & expected frame rate.

Reply to sabot00

You've got a good 50% chance that the 5970 you buy is going to be defective.

Message quoted 2 times

Reply to Jamrock

Jamrock wrote :

You've got a good 50% chance that the 5970 you buy is going to be defective.

You know this how?

Reply to sabot00

Jamrock wrote :

You've got a good 50% chance that the 5970 you buy is going to be defective.

I was thinking like that before installing Cat 9.12 LOL After 9.12. no more flickering , nfs shift works perfect,correct reading on second core in desktop, performance boost and all this with both cores @ 950/1150, stock voltage on ram and 1.16v on GPU. Can a 5870 do 950 on default voltages and 1150 ram with 1.1v?
Its the drivers that creates that feeling , these cards are through fully tested before being shipped with warranty.

Message edited by Anonymous on 12-23-2009 at 07:35:39 PM

Reply to Anonymous

Elie, try running Furmark for me and see how it goes.

I have a Diamond 5970, and it fails everytime in Furmark 640x480 after 55 seconds. GPU temps are only 64-70C when it fails, the whole computer freezes and I have to do a hard reboot.

Same thing also happens in Crysis and the Crysis benchmark. Fan speed is also stuck at 30% (Overdrive says 0%) and I cannot manually change the fan speed.

I think I got a defective card. How does yours perform in Furmark? I'm using the 9.12 drivers as well, also tried the 9.12 hotfix. Same deal.

Message quoted 2 times

Reply to Jamrock

Jamrock wrote :

Elie, try running Furmark for me and see how it goes.

I have a Diamond 5970, and it fails everytime in Furmark 640x480 after 55 seconds. GPU temps are only 64-70C when it fails, the whole computer freezes and I have to do a hard reboot.

Same thing also happens in Crysis and the Crysis benchmark. Fan speed is also stuck at 30% (Overdrive says 0%) and I cannot manually change the fan speed.

I think I got a defective card. How does yours perform in Furmark? I'm using the 9.12 drivers as well, also tried the 9.12 hotfix. Same deal.

There's an option, it's called RMA.
There's a second option, it's called refund.

Reply to sabot00

I'm quite aware of the first option, thanks.

I am also aware that it would take a couple months for another 5970 to get here.

There are no refunds. Only exchanges.

Reply to Jamrock

Jamrock wrote :

Elie, try running Furmark for me and see how it goes.

I have a Diamond 5970, and it fails everytime in Furmark 640x480 after 55 seconds. GPU temps are only 64-70C when it fails, the whole computer freezes and I have to do a hard reboot.

Same thing also happens in Crysis and the Crysis benchmark. Fan speed is also stuck at 30% (Overdrive says 0%) and I cannot manually change the fan speed.

I think I got a defective card. How does yours perform in Furmark? I'm using the 9.12 drivers as well, also tried the 9.12 hotfix. Same deal.

Furmark and Crysis are 100% stable 950/1150 both GPUs, furmark I done 10 min, Crysis 5 Hours 1080p with 4xAA Lifesis Ultra Mod. VRMs temps with furmark hit 107 but in games never pass 71 for me. VRM temps are higher than GPUs temps. Mine is Sapphire 5970 OC
Maybe your psu is the issue? Other games are stable? Are you ocing your cpu or vide card?

And a 5970 runs Crysis with my old Q9550@3.5Ghz 1080p 4xAA Lifesis Ultra Mod ~43Fps but thats with 950/1150 not default clocks,lowest Ive seen with explosions outside was 28 fps, highest I saw was like 80, indoor it is around 65 Fps. 43Fps feels like 55 in Crysis because it is somehow running at 50Hz. 9.12 Hotfix wasnt installing I think I had to do a cleanup but not worth it I will wait until the 7th Jan with Cat 10.1.

NOTE: I had to flash my bios to get the Fan Control working. Check your VRMs temps with GPUz.

Message edited by Anonymous on 12-24-2009 at 05:39:45 AM

Reply to Anonymous

Its the VRMs heating up, and thats why its shutting down.
Stay away from furmark, then see if it does it in games.
If it does in games, RMA, otherwise, its a heat throttling issue with the VRMs, which doesnt happen in games
Understand, the reason why ATI has these problems vs nVidia is, the shader makeup is quite different, and isnt truly designed to run all out, unlike nVidias cards which are, as they dont have this problem.
If you look at the scores that the ATI cards are pumping out in furmark youll see similar nVidia cards dont do near as well in furmark because of the shader designs, where nVidias 2 are going full out, while ATIs 5 are also, where thats never done in real world games

------------------------------ If we lose this freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment, those who had the most to lose, did the least to prevent its happening
Reply to JAYDEEJOHN

I threw a 9500gt 1gb in and took the 5970 out. Installed the drivers and as we speak I am running the same Furmark test as I was with the 5970.

Same exact settings, been running it for 3 minutes now and the GPU temp is only at 55C and has been there for the past minute. Ran for 15 minutes temps got up to 60C only was mostly stable.

The 5970 would go from 41C-65C in just under a minute and lock up the computer. It got 200 (yeah, 200) more FPS while running Furmark, but nothing you can do about a faulty card.

200 frames more than the 9500gt.... that's amazing, I just want to be able to play Crysis on max 1920x1080 whole reason I bought a new computer for. Here's to hoping Diamond responds to my e-mail in a timely fashion. Been reading stories of them taking a week or two to respond and giving an automated answer (i.e. did you check your cables etc.)

Since I got the card off Ebay I still don't know whether it should RMA to Newegg (it came packaged in a Newegg box, so I figure it was bought from there, the ebay seller has yet to answer my question on that) or to Diamond. I would bet that Newegg would be 10x faster, but I don't know because the 5970's are in such low stock what they do when they come in. Whether first priority goes to people who have RMA'd or to put up for sale.

Elie, my GPU-Z isn't showing the vreg temps

Card does the exact same thing in Crysis/Crysis benchmarks.

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by Jamrock on 12-24-2009 at 09:03:47 AM

Reply to Jamrock

Jamrock wrote :

I threw a 9500gt 1gb in and took the 5970 out. Installed the drivers and as we speak I am running the same Furmark test as I was with the 5970.

Same exact settings, been running it for 3 minutes now and the GPU temp is only at 55C and has been there for the past minute. Ran for 15 minutes temps got up to 60C only was mostly stable.

The 5970 would go from 41C-65C in just under a minute and lock up the computer. It got 200 (yeah, 200) more FPS while running Furmark, but nothing you can do about a faulty card.

200 frames more than the 9500gt.... that's amazing, I just want to be able to play Crysis on max 1920x1080 whole reason I bought a new computer for. Here's to hoping Diamond responds to my e-mail in a timely fashion. Been reading stories of them taking a week or two to respond and giving an automated answer (i.e. did you check your cables etc.)

Since I got the card off Ebay I still don't know whether it should RMA to Newegg (it came packaged in a Newegg box, so I figure it was bought from there, the ebay seller has yet to answer my question on that) or to Diamond. I would bet that Newegg would be 10x faster, but I don't know because the 5970's are in such low stock what they do when they come in. Whether first priority goes to people who have RMA'd or to put up for sale.

Elie, my GPU-Z isn't showing the vreg temps

Card does the exact same thing in Crysis/Crysis benchmarks.

GPUz VDDC#x temps in sensors tab

Reply to Anonymous

You could try CPUID's HWmonitor.
http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

Reply to sabot00

So, computer had a little hiccup today. My 5970 has been running at 157/300mhz for the past few days, because as you know, it is completely defective. I decided to head on in to ATI Overdrive to mess with the fan speed slider again, just to see if somehow the card magically repaired it self. Of course, it didn't work... the fan speed went up to 8%, then back to 0 within a second.

That's not the hiccup though,

I decided to turn on ATI Overdrive, it was annoying me that the card was automatically under clocked to such hideous levels. So I hit the check mark next to Overdrive (to get to stock clocks.)

VRROOOOOOOMMMMMM. Sounds like a jet airplane taking off. ***! :ouch: :pt1cable:

I was worried my computer was about to explode, so I shut the damn thing off and it still sounded strange after it was powered down! So I pulled the power cable out. When I turned it on again the sound was still going! I gave her some down-time and she booted up again as normal, I saw a few artifacts until I turned off Overdrive again.

I don't think I have any more doubts about this Diamond piece being defective. Diamond has yet to return my e-mail. Now, to call them on Monday and hope I don't get put on hold for an hour. I think I forgot to mention that the Request RMA function on their website refuses to load and you CANNOT register for a new account, O yes, and they claim to have live chat from 8-5 (pst,) but it NEVER works and always claims to be down. Did I mention how bad of a company Diamond is?

I don't think I can get a refund at this point, i'll just have to pray that Diamond can send me a card that is going to last, well a working card that doesn't turn into a jet engine upon raising the card to normal stock speeds would be a start. Nightmare! :heink:

Did I just get incredibly unlucky, or are people RMA'ing 5970's all over the place? I've seen a topic or two about it, but that's it.

Reply to Jamrock

Hope you get lucky, this is why I go with top-tier manufacturers such as: XFX, Sapphire, Gigabyte, ASUS.

Reply to sabot00

Yeah, for reasons I was in a rush to get it before Xmas, and I found this card on ebay and snatched it up at the last second for list price on Newegg. I was happy, but at the same time I had this feeling that there would be an issue with the card.

Does anyone else have a 5970? Would anyone mind telling me what they get w/ Furmark?

Reply to Jamrock

The 157/300mhz is the idling normal mhz for the card, when running 3d apps it will pump to 725/1000. Try running the card in a another computer with Cat 9.12
Furmark temps with 950/1150 for 10min maxed at 107C on VRMs cores were 87, yes thats hot and with 40% Fan speed, VRMs will throttle @ 120C. But there no way a game will use 100% of both cores, I repeat again temps in crysis never passed 71 on 40% fanspeed. Unless you will run furmark every day. Furmark make my card use as much as 72Amps!!!
Ya the fan at 100% makes me feel that the pc will start flying out of the window. The 5970 cooler is really effective compared to the 4870x2. If 3d Mark or crysis still fail then its the card.

Message edited by Anonymous on 12-26-2009 at 08:08:54 PM

Reply to Anonymous

Thanks elie,

The fan really does sound like a jet engine at 100%, drowns out all the other sounds, lol.

So you have never had your video card completely lock up in Furmark or Crysis or anything else for that matter?

I'm not sure what is causing my card to freeze like this, but it appears to have to do with temps. At first I was unable to adjust the fan speed in CCC, but I used MSI Afterburner to change the fan speeds. I was only able to get to 225 seconds into Furmark with 100% fan speeds until the card locked up and I had to do a hard reboot.

I also tried Crysis at 100% fans, actually got passed the cutscenes this time! It appeared to be artifacting like crazy though and I got some pretty poor frames. 15-25fps everything max 1920x1080.

It is nice to hear from someone else that has the card, if my card is locking up like this, I think it is defective and needs to be RMA'ed. Doesn't sound like anyone else are having these kinds of issues.

Now, if only I had NOT bought a Diamond card, heh. Well, now I know.

Thanks

-J

Reply to Jamrock

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