With the ATI Radeon EAH5970 HTDI, ASUS has a news flagship in its graphics card portfolio which is based on two RV870 GPUs. The monster which measures 31 cm lengthwise weighs a massive 1220 gramms and is therefore three centimeters longer than the already tall EAH5870. Furthermore the card supports the same features as the 5800 Series which there are for example DirectX11, ATI Eyefinity to run three displays simultaneously and a lowered power consumption.
We'd like to thank ASUS for providing us with the testsample.
On the following pages we will show you the strenghts and weaknesses of ASUS ATI Radeon EAH5970 HTDI.
To the comments [pagebreak]
Technical data / specifications
The
ASUS EAH5970 which is based on the AMD/ATI standard layout comes with a very
silent cooling solution while using 2D applications. But never the less the card
also is in 3D applications a lot more quiet than its predecessor, the 4870 X2 or
even a NVIDIA GTX295. Why the card is so silent that's what you understand
quickly when you look at the power consumption in idle mode. The fact that the
card in this case only has a TDP of 52 Watt which is down to a special ultra low
power state makes it possible to run the fan at very low speeds. What the card
in this case actually does is putting one GPU in a sleep mode where it draws
nearly no power at all. Acoording to AMD this power state can be compared to the
S1 power state of a standard PC.
| |
ASUS EAH5970 |
ASUS EAH5870 |
ASUS EAH5850 |
| Chip |
2x RV870 |
RV870 |
RV870 |
| Process |
40 nm |
40 nm |
40 nm |
| Transistors |
ca. 2x 2.15 Mrd. |
ca. 2.15Mrd. |
ca. 2.15 Mrd. |
| GPU clock |
725 MHz |
850 MHz |
750 MHz |
| Shader (MADD) |
2x 1600 (320 5D) |
1600 (320 5D) |
1440 (288 5D) |
| Shader clock |
725 MHz |
850 MHz |
750 MHz |
| Memory |
2x 1024MB GDDR5 |
1024MB GDDR5 |
1024MB GDDR5 |
| Memory clock |
2000 MHz |
2400 MHz |
2000 MHz |
| Memory interface |
256 Bit |
256 Bit |
256 Bit |
| Memory bandwidth |
2x 128'000 MB/s |
153'600 MB/s |
128'000 MB/s |
| ROPs |
2x 32 ROP |
32 ROP |
32 ROP |
| TMUs |
2x 80 |
80 |
72 |
| TAUs |
2x 80 |
80 |
72 |
| Shader model |
SM 5 |
SM 5 |
SM 5 |
| Maximum board power |
294 Watt |
188 Watt |
170 Watt |
"
[pagebreak]
Preview
To the comments
[pagebreak]
Overclocking
To
stay below the magical 300 Watt dissipation power ATI clocked the two cores down
by 125 MHz to 725 MHz. According to ATI the cooler is able to cope with a TDP of
up to 400 Watts. It looks like ASUS is very well aware of this fact and to fully
unleash the 5970's performance they packed their SmartDoctor tool onto a CD
which allows you to overclock the card very easily. Practical is also that you
can also increase the voltages to get even higher clock speeds out of the card.
Furthermore you are able to adjust the fan speeds yourself.
To the comments [pagebreak]
Test conditions
Hardware
| Mainboard |
|
| CPUs |
- Intel Core i7 965 Xtreme Edition @2.66Ghz (i7 920)
|
| Speicher |
- OCZ Blade Series Triple Channel 3x2GB CL7.0-DDR3-2000Mhz
|
| Grafikkarten |
- ASUS Radeon EAH 5970
- ASUS Radeon EAH 5870
- ASUS Radeon EAH 5850
|
| Festplatte |
- Samsung Spinpoint F1 320 GByte
|
| Netzteil |
- OCZ Technology 1200 Watt Turbo-Cool
|
Software
Futuremark
Furmark
| |
High |
Medium |
Low |
| Benchmarking |
yes |
yes |
yes |
| Fullscreen |
yes |
yes |
yes |
| Resolution |
1920 x 1080 |
1680 x 1050 |
1280 x 1024 |
| MSAA |
8x |
4x |
none |
| Time based (ms) |
60'000 |
60'000 |
60'000 |
PT Boats DX10
| |
High |
Medium |
Low |
| DirectX Version |
10 |
10 |
10 |
| Resolution |
1920 x 1080 |
1680 x 1050 |
1280 x 1024 |
| Image Quality |
High |
Medium |
Low |
| Antialiasing |
8x |
4x |
none |
| Anisotropic Texture Filtering |
16x |
8x |
none |
X3 Terran Conflict
| |
High |
Medium |
Low |
| Resolution |
1920 x 1080 |
1680 x 1050 |
1280 x 1024 |
| Fullscree |
yes |
yes |
yes |
| Texture Quality |
High |
Medium |
Low |
| Shader Quality |
high |
Medium |
Low |
| More Dynamic Ligh Sources |
yes |
no |
no |
| Ship Colour Variations |
yes |
no |
no |
| Automatic Quality Control |
yes |
yes |
yes |
| Antialiasing |
8x |
4x |
none |
| Anisotropic Texture Filtering |
16x |
8x |
none |
| Glow enabled |
yes |
no |
no |
Streetfighter 4
| |
High |
Medium |
Low |
| FPS-Anzeige |
Aus |
Aus |
Aus |
| Antialiasing |
8x |
4x |
none |
| Vollbild |
Aus |
Aus |
Aus |
| Bildschirmauflösung |
1920 x 1080 |
1680 x 1050 |
1280 x 1024 |
| Bildwiederholfrequenz |
60 |
60 |
60 |
| Bildschirm-Vsync |
Aus |
Aus |
Aus |
| Bildwiederholrate |
viariabel |
variabel |
variabel |
| Seitenkorrektur |
Auto |
Auto |
Auto |
| Helligkeit |
Standard |
Standard |
Standard |
| Parallel Rendering |
An |
An |
An |
| Textur Filtering |
16x |
8x |
Aus |
| Modellqualität |
Hoch |
Mittel |
Niedrig |
| Hintergrundqualität |
Hoch |
Hoch |
Hoch |
| Soft Shadow |
Maximum |
Niedrig |
Niedrig |
| Self Shadow |
Hoch |
Niedrig |
Aus |
| Motion Blur |
Hoch |
Niedrig |
Aus |
| Particle Rendering |
Hoch |
Mittel |
Niedrig |
| Besondere Effekte |
Aus |
Aus |
Aus |
World in Conflict
| |
High |
Medium |
Low |
| Resolution |
1920 x 1080 |
1680 x 1050 |
1280 x 1024 |
| Graphic Detail |
very high |
medium |
low |
| Antialiasing |
8x |
4x |
none |
| Anisotropic Texture Filtering |
16x |
8x |
none |
Resident Evil 5 DX10
| |
High |
Medium |
Low |
| Resolution |
1920 x 1080 |
1680 x 1050 |
1280 x 1024 |
| Anzeigen-Modus |
Vollbild |
Vollbild |
Vollbild |
| Vertikalfrequenz |
60 Hz |
60 Hz |
60 Hz |
| Vertikal Sync |
Nein |
Nein |
Nein |
| Bildwiederholrate |
Variabel |
Variabel |
Variabel |
| Antialiasing |
8x |
4x |
none |
| Anisotropic Texture Filtering |
16x |
8x |
none |
| Motion Blur |
Ja |
Ja |
Nein |
| Schatten Details |
Hoch |
Mittel |
Niedrig |
| Textur Details |
Hoch |
Mittel |
Niedrig |
| Gesamtqualität |
Hoch |
Mittel |
Niedrig |
Crysis DX10
| |
High |
Medium |
Low |
| Resolution |
1920 x 1080 |
1680 x 1050 |
1280 x 1024 |
| Quality Settings |
very high |
medium |
low |
| Antialiasing |
16xQ |
8x |
no AA |
| Demo Loops |
3 |
3 |
3 |
| Time of day |
9 |
9 |
9 |
| Timedemo |
benchmark_gpu |
benchmark_gpu |
benchmark_gpu |
| 64 bit |
yes |
yes |
yes |
| DX10 |
yes |
yes |
yes |
Call of Juarez
| |
High |
Medium |
Low |
| Resolution |
1920 x 1080 |
1680 x 1050 |
1280 x 1024 |
| Fullscreen |
yes |
yes |
yes |
| Details |
High |
Balanced |
Low |
| Shadowmap size |
2048x2048 |
2048x2048 |
2048x2048 |
| Shadows quality |
High |
Low |
Low |
| Antialiasing |
4x SSAA |
2x MSAA |
none |
| Audio |
disabled |
disabled |
disabled |
Far Cry 2 DX10
| |
High |
Medium |
Low |
| Resolution |
1920 x 1080 |
1680 x 1050 |
1280 x 1024 |
| Antialiasing |
8x |
4x |
none |
| Direct3D |
10 |
10 |
10 |
| Fire |
very high |
high |
low |
| Physics |
very high |
high |
low |
| Real Trees |
very high |
high |
low |
| Overall Quality |
custom |
high |
custom |
| Vegetation |
very high |
high |
high |
| Shading |
ultra high |
high |
high |
| Terrain |
ultra high |
high |
high |
| Geometry |
ultra high |
high |
high |
| Post FX |
high |
high |
high |
| Texture |
ultra high |
high |
high |
| Ambient |
high |
high |
high |
| HDR |
yes |
yes |
yes |
| Shadow |
ultra high |
high |
high |
| Bloom |
yes |
yes |
yes |
To the comments
[pagebreak]
3DMark 06 @ 3.33Ghz
3DMark 06 is getting older these days. Therefore if you are using really powerful graphic cards you will hit CPU limitation which means that the graphic card isn't the bottleneck in the system. This is also the reason why in recent high-end desktop systems 3DMark 06 scales nicely with the CPU and the graphic card has much less influence on the scores.
| 3DMark06 Total |
Score |
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
22'840 |
120.84% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
21'229 |
112.31% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
18'901 |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| 3DMark06 Grafik SM 2.0 Score |
Score |
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
8'216 |
122.99% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
8'267 |
123.75% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
6'680 |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| 3DMark06 Grafik HDR/SM 3.0 Score |
Score |
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
11'920 |
141.83% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
9'959 |
118.50% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
8'404 |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
To the comments
[pagebreak]
3DMark Vantage
3DMark Vantage is able to squeeze nearly everything out of a recent system. Therefore the feature liste is also pretty long: DirectX10, FP16-HDR, motion blur, parallax occlusion mapping, GPU-physics simulation and different shader effects are being used to even make recent high-end systems struggle.
| 3DMark Vantage |
Score |
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
18'895 |
135.95% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
16'056 |
115.52% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
13'898 |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| 3DMark06 Vantage Grafik |
Score |
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
19'789 |
150.63% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
15'858 |
120.71% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
13'137 |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
To the comments
[pagebreak]
Furmark
| Furmark, 1920 x 1080, MSAA 8X |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
54.21 fps |
166.47% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
32.80 fps |
100.07% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
32.56 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| Furmark, 1650 x 1080, 8x AA 8xAF |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
95.91 fps |
191.89% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
57.51 fps |
115.07% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
49.98 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| Furmark, 1280 x 1024, no AA/AF |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
237.28 fps |
162.98% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
153.78 fps |
105.63% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
145.58 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
To the comments
[pagebreak]
PT Boats
PT Boats Knights of Seas is based on the Direct-3D-10 API, supports multicore CPUs and comes with a physics engine. Also at this point we see a good scaling of the CPU at low resolutions and nearly no influence when applying high resolutions.
| PT Boats, 1920 x 1080, high details, 8xAA 16xAF |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
20.45 fps |
155.57% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
13.20 fps |
100.04% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
13.14 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| PT Boats, 1650 x 1080, medium details, 4xAA 8xAF |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
59.85 fps |
101.89% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
59.01 fps |
100.45% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
58.74 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| PT Boats, 1280 x 1024, low details, no AA/AF |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
64.81 fps |
97.65% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
67.53 fps |
101.76% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
66.36 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
To the comments
[pagebreak]
X3 Terran Conflict
| X3 Terran Conflict, 1920 x 1080, high details, 8xAA 16xAF, |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
78.52 fps |
101.09% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
77.67 fps |
100.00% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
77.67 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
Auch beim X3 Terran Conflict bemerkt man mittlerweile dass der Benchmark CPU-limitierend ist, was heissen will, dass die CPU den Flaschenhals bezüglich der Leistung darstellt.
| X3 Terran Conflict, 1650 x 1080, medium details, 4xAA 8xAF, |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
89.82 fps |
114.57% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
88.39 fps |
113.80% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
77.67 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| X3 Terran Conflict, 1280 x 1024, low details, no AA/AF |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
98.22 fps |
100.42% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
97.99 fps |
100.19% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
97.80 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
To the comments [pagebreak]
Streetfighter 4
Street Fighter 4 comes with an extra benchmark version which makes testing you system childrens play. At low resolutions the system requirements are pretty low and we can see CPU-scaling in the results. At high resolution the graphic card becomes more important and the CPUs clock speed has less influence on the fps.
| Streetfighter 4, 1920 x 1080, high details, C16xQ |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
139.48 fps |
180.11% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
92.74 fps |
119.75% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
77.44 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| Streetfighter 4, 1650 x 1080, medium details, 8x AA, |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
161.96 fps |
130.16% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
145.78 fps |
117.15% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
124.43 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| Streetfighter 4, 1280 x 1024, low details, no AA/AF |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
406.01 fps |
103.30% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
395.08 fps |
100.52% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
393.02 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
To the comments
[pagebreak]
World in Conflict
| World in Conflict, 1920 x 1080, high details, 8xAA 16xAF |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
77 fps |
130.50% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
59 fps |
100.00% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
59 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| World in Conflict, 1650 x 1080, medium details, 4xAA 8xAF |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
81 fps |
119.10% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
68 fps |
100.00% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
68 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| World in Conflict, 1280 x 1024, low details, no AA/AF |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
82 fps |
120.58% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
68 fps |
100.00% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
68 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
To the comments
[pagebreak]
Resident Evil 5
Resident Evil uses nearly every modern rendering technology: HDR, Hemisphere Lighting, Soft Shadows, Soft Particles, Field- und Motion-Blur oder auch Alpha to Coverage and static Ambient Occlusion. Furthermore Resident Evil 5 has been optimized for multicore architectures and already comes DirectX11 ready. By using the DirectX9 as well as the DirectX10 benchmark we can again show you CPU-scaling with low resolutions and the compared to the CPU overproportional influence of the graphics card at high resolutions.
| Resident Evil 5, 1920 x 1080, high details, 8xAA 16xAF |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
119.50 fps |
124.73% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
97.20 fps |
101.46% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
95.80 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| Resident Evil 5, 1650 x 1080, medium details, 4xAA 8xAF |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
138.60 fps |
100.72% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
137.80 fps |
100.14% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
137.60 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| Resident Evil 5, 1280 x 1024, low details, no AA/AF |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
150.30 fps |
99.73% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
151.00 fps |
100.19% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
150.70 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
To the comments
[pagebreak]
Call of Juarez
| Call of Juarez, 1920 x 1080, high details, 4xSSAA |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
53.60 fps |
134.67% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
41.90 fps |
105.27% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
39.80 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| Call of Juarez, 1680 x 1050, medium details, 4xMSAA |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
130.90 fps |
161.20% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
83.00 fps |
102.21% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
81.20 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| Call of Juarez, 1280 x 1024, low details, no AA |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
235.90 fps |
142.02% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
176.30 fps |
106.14% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
166.10 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
To the comments
[pagebreak]
Far Cry 2
| Far Cry 2, 1920 x 1080, high details, 8xAA |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
80.35 fps |
153.48% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
54.14 fps |
102.30% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
52.92 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| Far Cry 2, 1680 x 1050, medium details, 4xAA |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
130.88 fps |
150.73% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
89.36 fps |
102.91% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
86.83 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
| Far Cry 2, 1280 x 1024, low details, no AA |
|
Percent |
| ASUS EAH5970 |
147.01 fps |
115.59% |
| ASUS EAH5870 |
130.72 fps |
102.79% |
| ASUS EAH5850 |
127.17 fps |
100.00% |
| |
more is better |
To the comments
[pagebreak]
Conclusion
With the EAH5970 ASUS presents
the arguably, fastest graphics card in the world. Despite the overwhelming
performance this high-end graphics is astonishingly silent. This is especially
impressive if you consider that the card is based on the reference design.
As
we've already mentioned the ASUS EAH5970's performance has recently stepped up
to a new level. Whilst running the 3DMark06 benchmarks we were able to spot a
quite remarkable circumstance. Using a Core i7 CPU at 2.66 GHz clock speeds we
got lower results than with using a 5870. After we increased the CPUs core clock
to 3.33 GHz the 5970 managed to leap ahead. This shows the cards enormeous
potential. In other words this means that we were able to point out that
3DMark06 slowly but certainly became outdated. In 3DMark Vantage the situation
looks completely different. Because of the higher graphics load the EAH5970 is
at this point able to show it's muscles and puts itself well ahead of the
competitors. In Furmark you can see a drastic increase in performance and at
this point you'll certainly be able to estimate the 5970's potential.
Within the real world applications, which in these cases are games, you will
notice about the same as with the synthetic benchmarks. The actual performance
the card delivers heavily depends on the game if it is well optimized or not.
Therefore the performance advantages are ranged between 14 percent in X3 Terran
Conflict and up to 80 percent in Streetfighter 4.
The
ASUS EAH5970 definitely aims at hardware- and gaming-enthusiasts which do not
want any compromises. This is just the logical conclusion from price and
performance. The EAH5970 is also the right card for you if you're looking into
the future and you want to buy a graphics card which will also in a year be able
to perform well in all games. Therefore the 5970 would be a save investment.
The ASUS EAH5970 can be bought at
Digitec to a price of CHF 799.- (est. EUR 533.-).
Author: Marc Voser, m.voser@ocaholic.ch Copy edited by: Marc Büchel, m.buechel@ocaholic.ch
To the comments
