Radeon HD 5850: Knocking Down GTX 295 In CrossFire

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Benchmark Results: Resident Evil 5

This is one of Nvidia’s TWIMTBP games, so we’re not entirely surprised that the GeForce GTX 285 is able to best a single Radeon HD 5850 at all three of our tested resolutions, nor are we surprised that the GeForce GTX 295 bests the Radeon HD 5870.

Applying 8xAA naturally taxes each of these configurations a bit more, and here ATI usurps Nvidia with a win versus the GeForce GTX 285 (with the 5850) and better 1920x1200/2560x1600 performance (with the 5870). Moreover, CrossFire gives the 5850s a compelling win over twin GeForce GTX 285s in SLI.

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Summary
  1. Introduction
  2. The Makings Of Radeon HD 5850
  3. Hardware And Benchmark Setup
  4. Benchmark Results: 3DMark Vantage
  5. Benchmark Results: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky
  6. Benchmark Results: Crysis
  7. Benchmark Results: Far Cry 2
  8. Benchmark Results: Left 4 Dead
  9. Benchmark Results: World In Conflict
  10. Benchmark Results: H.A.W.X.
  11. Benchmark Results: Resident Evil 5
  12. Benchmark Results: Grand Theft Auto IV
  13. Power Consumption And Noise
  14. The Lynnfield Element
  15. Conclusion
About the author
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.

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  • duckmanx88
    another great article. can you guy add these to your 2009 charts please. and the new i5 and i7 cpu's too please! =)
  • coonday
    Ball's in your court now Nvidia. Time to stop whining and bring some competition to the table.
  • Annisman
    Hi, very very good article, It's nice to see my two 5870's at the top of every chart destroying every game out there!

    I hope you guys will go into more details about how you run your benchmarks for games. When I compare my own results, sometimes I wonder if you are using ingame FRAPS results, or a benchmark tool such as Crysis to get your results, this is very important for me to know. Please dedicated a small portion of reviews to let us know exactly what part of the game you benched, and in what fashion, it will be very helpful. Also, it would be great to see exactly what settings were used in games. For example you state that you set GTA4 to the 'highest' settings, however without 2GB of Vram, the texture settings can only be set on Med. unless you are compromising in the view distance category or somewhere else. So maybe a screenshot of the settings you used should be included, I would like to see this become regular in Tom's video card reviews. Great article, and please conisder by requests.
    • Other Comments
  • duckmanx88
    another great article. can you guy add these to your 2009 charts please. and the new i5 and i7 cpu's too please! =)
  • jj463rd
    Quote "ATI has two cards that are faster than its competitor’s quickest single-GPU board. My, how times have changed." LoL

    Yep I was looking at the Radeon 5850 especially CF'd for a build.
    The Radeon 5870's seem a bit pricey to me so I'd prefer 2 5850's.
    I can wait till they become available.
    Thanks for the great review very impressive on those scores of the 5850.
  • coonday
    Ball's in your court now Nvidia. Time to stop whining and bring some competition to the table.
  • Annisman
    Hi, very very good article, It's nice to see my two 5870's at the top of every chart destroying every game out there!

    I hope you guys will go into more details about how you run your benchmarks for games. When I compare my own results, sometimes I wonder if you are using ingame FRAPS results, or a benchmark tool such as Crysis to get your results, this is very important for me to know. Please dedicated a small portion of reviews to let us know exactly what part of the game you benched, and in what fashion, it will be very helpful. Also, it would be great to see exactly what settings were used in games. For example you state that you set GTA4 to the 'highest' settings, however without 2GB of Vram, the texture settings can only be set on Med. unless you are compromising in the view distance category or somewhere else. So maybe a screenshot of the settings you used should be included, I would like to see this become regular in Tom's video card reviews. Great article, and please conisder by requests.
  • Kl2amer
    Solid review. Now we just have to wait for aftermarket coolers/designs to get them a quiter and even cooler.
  • megamanx00
    Glad that 5850 is shorter, but I'll probably wait till Sapphire or Asus put out cards with a cooler better than the reference. Damn I want one now though :D.
  • Anonymous
    So its a Little faster than my 4850 x2?
  • JohnnyLucky
    Another interesting article. I'm almost tempted to get a 5850. I'm just wondering how power consumption during Furmark which is a rigorous stress test compares to power consumption during gaming. Am I correct in assuming power consumption during a typical gaming session would be less? If I'm not mistaken ATI is recommending a 600 watt power supply with 40 amps on the 12 volt rail(s) for a system with two 5850's in Crossfire mode.
  • cangelini
    annismanHi, very very good article, It's nice to see my two 5870's at the top of every chart destroying every game out there!I hope you guys will go into more details about how you run your benchmarks for games. When I compare my own results, sometimes I wonder if you are using ingame FRAPS results, or a benchmark tool such as Crysis to get your results, this is very important for me to know. Please dedicated a small portion of reviews to let us know exactly what part of the game you benched, and in what fashion, it will be very helpful. Also, it would be great to see exactly what settings were used in games. For example you state that you set GTA4 to the 'highest' settings, however without 2GB of Vram, the texture settings can only be set on Med. unless you are compromising in the view distance category or somewhere else. So maybe a screenshot of the settings you used should be included, I would like to see this become regular in Tom's video card reviews. Great article, and please conisder by requests.


    Usually try to include them on a page in the review. Anything more detailed you'd like, feel free to let me know and I'm happy to oblige!
  • SchizoFrog
    It does seem that the 5850 is a great £200 card and definately the option to go for if you are buying today. I pride myself on getting good performance from great value and the test of this is to try and get my GPU to last 2 years and still be playing high end games. My current O/C 9600GT 512MB which cost me a huge £95 18 months ago, is doing just that right now. So, for a £200 DX11 GPU the 5850 is on its own and a great buy by default. However, and this is a big however! While Windows 7 will support DX11 and a few upcoming games will use a few visual effects based on DX11, nothing else does and certainly there are no true DX11 games and won't be for some time as nearly all games released these days are developed with the console market in mind. So I for one will wait. I will wait for nVidia to decide it is time to launch their DX11 GPU's. Either their GPU's will push them firmly back to the top or at least drive ATi's prices down.
  • megamanx00
    While the 5870 didn't outplace the GTX 295 like we all expected, the 5850 sure outpaces the GTX285 and looks like it's cheaper to boot. NVidia is of course gonna cut prices on the GTX285 to compete and I'm sure the GTX275 will dip a little as well. I doubt NVidia will have a DX11 answer before the end of the year, given how they keep saying DX11 isn't too important, and even when they do I'm betting it will be more expensive for them to make than it is for ATI/AMD to make the 5850, but I suppose we'll see in the coming months.
  • Annisman
    schizofrogIt does seem that the 5850 is a great £200 card and definately the option to go for if you are buying today. I pride myself on getting good performance from great value and the test of this is to try and get my GPU to last 2 years and still be playing high end games. My current O/C 9600GT 512MB which cost me a huge £95 18 months ago, is doing just that right now. So, for a £200 DX11 GPU the 5850 is on its own and a great buy by default. However, and this is a big however! While Windows 7 will support DX11 and a few upcoming games will use a few visual effects based on DX11, nothing else does and certainly there are no true DX11 games and won't be for some time as nearly all games released these days are developed with the console market in mind. So I for one will wait. I will wait for nVidia to decide it is time to launch their DX11 GPU's. Either their GPU's will push them firmly back to the top or at least drive ATi's prices down.



    Specifically for this article, I would like to know how you benched Crysis. Did you use the in-game benchmark tool running a set number of runs, or with a FRAPS recorded sessions of say 15 minutes of gameplay ? I'd like to know, to compare specificly with my setup which is almost identical to your 5870CF setup used in this review, thanks.
  • Annisman
    Wow I totally quoted the wrong person there, meant to quote C Angelini, not schizofrog, sorry for the confusion.
  • 1ce
    A very nice card.....now I don't know whether to get a 5870, or splurge and get two 5850s.....
  • Why_Me
    I can't wait to see how Nvidea answers this when they come out with their DX11 line up this mid December. It's going to have to be something spectacular if it's to compete with this card.
  • falchard
    I'm not thrilled with the current cooler. I don't think its properly doing its job. I wonder when OEMs are going to start coming out with their own coolers. Personally, I find the temps unacceptable. My current card runs 30C average, and never goes about 60C. I don't think I can accept running a card at almost 90C, or in the case the HD5870 over 100C.
  • tacoslave
    i dont know if its just me but (o god ima get flamed so hard)i would have liked to have seen a pair of 5870's there just for the sake of comparison and because im to lazy to see the last review and this one (though they're different test beds)
  • deathmustard
    I think i should have got a 5850 instead of a 5870. 120$ is not worth 5 fps. oh well.
  • Honis
    I think I'll hold out on this generation for now. The performance increase isn't quiet what I expected. Good article. Thanks for helping make a decision.

    For reference, I'm running a 4780 1 gig and the most "advanced" game I play is Fallout 3.
  • urban_black_redneck
    falchardI'm not thrilled with the current cooler. I don't think its properly doing its job. I wonder when OEMs are going to start coming out with their own coolers. Personally, I find the temps unacceptable. My current card runs 30C average, and never goes about 60C. I don't think I can accept running a card at almost 90C, or in the case the HD5870 over 100C.
    They are referring to crossfire setup. Dual cards usually have bad airflow between them and run hot.

    Anandtech did a review and the idle/load temps for the 5850 are 42/80. I think that can be improve quiet a bit with fan adjustments.

    I think it's a good idea to wait a month or two and see what the 3rd parties offer for cooling. HIS and MSI 4850s with custom coolers that have STOCK idle/load temps of ~40/~60 vs 70/85 with reference coolers.

    I am not rich, and I think I plan on getting 5850 and running 1440x900 for maybe 3 years (I played at 1920 res with Far Cry 2 and didn't see enough difference to warrant the higher requirements/money). I think I want to see more DX11 games and see how the first generation of cards perform before upgrading.
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