ATI Radeon HD 5870: DirectX 11, Eyefinity, And Serious Speed

Benchmark Results: Resident Evil 5

We’ve spent plenty of time with the Nvidia GeForce 3D Vision benchmark demo of Resident Evil 5, as recently as our Core i5/Core i7 launch and a dedicated look at how mainstream cards perform in the brand new title. Nvidia clearly had a lot of influence on the console port’s development and it showed early on. We guessed that ATI needed to do a little driver work to get the game running well though, and sure enough, we have the retail version and ATI’s boards are doing significantly better in the DirectX 10 build.

Again we see the Radeon HD 4870 X2 and GeForce GTX 295 best ATI’s new Radeon HD 5870. However, we’re still getting frame rates that are plenty-playable all the way up to 2560x1600 across the board. It’s good to see that the DirectX 10-based performance issues plaguing ATI cards in the demo are no longer a problem in the retail game with the company’s Catalyst 9.9 driver.

Turning on 8xAA does hit performance, but even the Radeon HD 4870 is able to keep its head above 40 frames per second. The Radeon HD 5870 catches up to the 4870 X2, but is still bested by the dual-GPU card. It actually passes Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 295 at 1920x1200 and 2560x1600, though. Not surprisingly, when you team a pair of 5870s together, the two cards are virtually unstoppable, posting more than 110 frames per second at 2560x1600 with 8xAA enabled. In fact, CrossFire’d 5870s are fast enough to peg the speedo on our 4 GHz Core i7 at 1680x1050 and 1920x1200—with the highest details and 8xAA. Not long ago, such a claim would have been inconceivable.

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.
  • hispeed120
    I'm. So. Excited.
    Reply
  • Can't wait
    Reply
  • crosko42
    So it looks like 1 is enough for me.. Dont plan on getting a 30 inch monitor any time soon.
    Reply
  • jezza333
    Looks like the NDA lifted at 11:00PM, as there's a load of reviews now just out. Once again it shows that AMD can produce a seriously killer card...

    Crysis 2 on an x2 of this is exactly what I'm waiting for.
    Reply
  • woostar88
    This is incredible at the price point.
    Reply
  • LORD_ORION
    Err... I thought I was going to see more for the price. Regardless, I think ATI missed the mark here. I am interested in playing games on my HDTV since me and my monitor don't care about these higher resolutions. Fail cakes... Nivida is undoubtedly going to rape ATI in performance with the 300 series. This is good news for mainstream prices however.... you can ptobably upgrade to a current DX10 board soon for a very good price, and then buy a 5850 for $100 in a year from now. Result? Don't but a 5000 series card yet until the price comes down? Heh, I bet the cards will be $100 less in December if the 300 series launches.

    This is not to say I am an Nvidia fan, just undoubtedly you would do well for yourself to hold off for a bit if you want to buy a 5000 series... as the price will come down for a good price/performance ratio soon enough.
    Reply
  • tipmen
    wait, wait, before I look can it play cry... HOLY SHIT?!
    Reply
  • viper666
    why didn't they thest it against a GTX 295 rather than 280??? its far superior...
    Reply
  • cangelini
    viper666why didn't they thest it against a GTX 295 rather than 280??? its far superior...
    Ran it against a GTX 295 and a 285 and 285s in SLI :)
    Reply
  • Annisman
    I refuse to buy until the 2GB versions come out, not to mention newegg letting you buy more than 1 at a time, paper launch ftl.
    Reply