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ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB
Introduction
DirectX 11 is the DirectX 10 that never was. It’s coming out with a version of Windows that people are eager for, there are games available and games upcoming that support it, and ATI has the hardware and NVIDIA’s got rumors about theirs being a day late and a dollar short. And there’s more than just gamers excited about it. Along with DirectX 11 comes Direct Compute, a parallel-processing platform that makes CUDA look, to be polite, ahead of its time. Tessellation, multi-GPU, free anti-aliasing, physics, all these things come with DirectX 11, and, quintessentially, with HD 5870. And look, they’re available! Theoretically, anyway. (Unavailable at the time of posting.) Just to sweeten the deal, the price dropped just a day ago, too. What was a game-changer for a tidy $400 is now being listed at $380. OK, so it’s not mind-blowing, but looking at these benchmarks, it’s a friendly nod from the red direction. I’ll get into the implications down the road. On to the scores: The Card & Bundle     (Not pictured: my shorts. AMD set us up the card last week in person, sans packaging or even drivers, so I had to pack them in something.) This is a full-length card. That’s one thing to know and another to see in a case, hanging over the edge of the motherboard by over an inch. Surprisingly, it’s very light. Both the heatsink and the card itself weigh less than an HD 4870, and there are many other differences. The power connectors point out the front of the card, not the top. Because there are four video connections, two DVI, HDMI, and one DisplayPort, a considerable amount of the dual-slot rear of the card is blocked off, requiring that the card vent some of its heat out the top, into the case. This top vent shares real estate with the CrossFire connectors, which may constrict it depending on how taut the bridge must been in any given configuration. The component, or underside of the card is protected, and presumably cooled, by a thin heatspreader This is a stock-clocked reference design in all other respects, and bears no branding.
Page 1: Introduction, The Card & Bundle
Page 2: Specifications and Setup Page 3: DirectX 10 Titles Page 4: DX9, OpenGL, and Synthetics Page 5: Video, Power, and Overclocking Page 6: Conclusion 
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