ATI Radeon HD 5970 2GB: The World's Fastest Graphics Card

Features
By Chris Angelini
published

Benchmark Results: World In Conflict

ATI’s Radeon HD 5970 exhibits slightly better performance characteristics than both a pair of Radeon HD 5850s in CrossFire and a pair of 5870s in CrossFire (except at 2560x1600, where the card's slower clocks likely hold it back). It’s also faster than the best that Nvidia currently has to offer.

With anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering turned on, the 5970 and 5850s trade blows, but come out pretty much even. Given the choice between spending $600 on one card or $600 on two cards that are just as fast, the single board would seem to make the most sense. At 2560x1600, the SLI’d GeForce GTX 285s catch ATI’s new flagship, but at a massive price premium.

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
193 Comments Comment from the forums
  • cyberkuberiah
    today's a great day for graphics , as the bar's been raised again !
    Reply
  • IzzyCraft
    bawhaha i was waiting for this
    5970 picture of it in size comparison is priceless to me it's freaking huge card.

    But really how are they going to get 2 chips for 5970 when they can't even get 1 for 5870 :)
    Reply
  • notty22
    Wonder if this would get the same framerates as a 5870 in a AMD 965 system ?
    Reply
  • In your face Gt240 =P
    Reply
  • I'm getting more concerned with Nvidia these days. They keep playing with these low-end cards and haven't made anything all that great in almost a year. Hopefully Fermi doesn't turn into Itanic II.
    Reply
  • amdgamer666
    Sweet, another amazing card to drool at, too bad I can't afford it. Thanks for including CF'ed 5870's, that's what I wanted to compare it to the most. The release seems to coincide with the driver update. Everybody make sure to update your drivers to 9.11 :)
    http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx
    Also, because 9.11 is out, you can also try out Adobe's Flash 10.1 prelease to try out GPU-accelerated flash
    http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/
    Exciting times
    Reply
  • commodore64
    Wooww...4.3 billion transistors, low idle power, it's pricey but this baby has lots of potential :)

    I think ATI driven NVIDIA into a corner this time, i love the competition :)
    Reply
  • christop
    Sweet but can't see spending 600 on a card...
    Reply
  • 7amood
    commodore64i love the competitionThere is no competition yet >_< prices are way up there!!!
    Reply
  • Honis
    Good article!

    I'll wait for a price drop since there are 0 DX 11 games out currently. Hope this forces further drops in the 4870s.
    Reply