Sapphire 5970 Cfx and HIS 5970 CFx Review

Zardon

Read The Review Here
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Today we will be taking a look at the new HIS and Sapphire 5970's and as they sent us two of the cards apiece we felt it would be a good time to to cover Crossfire X configurations - for those of you rich enough to be able to afford two of these monster graphics cards. We also overclock our watercooled Core i7 processor to 4.1 ghz and the memory to 1800mhz to mirror a real life environment for a potential customer of two of these high end boards - we want CPU limiting at a minimum.

BlueMak

DH delivers once again. Thank you, great review.

I am glad to read from you too that Crysis is simply very badly optimized. (at least that's how I read the comment). The game is simply not THAT beautiful to give the numbers it gives. Horrible job.

The power consumption is not bad at all since we are talking about a full (very high spec) system.

I noticed the temperatures at Load are a bit higher than with my 4870X2, but nothing tragic (all things considered). Not bad. Then again the problem is the noise of the fans and not the temp. When will AMD learn?

Did you test Crysis Warhead in CF mode at 1920x1200?

One last thing, how well do you think two 4870X2s (or I guess 4 4870s) would do "against" them?

The price for them is just too high for European customers. AMD is bleeding us dry making us pay a fake exchange rate of 1 dollar = 1 euro. Shame on them.

Once again, great review (I even added it to my facebook account)

Once again, very nice

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

comp_ali

Wow , couples of beasts in a show .Any game even Crysis is very playable at 2560*1600 (CFX)
It appears clearly hat Sapphire won this round over HIS in either single /CF results which is expected from a great company.
I am also amazed by power consumption for the two cards in CF , it is less than 650 watts for your huge overclocked system overall which is very impressive really unlike the past generation 4870x2 which draws a hell of electric flow.
Thanks for the review, splitting single card FPS charts from CFX charts is also a nice touch. The minimum FPS horizontal line like the previous powercolor 5970 review also well placed according to every game.

side fact : Kris is drooling right now

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Zardon

I used to really like it, but I think in hindsight and with some reflection that it wasn't really coded that well. two of these cards should spit that game out for breakfast. There are conspiracy theories that it is deliberately 'hampered' for ATI cards. Regardless, yeah, my views have changed recently.

The temperatures are bearable, but I have personal issues with the noise levels. A lot of people will not be annoyed, but maybe im getting picky in my old age - I couldn't live with two of these in CFx.

Yes, I didn't include it as I actually thought the review was a little 'graph overload' as it stood. I can give you information if you have a specific question you want answered.

the 4870 X2 is still a great card, I have a few in a drawer here, and as you know im giving one of them away. I haven't really tested 2 of them in CFx against two of the 5970's as I really need to draw the line in some of these reviews. I agree it would have been a good addition but I spent a week on that review as it stands and that would have added possibly another 4 days of testing. Just not feasible unfortunately. I think going on the single card results you can make pretty good educated assumptions however.

The cards in the UK are massively more expensive right now than the USA (USA is actually not too bad in regards to costs). working out UK prices they are translating to around $900 dollars a card. I think the Americans would probably set fire to AMD HQ if they were asking that amount of money.

Sometimes I feel the UK audience get the long shaft of the stick, but I dont know all the ins and outs of it. Shortages and lack of competition raise prices, we all know that. If I was seeing proper USA to UK price translations and perhaps £30 added I would be happy (so around £380-400, but not £550). I think its a little harsh right now. Perhaps a few of you guys in the UK could book flights to the states for CES and pick up a few cards while you were over, you would be probably be getting the flight for free when you work out the money saved!

BlueMak

I know, I am taking part.
Yeah, I was thinking that since in terms of performance (more or less) 5970=2x5870=4x4870=2x4870X2, then 2x5970 in crossfire would be similar to four 4870X2s, which is just awesome. (Crysis Warhead not included)

Main reason I talked about the 4870X2 was that I was thinking if it would be worth it for someone to get another 4870X2 to have two of them in crossfire, instead of one 5970, but even if in performance they might be similar, the still very high cost of a 4870X2 then the extra power consumption (my guess is 2 4870X2s consume at least 50% more than a 5970 at load) and perhaps requirement for another PSU (currently have a 700W Quiet), is not a good idea. If you are going to buy them you might as well buy a 5970 and gain the DX11 gain as well for an extra 50 or so euros.
I am glad I bought one when I did (september/october 2008).

So it was more of a philosophical question



Yeah, the price is a joke. Granded, if I had a steady income I might considered it, but still I would find it difficult to persuade myself buying one (or dare I say two).

The cheapest I can find one here is 565 euros = 840 US dollars = £510 and that in theory since no one has them yet. (or the 5870)

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

IvanV

That was really impressive!

ATI seems to have really nailed their CF technology to allow the great hardware they have to shine. Also, the maximum power draw is indeed surprisingly reasonable.

If I were a very wealthy man, I'd consider this.

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kris23

IT SHALL BE MINE!!!!

i haz the monehs but there are no cards to buy....

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Chaos

That was a pretty amazing review and as far as raw power goes, two 5970's would be insane. I agree on the noise levels, even the 5850's get annoying spinning at over 40-45%. I try to leave mine at about 35% and they are not to bad. They should just hire a third party to deal with all their cooling needs, but that's just my opinion. If it was not for the noise levels, it would be extremely hard to fault the card at all.

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SeraphicSorcerer

You need to camp newegg on 11/23.


Can I ask why Driver heaven has not noticed that the only reason the 5970 is downclocked is pretty much because they can't legally sell something outside the ATX spec?

=P I found that out on anandtech.

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Zardon

I figured that was pretty much common knowledge and i discussed it already in a thread on DH quite some time ago - its also part of the reason the overclocking apps are given with voltage controls, so the end user can take it upon themselves to go outside 'specs'

Its not absolutely necessary to mention this in a follow up review - I don't really see the need to start waffling on about semantics a month after a card is released. Glad to hear Anandtech are fulfilling your info needs however - been a while since ive been on the site, the last GFX review I read over there used outdated drivers and some rather dodgy game testing standards. but hey, thats why we have a lot of options, something for everyone.

SeraphicSorcerer

Actually I wasn't aware of any spec for the wattage, which is why I mentioned it here, and It is relevant to the review, as it shows that it's not stock clocked that way is it would be illegal, and it's relevant because in 6 months we will have cards that totally exceed those power standards, or need multi PCBS. etc. I just thought it was a "piece of geeky knowledge" and would explain the 725 MHZ clock. I came across it looking for info before I PMed you about the Length and fitting in a Raven case, I know DH is your baby, don't get cheeky. This is still the site I come to for 95% of my info.

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Zardon

Well there you go, you can rest easy knowing you have set the record straight in our forums even though I think we mentioned it in a news post a month ago. Your good deed for the week.

Anyone else got any comments on the content of the actual review ? Anyone buying two of these (or even managed to get one of them yet)?

kris23

i wish......

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Zardon

Nothing in your area at all Kris, no ETA even?

kris23

ETA.... monday...... but the odds of me being able to get it then are slim as i wont be able to sit around in front of comp as its a school day

ill also have to throw out $700 vs $600 as taxes and shipping are a killer with expensive stuff

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Zardon

time for a day off sick Kris !

Can you not order one now, so when its in stock you get priority ?

kris23

nope.... the egg doesnt allow for OOS ordering...... its all first come first serve......

i preordered one on Amazon but i doubt thatll ship soon......

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Zardon

shame you arent friendly with a local dealer who has contacts. even though these cards are pretty expensive I bet there are a huge amount of people waiting for the likes of newegg to get them in stock.

kris23

yea.... you shouldve seen my face when i saw the cards in stock on newegg for the first time....

then you shouldve seen my face when the cards started to go out of stock..... one at a time....

it was horrible

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SeraphicSorcerer

I put one pre-order myself Kris, but it was cancelled due to to many pre-orders, it actually was for the best however.

I had to help with a family's thanksgiving this year

I am ordering one for my birthday, I think I need to get a corsair power supply that will actually power this beast.

As I am wondering if its my power supply limiting my overclocking atm as well.

Anyhow.

Maybe then Sapphire will have a Vapor-XXX edition that uses the DH mockup for their vapor chamber


@ Zardon your review was well documented, everything was noted, taking the time to overclock etc.

I guess I don't look at crysis as the standard for enthusiast settings because one, it's clearly optimized for nvidia hardware, and even then it;s badly optimized.

I've also noticed questionable optimizations that have led to render errors on nvidia hardware that had to be patched.
So for me the ATI experience is actually preferable.

My only reason for adding that tidbit is I dont remember reading anything about that spec, nor do I recall whether exactly it's PCI express spec Or ATX (because its not something you normally need to care about) but as the generation of hardware pushes things beyond its limits, it makes me wonder if the ATX spec needs to be revisited.

As for the review, why you think I was going for Sapphire, knucklehead (I'm still a bit confused on the redline tool, it looked like ATI's tool renamed except you said it didn't run on his cards, Did it supply the same voltages as ATI was there any difference at all?) :P

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Kylzer

Wow theses run surprisingly cool for dual gpu solution

Also great review as most are using i7s @ not the most impressive clocks for this cards review.

Zardon

A few people have asked me to run benchmarks with the 5970 on Unigine's DX11 Heaven Benchmark. Download | Unigine (3D engine for games and real-time virtual worlds)

in DX11 at 2560x1600, the score was 88.9fps. this was with a Core i7 @ 3.8ghz, Windows 7 64bit and 6GB of ram @1800mhz.

SeraphicSorcerer

Thanks for that additional info, Allan

did you think that fermi picture that leaked the other day was fake? Theres another computer above it... I dont know... (sorry just related to uniqueheaven

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Zardon

not sure which picture you are referring to...

SeraphicSorcerer

This one, [H]ard|OCP - Fermi Running Unigine Heaven DX11 Benchmark&#63

It's all over the web cept here. so I wanted your take on it, Think it's fake? The fan doenst look like its spinning.... etc.

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Zardon

We actually were one of the first to post that http://www.hardwareheaven.com/news.php?newsid=296

It was posted on Nvidia's staff page - I actually know one of the engineers. I see no reason for it to be fake as the A2 silicon cards were already produced for internal testing before A3 rolls out.

Bookmark our news page, and try to limit your time on Anandtech

SeraphicSorcerer

Oh and so you did, Sorry I missed it. It's a sexy looking card.

I just to be able to compare Fermi performance to the 5970, and am wondering when that will be possible. I heard they moved to A3 silicon when means they probably didn't like the performance of A2, etc. Or whatever found a better way etc.

I just was hoping to get a 5970, and wanted to make sure I was making the right choice especially since it got pushed back, Any idea if Sapphire will have a custom cooler by then (Jan 24th) ?

Edit: come to think of it, I thought I remember seeing it here, and that's partially why the new newsroom is sort of confusing, you guys add so much stuff it quickly gets pushed back hehe.

Sorry for that, Z

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Zardon

Sapphire are already working on a custom cooling solution for 5970, I spoke with them a few days ago. I think the card is slightly more complex however than anything else they have had to deal with.

They will crack it though, and I hope to review it here once they offer us one.

SeraphicSorcerer

Sounds like a plan Z, thanks for your insight. As always, you work to much, but it's not un-appreciated

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BlueMak

If I were AMD I would be embarrassed. What's wrong with them?
Thank you for the info.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.