AMD's Radeon HD 5870: Bringing About the Next Generation Of GPUs
by Ryan Smith on September 23, 2009 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The First DirectX 11 Games
With any launch of a new DirectX generation of hardware, software availability becomes a concern. As the hardware needs to come before the software so that developers can tailor their games’ performance, it’s just not possible to immediately launch with games ready to go. For the launch of DirectX 11 and the 5800 series, AMD gave us a list of what games to expect and when.
First out of the gate is Battleforge, EA’s card-based online-only RTS. We had initially been told that it would miss the 5870 launch, but in fact EA and AMD managed to get it in under the wire and deliver it a day early. This gives AMD the legitimate claim of having a DX11 title out there that only their new hardware can fully exploit, and from a press perspective it’s nice to have something out there we can test besides tech demos. Unfortunately we wrapped up our testing 2 days early in order to attend IDF, which means we have not yet had a chance to benchmark this title’s DX11 mode or look at it in-depth.
We did have a chance to see the title in action quickly at AMD’s press event 2 weeks ago, where AMD was using it to show off High Definition Ambient Occlusion. As far as we can tell, HDAO is the only DX11 wonder-feature that it current implements, which makes sense given that it should be the easiest to patch in.
The next big title in AMD’s stack of DX11 games is STALKER: Call of Pripyat. This game went gold in Russia earlier this week, with the English version some time behind it. Unfortunately we don’t know what DX11 features it will be using, but as STALKER games have historically been hard on computers, it should prove to be an interesting test case for DX11 performance.
DIRT 2 is a title that got a great deal of promotion at AMD’s press event. AMD has been using it to show off their 6-way Eyefinity configuration, and we had a chance to play it quickly in their testing labs when looking at Eyefinity. This should be a fuller-featured DX11 game, utilizing tessellation, better shadow filtering, and other DX11 features. Certainly it’s the closest thing AMD’s going to have for a showcase title this year for the DX11 features of their hardware, and the console version has been scoring well in reviews. The PC version is due December 11th.
Finally, AMD had Rebellion Games in house to show off an early version of Aliens vs. Predator. This was certainly the most impressive title shown, with Rebellion showing off tessellation and HDAO in real time. Unfortunately screenshots don’t really do the game justice here; the difference from using DX11 is far more noticeable in motion. At any rate, this game is the farthest out – it won’t ship until Q1 of next year at the earliest.
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Xajel - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
Ryan,I've send a detailed solution for this problem to you ( Aero disabled when running and video with UVD accerelation ), but the basic for all readers here is just install HydraVision & Avivo Video Convertor packages, and this should fix the problem...
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
Just so we're clear, Basic mode is only being triggered when HDCP is being used to protect the content. It is not being triggered by just using the UVD with regular/unprotected content.biigfoot - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
Well, I've been looking forward to reading your review of this new card for a little while now, especially since the realistic sounding specs leaked out a week or so ago. My first honest impression is that it looks like it'll be a little bit longer till the drivers mature and the game developers figure out some creative ways to bring the processor up to its full potential, but in the mean time, it looks like I'd have to agree with everyone's conclusion that even 150+GB/s isn't enough memory bandwidth for the beast, I'm sure it was a calculated compromise while the design was still on the drawing board. Unfortunately, increasing the bus isn't as easy as stapling on a couple more memory controllers, they probably would've had to resort back to a wider ring bus and they've already been down that road. (R600 anyone) Already knowing how much more die area and power would've been required to execute such a design probably made the decision rather easy to stick with the tested 4 channel GDDR5 setup that worked so well for the RV770 and RV790. As for how much a 6 or 8 channel (384/512 bit) memory controller setup would've improved performance, we'll probably never know; as awesome as it would be, I don't foresee BoFox's idea of ATI pulling a fast one on nVidia and the rest of us by releasing a 512-bit derivative in short order, but crazier things have happened.biigfoot - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
Oh, I also noticed, they must of known that the new memory controller topology wasn't going to cut it all the time judging from all the cache augmentations performed. But like i said, given time, I'm sure they'll optimize the drivers to take advantage of all the new functionality, I'm betting that 90% of the low level functions are still handled identically as they were in the last generations architecture and it will take a while till all the hardware optimizations like the cache upgrades are fully realized.piroroadkill - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
The single most disappointing thing about this card is the noise and heat.Sapphire have been coming out with some great coolers recently, in their VAPOR-X line. Why doesn't ATI stop using the same dustbuster cooler in a new shiny cover, and create a much, much quieter cooler, so the rest of us don't have to wait for a million OEM variations until there's one with a good cooler (or fuck about and swap the cooler ourselves, but unless you have one that covers the GPU AND the RAM chips, forget it. Those pathetic little sticky pad RAM sinks suck total donkey balls.)
Kaleid - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
Already showing up...http://www.techpowerup.com/104447/Sapphire_HD_5870...">http://www.techpowerup.com/104447/Sapphire_HD_5870...
It will be possible to cool the card quietly...
Dante80 - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
the answer you are looking for is simple. Another, more elaborate cooler would raise prices more, and vendors don't like that. Remember what happened to the more expensive stock cooler for the 4770? ...;)Cookie Monster - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
When running dual/multi monitors with past generation cards, the cards would always run at full 3d clocks or else face instabilities, screen corruptions etc. So even if the cards are at idle, it would never ramp down to the 2d clocks to save power, rending impressive low idle power consumption numbers useless (especially on the GTX200 series cards).Now with RV870 has this problem been fixed?
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
That's a good question, and something we didn't test. Unfortunately we're at IDF right now, so it's not something we can test at this moment, either.Cookie Monster - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
It would be awesome if you guys do get some free time to test it out. Would be really appreciated! :)