ATI Radeon HD 5870: The New Reference for OpenGL High-Performance Graphics?

The long-awaited Radeon HD 5870 is out NOW! ATI’s Radeon HD 5870 is the first DirectX 11 graphics card on the market and it is being hailed as the fastest single graphics card ever.

Ok, I launched my favorite browser and parsed all available reviews. Here are the results of my reading compiled in this post.

ATI Radeon HD 5870 specifications:

• Evergreen codename: Cypress
• GPU: RV870 @ 850MHz / 40nm / 334mm2 / 2.15 billion transistors
• Shader cores: 1600 scalars
• Memory: 1024MB GDDR5 @ 1200MHz
• Texture units: 80
• Z/Stencil ROPs: 128
• Color ROPs: 32
• TDP: 188W
• 3D API: Direct3D 11 and OpenGL 3.2
• GPU Computing: OpenCL, Direct Compute 5.0 and ATI Stream
• Price: 399 $USD
• Length: over 11.1″ (longer than the Radeon HD 4870 X2 and the GeForce GTX 295)
• Eyefinity multi-display technology

Benchmarks:

Direct3D: 3DMark Vantage

OpenGL: Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

OpenGL: Quake 4

Performance Index

Relative Performance – All resolutions

Power Consumption
I found two power consumption tests with FurMark but
I don’t know if these power values ares correct due to the limitation of FurMark effect in Catalyst. . Maybe this limitation is only for Radeon HD 4000 series and does not affect FurMark rendering with a Radeon HD 5000.

Anyway, the guys at X-bit labs have done detailed tests and have measured the power consumption directly on the board power connector:

Power consumption: 3DMark06 SM3.0/HDR test

Power consumption: FurMark

With 3DMark06, the ATI Radeon HD 5870 power consumption is 107W and with FurMark, the power consumption is 161W.

FurMark provides a different picture. It makes full use of all GPU resources and the new card’s peak power consumption is as high as 160 watts. On the other hand, FurMark is far more intensive than real-life games, so the practical power draw is going to be closer to the first number than to the second.

Guys at [H]ard OCP have found a power draw of around 222W: 381W – 161W
– System wattage full load = 381W
– System wattage at idle without video card: 161W

Power consumption: FurMark

Conclusion:
From this analyze of the available reviews, the ATI Radeon HD 5870 is the fastest single GPU graphics card currently on the market. It’s just behind the dual-GPUs Radeon HD 4870 X2 and GeForce GTX 295. But this positioning is mainly a consequence of the huge amount of Direct3D-based benchmarks. In OpenGL, the ATI Radeon HD 5870 seems to be a real killer and is faster than Radeon HD 4870 X2 or GeForce GTX 295.
In a word, if you want the maximum performance in OpenGL, grab this card! This is a very nice news for all OpenGL fanatics!

ATI Radeon HD 5870 Reviews

• DirectX 11 in the Open: ATI Radeon HD 5870 Review @ X-bit labs
• AMD’s ATI Radeon HD 5870 Video Card Review @ [H]ard OCP
• AMD Radeon HD 5870 1 GB GDDR5 @ TechPowerUp
• Radeon HD 5870: Review of the first DirectX 11 graphics card @ PCGH
• ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB Graphics Card and AMD Eyefinity Review @ PCPer
• AMD ATI Radeon HD 5870: Unquestionably Number One @ HotHardware
• Radeon HD 5870 review @ Guru3D
• ATI Radeon HD 5870 DX11 Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews
• AMD’s Radeon HD 5870: Bringing About the Next Generation Of GPUs @ AnandTech

DirectX 11 Order Independent Transparency

[youtube zANEUhyT2y8]