Asus EAH5850

[Dr_BenD_over]

Alrighty then. This is my half-assed review of the Asus EAH5850 1GB. I'm not going to bore you with the specifcations, they're out there, look them up if you haven't seen them already. This is my first Asus video card since a V7700 Geforce 2 GTS 32MB I bought way back in my Pentium 3 days. Now, down to the meat and potatoes.

The BOX, this thing is freaking HUGE, especially when you've been buying Sapphire Retail Lite editions of cards that come in a box barely big enough for the card. Sadly, despite the big freaking box, it comes with about the same stuff you get from Sapphire. Crossfire Bridge, 4pin to 6 pin adapter, DVI-VGA adapter, driver CD, Manual CD a quick install guide and of course the obligatory copy of Dirt2 (which I eagerly await). Even Sapphire would at least give you a sticker for your case. I'm guessing the boxes size is just so they can have a couple of lines of marketing per language for every major language on earth. Here's a thought, print the box for the 2 most abundant languages, then use stickers to fill in the other niche countries, it's gotta save on shipping costs. And now the pics.








The Card. This is the bog standard reference design with a couple of Asus stickers on it. The cooler feels meaty enough and you can see the card naked elsewhere. I find it a tad long considering it's market, but it did fit in my case, I just wish they had placed the dual 6pin PCI-E power connectors on the side like the 5870. This card also lacks the backplate the 5870 has so I expect the card may start to bend like every other card I've had that didn't have extra support. 2DVI's, one HDMI and the new Display Port thingy for which I have yet to find a monitor that supports it, I'd like 3 for some odd reason...






Please excuse the "dead" fly, stupid things are everywhere this time of year.


The Cooling. The cooler seems to function adequately. It doesn't have the usual boot up ROAR that I've come to expect from stock coolers and in testing the fan speed never went above 33% even during a Furmark stability test. Temps hit 86ºC during Furmark. Idle temps were 50ºC in XP and 56ºC in Vista.



The Peformance. I can't say I'm disappointed. Coming from Crossfired HD4770's and the monster HD4870X2 before that, this card performs very well despite it's somewhat lower stature. Given the headaches that Crossfire can give you, an inexpensive card like this with almost the performance of lasts years 'big thing' is a true bargin, if you can find one. Sadly, my personal best in 3DMark05 has still not been bested and that was done with a pair of HD3870's. Given the 5850's overclockability and the fact I've only run stock benchmarks thus far, it definitely has the capability of besting my old 4870X2. Gaming wise, I'm a V-sync fiend, so long as it maintains a decent minimum framerate, I'm good. This does that. And now I can slap a Nvidia card in to do PhysX again

The Conclusion. Buy one

More to follow once I start OC'ing and playing with some other features. I'll do some overall power consumption numbers once I get a decent folding client to run

Slight OC update: 925 core with stock volts, there's something odd going on with Asus Smart Dr. that I need to figure out before I try overvolting it.

5850 vs 4870X2 - 3DM06 default bench, CPU at 3.6


5850 vs 4870X2 - 3DMV Performance Bench, CPU at 3.0

[Bond007]

Congrats on finding a 5850 (and selling the 4770s). Be sure to keep us in the loop on your overclocking successes.

[kiwik]

You think this box is huge? You haven't seen what ASUS had during the 8800GT/9600GT period...

[Surfer_2099]

Hey there!

Nice images and nice walkthrough. I agree. Coming from a Sapphire 3870 (great card!), the performance delta is enourmous. I LOVE the Radeon 5850 and am very impressed with it overall.

I don't know what kind of Overclocking you do with your cards, but you should be able to max out your CCC sliders without affectign stability or temps whatsoever. Mine OCs *using AMD GPU Tool* to 875 / 1150 (nearly 5870 numbers) without voltage adjustments or any kind of stability issues and only a 2 degrees increase in temps.

Cheers!
Interested_Canuck :)

[Fudd Rucker]

My card is an overclocking dud. Cant even get 1mhz overclock on it. Sucks i cant OC it even 1mhz as i would like to fry this card asap so xfx can send me back a new one lol

[Dr_BenD_over]

Originally Posted by Fudd Rucker

My card is an overclocking dud. Cant even get 1mhz overclock on it. Sucks i cant OC it even 1mhz as i would like to fry this card asap so xfx can send me back a new one lol

Your's isn't the only one from what I hear.

[Meta|Gear]

nice review