ATI HD5870 [Review]

If you thought ATI was sitting back and just riding the wave of its success of the 4xxx series cards, you could not be more wrong. After months of rumors and debate about what could be expected from the new series, today we finally have the card in our hands and boy, does it deliver! This will be the first single core flagship card from ATI that will actually go head on with Nvidia's GTX285, which is currently the fastest single core GPU. Remember when the HD4870 was launched, the best it could do is come close to the GTX260 while the GTX280 was untouchable. A lot of price cuts and a few re-brandings later, today as it stands we have the HD4890 going against the GTX275 while the GTX285 still enjoys its royal position as the fastest single core card.

So what is the HD5870 really replacing? Well nothing actually because its targeted towards the GTX285 so expect some sudden price drops soon. This is the first card in the 'Evergreen' line up and the new HD5870 and HD5850 (codenamed 'Cypress') has got some major modifications up its sleeve which we'll go through in a little bit. Just to get a little better perspective of the current graphics card line up we have a little comparison of the competing cards and their price ranges below

Now that we've taken a little peak into ATI's 'Cypress' card , lets see what the monster really looks like. Since this was an evaluation sample, the card didn't come with any bundle. We'll have to wait a while for AIB partners to launch this card here.

Pricing:

This is one place where ATI has always been ahead of the competition in terms of their pricing but sadly that's not the case in India. Abroad, the HD5870 is already on pre-order for just 379$ (U.S) , that's Rs.17.5K which is the price its expected to debut at. Sadly just like the HD4850 which was overpriced at the start, the same goes for the HD5870 as well. Word from AMD is that the HD5870 1GB will launch with a Rs.24999 MRP which makes it roughly 5K more expensive. Sure the price will drop eventually but that means the waiting for at least a couple months.

Looks like ATI have resolved most of the yield issues they were having with their 40nm chips which explains the shortage of the HD4770 or maybe they were deliberately holding back to get rid of the old stock of HD4850's, who knows? The main thing is that they have once again created a gem of a card which is sure to get any gamer drooling over.

With twice the horsepower of the last generation, ATI have finally (after a long time) launched a true flagship product that deserves some recognition. But the fight has only just begun in the quest for the ultimate DX11 graphics card as Nvidia is busy in their labs working and tweaking their 'Frankenstein' which they'll reveal in the coming months. They are pretty mum about it right now but we've been told that it's going to be huge so I guess we'll have to wait and see.

So should you run out and buy this card? The answer is No. Well not right away and here's the reason why. This is a brand new card so the prices are still very volatile and will settle down after a few weeks. You can also expect price cuts on the GTX285 and GTX295 very soon as well. The second reason is that if you're a sensible gamer I suggest you wait a couple of months to see what Nvidia
brings to the table since with Windows 7 just on the horizon and DX11 games yet to make an appearance diving in for a DX11 card does not make much sense right now.

Having said that, If you were thinking of picking up a GTX285 or have a budget of 25K then yes, close your eyes and get this card as its easily the best performance single chip card in the market. On the other hand I would personally recommend you wait for Nvidia's offering and then make an informed decision. The first DX11 game will be coming out somewhere in November and by the time the new API is implemented to its full potential, we are looking at a easy six month time span by which we'll have newer cards in all the price brackets.

The war has only just begun and ATI seems to have delivered a the first blow. Hopefully DX11 will actually take us one step further to the realism we all crave in games and wont be just hot air like DX10 was. Who will be K.O'ed I guess only time will tell so start saving up some moolah so when the time comes, you're ready.