discussion Sapphire HD 5870 2GB Toxic Edition Review

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8x MSAA Testing (Far Cry 2 / Left 4 Dead)

8x MSAA Testing (Far Cry 2 / Left 4 Dead)

In this section we take a number of games we have tested previously in this review and bring things to the next level by pushing the in-game MSAA up to 8x. All other methodologies remain the same.


Far Cry 2 (DX10)

Left 4 Dead 2 (DX9)

 

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Temperature & Acoustics / Power Consumption

Core Temperature & Acoustics

For all temperature testing, the cards were placed on an open test bench with a single 120mm 1200RPM fan placed ~8” away from the heatsink. The ambient temperature was kept at a constant 22°C (+/- 0.5°C). If the ambient temperatures rose above 23°C at any time throughout the test, all benchmarking was stopped. For this test we use the 3DMark Batch Size test at it highest triangle count with 4xAA and 16xAF enabled and looped it for one hour to determine the peak load temperature as measured by GPU-Z.

For Idle tests, we let the system idle at the Vista desktop for 15 minutes and recorded the peak temperature.

We always expect Sapphire’s cards equipped with Vapor-X coolers will perform extremely well and this one is no different. Its temperatures are simply amazing when you consider the fact that the Toxic’s core is overclocked by a good 75Mhz.

When it comes to acoustics, things are quite good as well but at sustained high loads the fan does become audible but the sound it makes isn’t annoying in any way.

System Power Consumption

For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption while letting the card sit at a stable Windows desktop for 30 minutes to determine the peak idle power consumption. We have also included several other tests as well.

Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.

Naturally, with 2GB of memory and an overclocked core will result in higher overall power consumption. It is good to see that the HD 5870 is still extremely efficient, even with the increased performance seen with this card.

 

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Overclocking Results

Overclocking Results

In order to test for stability, we used a loop of 15 minutes of Far Cry 2 DX10 as well as 15 minutes of the 3DMark06 Batch Size Test at the highest triangle count.

As many users have been experiencing with “late model” HD 5870 cards, overclocking on this particular model wasn’t exactly what one would call easy. Pushing the core to 972Mhz isn’t bad per se but considering the vocal number of people talking about 1Ghz-clocked HD 5870, we’re going to tell you not to get your hopes up. We didn’t have an issue pushing the core to 1.01Ghz but stability was non-existent.

The memory on the other hand didn’t have any problem getting pushed above the 5Ghz mark and actually stopped just south of the 5.2Ghz mark. That being said, the increased clock speeds don’t really noticeably increase in-game framerates.

Final Overclocks:

Core: 972Mhz
Memory: 5180Mhz (QDR)

 

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Conclusion

Conclusion

In our opinion, Sapphire hit the nail straight on the head with their HD 5870 Toxic but it’s also important to remember that it can’t perform the miracles many people were hoping it would. There were many that had unrealistic expectations that a HD 5870 equipped with 2GB of memory would somehow be the silver bullet that put an end to the GTX 480 even before it got off the ground. Let’s make this clear right from the start: that’s not going to happen. Nonetheless, this card is able to play with the big boys and offers excellent performance across every single game without the performance drop-off at 2560 x 1600 which plagues NVIDIA’s flagship products.

One of the main selling points of the Toxic has to be the amount of performance you get for the price. If Sapphire can stick to the $450 MSRP they quoted us, there is little doubt that their newest card will be in high demand even before it even hits store shelves. The only issue we see with this situation is the fact that retailers have been known to artificially inflate prices when it comes to popular products so we wouldn’t be surprised if this graphics card’s price reaches north of $475. However, even at that price it could arguably still be called a good purchase.

There are however some issues you should be aware of and as we alluded to in the introduction, the 2GB of memory is mostly window dressing. If you are playing game at or below 1920 x 1200 resolution you will likely never benefit from the extra memory on this card. Even if you are using a massive 30” monitor with every IQ setting cranked, there is at most a negligible difference in most games. Yes, there are a few games like Metro 2033 that seem to be extremely framebuffer limited but they are few and far between. It could be argued that Eyefinity setups could benefit from a 2GB configuration but that’s a subject we will be covering in a future review. This bears repeating again: the HD 5870 IS NOT framebuffer-limited at any single-screen resolution, even with literally every single in game IQ setting pushed to its max. Period.

This may be preaching to the converted, but an approximate ten percent increase in core clock speeds will never lead to an equal increase in framerates. So while the Toxic may be fast, it isn’t quite able to bridge the gap between the stock HD 5870 and GTX 480 as well as some had hoped. Moreover, the clock speed increase really makes next to no noticeable difference in the vast majority DX11 apps, especially when IQ settings are pushed. In our experiences, upcoming and current DX11applications will be more limited by the architecture rather than clock speeds. Luckily for Sapphire they kept the price difference between this card and a reference version to a more than reasonable amount.

While it may sound like we have a laundry list of things we don’t like with the HD 5870 Toxic, that couldn’t be further from the truth. It offers literally everything the GTX 480 can’t: efficiency, predictable performance through every single resolution, price and excellent cooling performance. Sapphire has seriously thrown down the gauntlet against all the other companies that are planning to release these types of high-end HD 5870 cards. They have shown that high near-perfection doesn’t need to cost an arm and a leg; Gigabyte, ASUS and the rest of ATI’s board partners better be paying attention.


Pros:

- Excellent performance
- Price (based on MSRP)
- Very good temperatures
- Efficient compared to the competition


Cons:

- Extra memory adds very little benefit at single-screen resolutions
- Noticeable fan noise at full load