The Radeon HD 5970: Completing AMD's Takeover of the High End GPU Market

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• Zool - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  So yes. The answer is that the gpu is doing less work with vsync than without it.(dam still no edit button)

• Yojimbo - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  The plural for a casting/shaping instrument "die" is "dies" not "dice."

• Lennie - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  I am going to post this again here. Thought it may not get noticed since I posted it first as a reply in previous pages. Hope I wont hurt anyones feelings :)
  
  I thought everyone knew about Furmark and ATi by now. It used to be like this on 4870 series too.
  
  It went like this, at first there were few reports of 4870(X2) cards dying when running Furmak. Further investigation showed that it was indeed Furmark causing VRM's to heat up to insane levels and eventually killing them. Word reached ATi from that point on ATi intentionally throttles their card when detecting Furmark to prevent the damage.
  
  Yeah in fact the amount of heat load Furmak puts on VRMs is unrealistic and no game is able to heat up the VRMs to the level Furmark does. OCCT used the same method (or maybe even integrated Furmark) to test for stability (in their own opinion ofc)
  
  So beware about Furmark and OCCT if you have HD4K or 5K.
  
  The term "Hardware Virus" is rightfully applicable to Furmark when it comes to HD4K (and 5K perhaps)

• Lennie - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  I want to add that VRM overheating is quite tricky, since normally people only check on GPU temps.
  
  When you run Furmark you would notice that GPU temps are in acceptable range while at the same time your VRM's are cooking without you knowing about it.
  
  So remember to always check your VRM temps when running graphics stability tests like Furmark or OCCT's graphics test specially when you're overclocking the card.
  
  I use Riva or Everest to check on VRM temps.

• Rajinder Gill - Thursday, November 19, 2009 - link

  The temp reading that is displayed by Everest is an averaged figure. The junction temp of the slaves is the critical issue. Even though the average temp may appear to be within bounds, there is the possibility that one of the slaves may be running abnormally. Volterra keep their specifications under NDA. What I do know is that the general configuration if one slave shuts down is that the remaining slaves take the load. The result is not usually pretty. I think ATI may have implemented throttling to prevent the kind of burnouts users experienced running OCCT GPU tests on the last gen.
  
  Personally, I think the 3 phase Volterra solution used on the 5970's is right on the hilt for current draw (circa 135 amps per GPU). I'd wait for non reference solutions with enhanced power delivery if you plan on overclocking this card long term or plan to stress it heavily when OC'd).
  
  Later
  Raja
  
  

• Rajinder Gill - Thursday, November 19, 2009 - link

  I should add that I'm assuming ATI used the biggest Volterra slaves rated at 45 amps each and not the 35/40 amp varieties.

• thebeastie - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  Any one that has a clue is buying a proper case like the Storm Sniper Black Edition and fitting this with heaps of space to spare.
  Also I recommend a case with positive or at least neutral are flow.
  The storm sniper has a dust filter on its 20cm side fan to push more air in and aid in the GPU fans air flow that will go out the back of the cards vent holes at the DVI ports.
  

• at80eighty - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  Plan on getting one of these in another 7-8 months - The way I see it, despite being bleeding edge - ATI has a deadlock winner in this card and will produce only limited quantities so I'm kind of 'worried' about the availability & price down the line

• Silverforce11 - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  Wait til the end of December. Apparently the yeilds of cyrpress are going to be improved a lot then, so the prices will either remain the same or be lower a bit.
  
  However, since nV has nothing real for a long time, i dont foresee a drop in prices on ATI parts. Given the estimates, NV will have fermi out in april 2010, but not in significant quantities for a while after that. Im gonna grab a 5970 around xmas. :)

• at80eighty - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - link

  Dude I hate you already :p I just bought a 5750 - I dont have the necessary components that would not bottleneck the 5970, so I'm going to have to wait a while. plus the whole 3 new monitors thing for the Eyefinity