ASUS EAH5870/2DIS/1GD5/V2 Review

The market for Radeon HD 5870 video cards has matured since the launch of this top-tier GPU in September of 2009. In that time, the graphics card world has not stood still, and now that Fermi has finally launched, the title of fastest GPU belongs to the GTX480. Development has continued on both the hardware side and the software side of the ATI family, and the ASUS EAH5870/2DIS/1GD5/V2is one of several new 58xx series cards released by ATI AIB partners in the last few months that follow a decidedly different design pattern. The complexity of the 5870 reference design has given way to a more focused approach that strips away the bells and whistles in favor of mastering the core competencies of modern graphics hardware. A robust power supply, an efficient cooling package, and a simpler system for voltage control; all add up to a bigger bang for the buck, higher reliability and more headroom for overclocking. Several vendors have been trying to find the right recipe for maximizing the value proposition of the Radeon HD5870, and this time Benchmark Reviews is going to look closely at the second generation Voltage Tweak model from ASUS.

Driver updates have been a constant source of improvement and anguish lately, nothing unusual there. ATI has had the DirectX 11 market to themselves for ten months, and their driver package is pretty stable. Too stable, some say, as they wait in vain for the "magic" driver that will unlock the hidden potential behind the HD 5xxx series of GPUs. Sorry folks, it's unlikely to happen. Really; the performance of the Radeon HD5000 series is right where you would expect it to be, based on the number of stream processors, ROPs, memory bandwidth, and ATI's chosen architecture. It's only natural that they've targeted the last several releases at working a few kinks out of some of the more important features. At this point, there's more potential gain in overclocking your card, and ASUS has provided SmartDoctor monitoring and control software to assist with that. With software voltage control, it's easy to explore the outer limits of the HD 5870 and gain 10-15% improvements in gaming performance.

Benchmark Reviews has tested a couple of second-generation cards Radeon HD 5870 video cards lately, in addition to the first round of reference models, so the performance and features of the GPU itself are hardly news. With these second generation products, it's more a question of how each vendor chooses to optimize the card and where they price it. Over twenty HD5870 cards are currently available at Newegg with the basic 1GB of memory, at prices of $389 - $499, so there's a wide range to choose from. Please follow along as we give you a detailed look at one of the latest high-end Radeon models from industry leader, ASUS.

About the company: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

ASUS comes from the last four letters of Pegasus, the winged horse in Greek mythology that represents the inspiration of art and learning. ASUS embodies the strength, creative spirit and purity symbolized by this regal and agile mythical creature, soaring to new heights of quality and innovation with each product it introduces to the market.

ASUS is a leading company in the new digital era, with an extensive product portfolio that includes notebooks, netbooks, motherboards, graphics cards, optical drives, desktop PCs, servers, wireless solutions, mobile phones and networking devices. Driven by innovation and committed to quality, ASUS designs and manufactures products that perfectly meet the needs of today's digital home, office and person. ASUS won 3,056 awards in 2008, and is widely credited with revolutionizing the PC industry with the Eee PC. With a global staff of more than ten thousand and a world-class R&D design team, the company's revenue for 2008 was 8.1 billion U.S. dollars. ASUS ranks among BusinessWeek's InfoTech 100, and has been on the listing for 12 consecutive years.

ASUSTeK Computer Inc., also known as ASUS, a technology-oriented company blessed with one of the world's top R&D teams, is well known for high-quality and innovative technology. As a leading provider of 3C (computers, communications and consumer electronics) total solutions, ASUS offers a complete product portfolio to compete in the new millennium.

To succeed in this ultra-competitive industry, great products need to be complimented by speed-to-market, cost and service. That's why all 100,000 over employees of ASUS strive for the "ASUS Way of Total Quality Management" to offer the best quality without compromising cost and time-to-market while providing maximum value to all customers through world-class services.

Radeon HD 5870 GPU Features

The feature set of the ATI HD5870 hasn't changed since its introduction, and is basically common across the entire HD58xx series of cards. The major differences between any two cards in the series are in the number of processing units at various places in the architecture, and the memory interface. For those who perused the mountain of details that accompanied the 5800 series launch, this graphic should look somewhat familiar. This time, there is a full working complement of shaders, ROPs, and texture units; the full power of the ATI Cypress-class chip is available for graphics processing.

All ATI Radeon HD 5xxx Series graphics cards come with ATI Eyefinity Technology, which can instantly triple your visual real estate, up to three displays for the ultimate in innovative "wrap around" capabilities, all with crisp, sharp picture quality. ATI Eyefinity technology engages your peripheral vision and puts you right in the game. At the office, you can multi-task without needing to flip between windows. Ideal for multi-media applications, keep as many palettes or panels open as you would like, while you edit images or videos.

ATI Stream Technology unleashes the massive parallel processing power of your GPU to help speed up demanding every-day applications. Experience fast video encoding and transcoding, so that video playback, editing and transferring content to your iPod or other portable media players is quick and easy.

As the first fully Microsoft DirectX 11-compatible GPUs, the ATI Radeon HD 58xx Series delivers unrivaled visual quality and intense gaming performance. Enjoy in-your-face 3D visual effects and dynamic interactivity, with features like HDR Texture Compression, DirectCompute 11 and Tessellation.

The 58xx Series is further supersized with GDDR5 memory, 1.8X of graphics performance boost with ATI CrossFireX technology in dual mode, and unparalleled anti-aliasing and enhanced anisotropic filtering for slick graphics and supreme realism.

ATI Radeon HD 5870 GPU Feature Summary

• 2.15 billion 40nm transistors
• TeraScale 2 Unified Processing Architecture
  • 1600 Stream Processing Units
  • 80 Texture Units
  • 128 Z/Stencil ROP Units
  • 32 Color ROP Units
• 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface
• PCI Express 2.1 x16 bus interface
• DirectX 11 support
  • Shader Model 5.0
  • DirectCompute 11
  • Programmable hardware tessellation unit
  • Accelerated multi-threading
  • HDR texture compression
  • Order-independent transparency
• OpenGL 3.2 support₁
• Image quality enhancement technology
  • Up to 24x multi-sample and super-sample anti-aliasing modes
  • Adaptive anti-aliasing
  • 16x angle independent anisotropic texture filtering
  • 128-bit floating point HDR rendering
• ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology_2,3
  • Three independent display controllers - Drive three displays simultaneously with independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls, and video overlays
  • Display grouping - Combine multiple displays to behave like a single large display
• ATI Stream acceleration technology
  • OpenCL 1.0 compliant
  • DirectCompute11
  • Accelerated video encoding, transcoding, and upscaling_4,5
  • Native support for common video encoding instructions
• ATI CrossFireX^TM multi-GPU technology₆
  • Dual GPU scaling
• ATI Avivo HD Video & Display technology₇
  • UVD 2 dedicated video playback accelerator
  • Advanced post-processing and scaling₈
  • Dynamic contrast enhancement and color correction
  • Brighter whites processing (blue stretch)
  • Independent video gamma control
  • Dynamic video range control
  • Support for H.264, VC-1, and MPEG-2
  • Dual-stream 1080p playback support_9,10
  • DXVA 1.0 & 2.0 support
  • Integrated dual-link DVI output with HDCP₁₁
    • Max resolution: 2560x1600₁₂
  • Integrated DisplayPort output
    • Max resolution: 2560x1600₁₂
  • Integrated HDMI 1.3 output with Deep Color, xvYCC wide gamut support, and high bit-rate audio
    • Max resolution: 1920x1200₁₂
  • Integrated VGA output
    • Max resolution: 2048x1536₁₂
  • 3D stereoscopic display/glasses support₁₃
  • Integrated HD audio controller
    • Output protected high bit rate 7.1 channel surround sound over HDMI with no additional cables required
    • Supports AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats
• ATI PowerPlay^TM power management technology₇
  • Dynamic power management with low power idle state
  • Ultra-low power state support for multi-GPU configurations
• Certified drivers for Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP

1. Driver support scheduled for release in 2010
2. Driver version 8.66 (Catalyst 9.10) or above is required to support ATI Eyefinity technology and to enable a third display you require one panel with a DisplayPort connector
3. ATI Eyefinity technology works with games that support non-standard aspect ratios which is required for panning across three displays
4. Requires application support for ATI Stream technology
5. Digital rights management restrictions may apply
6. ATI CrossFireX^TMtechnology requires an ATI CrossFireX Ready motherboard, an ATI CrossFireXTM Bridge Interconnect for each additional graphics card) and may require a specialized power supply
7. ATI PowerPlayTM, ATI Avivo^TMand ATI Stream are technology platforms that include a broad set of capabilities offered by certain ATI Radeon^TMHD GPUs. Not all products have all features and full enablement of some capabilities and may require complementary products
8. Upscaling subject to available monitor resolution
9. Blu-ray or HD DVD drive and HD monitor required
10. Requires Blu-ray movie disc supporting dual 1080p streams
11. Playing HDCP content requires additional HDCP ready components, including but not limited to an HDCP ready monitor, Blu-ray or HD DVD disc drive, multimedia application and computer operating system.
12. Some custom resolutions require user configuration
13. Requires 3D Stereo drivers, glasses, and display

Although most of this article will focus on gaming performance, it's important to remember that the Radeon HD5xxx series has the most extensive and effective streaming video processing technology available today. Many of the features referenced in the list above have real-world implications for seemingly simple tasks like web browsing.

ASUS EAH5870/2DIS/1GD5/V2 Features

Above and beyond the features that come with every graphics card based on an ATI HD 5870 GPU, there are several hardware and software features that ASUS brings to the table with the EAH5870 V2. First, let's look at the special hardware features that come along with the latest ASUS design initiative, called "Extreme Design". You have to look close, because there's no big sticker on the box and it's not mentioned on the product's web page, but the features are there, nonetheless.

OCP with Redundant Fuses

It's been awhile since I saw fuses on low-voltage electronics assemblies. In most applications, power requirements have been going down steadily and most designs rely on the current limiting features built into commonly available voltage regulators to do the job. High power graphics cards are another matter, where 25A is not an unusual load. If you're already pulling that kind of current, a voltage spike can dump a lot of power into the board and cause serious damage. Most manufacturers do some failure analysis on returned products, and I'm sure ASUS has seen its share of burnt components caused by power surges generated upstream. So, it's in their best interest and yours if adding a small, cheap fuse can prevent a catastrophic board failure.

These are one-time fuses, not the resettable versions that have become popular recently. To avoid a one-strike-you're-out situation, ASUS installed redundant fuses, so you have not one, but two chances to blow the fuse before sending the board back with an RMA.

Bonding of GPU substrate to the main PCB

How many times have you cranked down on the mounting hardware for a monster CPU cooler and wondered if you were bending the motherboard. Of course, you were....even if it was slight. Now, add cyclic thermal stress and you have a potential for failure. The same applies to your GPU, although I haven't seen a TRUE hanging off a video card, yet. Without a socket to add some structural integrity to the area around the GPU, there's a greater opportunity for stress and strain on the GPU and the hundreds of tiny components soldered close in. The typical mounting system for GPUs relies on an intermediate substrate as the interface between the actual GPU and the main PCB.

You can see in the image above that it's common to fill in the gap between the die and the substrate with an underfill, but the gap between the substrate and the main PCB is wide open. ASUS decided to extend the underfill concept to the bottom of the substrate and increase the strength and rigidity in this critical area. I wouldn't have thought this could be a significant problem, but back in 2008 it cost NVIDIA about $200 million to replace a bunch of mobile GPUs with failed solder connections. Better to be proactive about it, I think, and the additional cost is probably minimal. A little bit of glue in the right place, and you're golden. I suspect that the additional layer of underfill is not really protecting the solder balls in the lower gap, but by making the entire area less flexible, they are doing a better job of protecting the solder bumps between the GPU die and the substrate.

Labyrinth seal for fan hub

Fans move air. Air contains dirt. More air = more dirt. Fans rotate on bearings. Bearings + dirt = FAIL.

Pretty simple; if you don't want your fan to fail, keep dirt out of the bearings. Traditional contact sealing methods, using rubber or felt to close off gaps, generate friction, heat, and airborne particles. None of these sound like things you want in a video card, and to top it off, it uses up energy to create all those things we don't want. ASUS has adopted a better method, commonly called a labyrinth seal, which is a non-contact solution. It's quite effective in an open-air situation, and has none of the issues I mentioned above. They're not recommended for sealing off submarine propeller shafts, but you probably figured that out already. Just like the glue above and the fuses, this is a simple, cheap fix that addresses a real reliability issue. Sure, it's all just good engineering design practice, but if your company is using better design standards than the other guy, why not let the customer know about it?

Bundled Software

In addition to the hardware tweaks, ASUS is bundling a few software utilities with this Voltage Tweak edition. Key among them is the SmartDoctor program, which allows software control of the GPU voltage and is the key to getting a serious overclock on the Radeon HD 5870. At its most basic, SmartDoctor starts up with this default screen, and if you want to manually overclock the GPU and memory this is all the further you need to go. Voltage adjustments are limited to a maximum of 1.35 VDC, which is considered a safe number, at least for air cooling. For most of my review this is what I used, as I like manual controls for benchmarking, but there are other options if you want to explore.

ASUS SmartCooling - Dynamic fan speed controller for a quiet work environment

SmartCooling is an ASUS exclusive technology that effectively reduces the fan noise under normal use, and dissipates the heat when the GPU loading is high. SmartCooling only works on specially designed ASUS graphics cards with monitor chip that can detect and adjust the board temperature and fan speed.

When activated, SmartCooling allows you to set five (5) GPU temperature thresholds and the fan speed dynamically changes according to this temperature threshold. When the the GPU temperature is below the lowest threshold, SmartCooling automatically reduces the fan speed to the lowest fan speed level to reduce noise and save energy. Moreover, when the GPU temperature passes over the threshold, SmartCooling automatically increases the fan speed for better heat dissipation.

ASUS HyperDrive - Exclusive dynamic overclocking features

• 3D Game Mode:Recommended for game enthusiasts. In 3D Game mode, HyperDrive detects whether there are 3D applications running on the system and automatically increases the GPU core clock to provide smoother motions and better performance.
• CPU Usage Mode:This mode adjusts the GPU speed according to the working load of the CPU. If HyperDrive finds the CPU loading high, it automatically increases the GPU speed to share the load, hence providing better system performance.
• Temperature Mode:In this mode, HyperDrive monitors and adjusts the working speed of the GPU according to the GPU temperature. To cool down the system, HyperDrive decreases the GPU speed if the temperature gets too high

There is another small piece of software included, that serves as a companion to SmartDoctor, and it's called GamerOSD.

• 3D Display Setting: In this page, you can keep track of benchmarks and GPU overclocking, adjust the gamma, brightness, and contrast values even when playing PC games.
• Video Capturing: Capture videos of your gameplay into smooth video files. You can even turn your gaming PC into a broadcasting server to let your friends watch your videos in real time!
• Screenshots: Capture single or multiple images; or even animated GIF files with GamerOSD. You can now easily share your gaming experiences on game blogs, forums or websites.

I like to keep things simple when I can, so most utility software doesn't do much for me, but I can see using some of the more advanced features of SmartDoctor and GamerOSD. The custom fan speed profiles are useful for me, because I like to run my GPU a little cooler than the factory defaults, but I don't necessarily want it running at 80% all the time. On-the-fly changes of clock settings sounds like too much work, especially when you are supposed to be paying attention to the game, but I can see where it's useful during rest periods. Sometimes you can't exit the game without losing your progress, and you still want to throttle the GPU back while you're off getting a cup of coffee.

ASUS EAH5870/2DIS/1GD5/V2 Specifications

If we just talk about the HD 5870 GPU, and the architecture that supports it, then this section is the most important part of this review. But as I mentioned in the introduction, this review is more about the design changes that the AIB partners have implemented in their updated cards; what people are calling "Second Generation". The reference cards that ATI initially released were meant to show off the full range of technology on offer, and the top cards like the HD 5870 got all the bells and whistles. The new designs focus more on providing the best performance per dollar. One thing that hasn't changed is the actual GPU. There have been no major process tweaks or redesigns since its introduction, and its specs remain unaltered.

GPU Specifications

• Fabrication Process: TSMC 40nm Bulk CMOS
• Die Size: 334mm²
• Engine clock speed: 850 MHz
• Processing power (single precision): 2.72 TeraFLOPS
• Processing power (double precision): 544 GigaFLOPS
• Polygon throughput: 850M polygons/sec
• Data fetch rate (32-bit): 272 billion fetches/sec
• Texel fill rate (bilinear filtered): 68 Gigatexels/sec
• Pixel fill rate: 27.2 Gigapixels/sec
• Anti-aliased pixel fill rate: 108.8 Gigasamples/sec
• Memory clock speed: 1200 MHz
• Memory data rate: 4.8 Gbps
• Memory bandwidth: 154 GB/sec
• Maximum board power: 188 Watts
• Idle board power: 27 Watts

I/O Specifications

• Native Display Port
• Native HDMI
• Native Dual-link DVI-I
• Single-link DVI (via HDMI to DVI Adapter)
• D-Sub (via DVI to D-Sub Adaptor)

Specifications are very important for graphics cards, because they tell a vital part of the story. However, testing is still the only way to see how any card actually performs, relative to other options that are available now and some older products that users may want to upgrade from. Pricing is also a factor, but there are so many variables that affect the marketplace, and of course, it's not static by any means. That's one of the reasons we're doing this review now, in the wake of the Fermi releases, just to validate where the HD 5870 fits in the marketplace, eight months after it first hit the scene.

The ASUS EAH5870 V2 comes out of the box with standard clock rates: 850 MHz for the GPU core and 1200 MHz for the memory. The one thing that is NOT standard is the default voltage for the GPU, which was reported as 1.2125 VDC. This is a modest 5.4% upgrade from the standard voltage of 1.15 VDC, but it does pay some dividends, as we'll see later in our testing.

Since this card is the second version of the EAH5870 to bear the Voltage Tweak moniker, there is a lot more voltage available, using the supplied SmartDoctor software. This is the low-end version of monitoring and control software currently available from ASUS; their high end MATRIX cards get the ASUS iTracker2 software, which we last looked at in this article. iTracker2 is a top notch product, with many features not found elsewhere, like memory voltage control and full access to adjust memory timings. I wish it was available across the full product line, but it does help justify the premium pricing on the MATRIX line. SmartDoctor just does the basics, but it makes for a reliable overclock and performance upgrade.

This is our third chance to examine a 2nd generation card based on the ATI Radeon HD 5870, so let's take a closer look at the ASUS EAH5870/2DIS/1GD5/V2 Radeon HD 5870, and see how their interpretation of the 5870 design stands out from the crowd.

Closer Look: ASUS Radeon HD5870 V2

The ASUS EAH5870 v2 is a good example of how to focus on the basics of technology. The first generation products of any new technology are often over-designed in order to showcase the best parts, hide the bad parts, and ensure reliability. The reference designs for the ATI HD 5870 certainly fit this mold, featuring multiple state-of-the-art power controllers and a cooling assembly that only needed a 40% fan speed to handle the toughest GPU stress tests. The second generation EAH5870 started with a clean sheet of paper, and it really shows. We're going to take a closer look at what ASUS has accomplished here, and some details in the next section.

The first thing you notice with this video card is the oversized fan opening and the bold, red V-shaped accents on the black shroud. It should be obvious to any computer enthusiast today that bigger fans push more air with less noise, all else being equal. Those huge 200mm case fans really do work; it's not just an image thing. It's also a given that increasing clock speed and voltage for any GPU will increase heat generation within the chip, which has to be removed. So, if you're going to release a graphics card that is just begging to be overvolted and overclocked, it's a wise idea to bump up the cooling capacity, as well. The fan upgrade is an obvious enhancement, but ASUS didn't stop there; there's a surprise waiting under the shroud, as we'll see later.

The build quality of the ASUS card is very good. The heatsink-fan assembly is well thought out and executed perfectly. The cast aluminum frame that ties everything together is a complex part that is expensive to produce, and it provides a very stable mechanical structure for the entire card. Even if you press hard enough on the shroud to bend the outside shell, the metal skeleton inside keeps the PCB free from stress. Subjectively, you can feel the difference in rigidity with this card; it doesn't twist or bend at all.

In addition to the cooling changes, the ASUS EAH5870 v2 incorporates significant changes to the power supply, compared to the reference cards. The new design provides the muscle of the original HD 5870, but with a much simpler system of software voltage control and more conventional choices for the individual power components. The overall size of the card has been reduced, it's shorter by about half an inch, and this was achieved primarily by simplifying the power supply section. In contrast to a few other vendors, ASUS has not adopted DrMOS (Driver-MOSFET) VRM chips, which integrate three discrete power devices into a single chip and occupy half the space. We'll look at the VRM section in detail later, including the controller chip as well as the discrete power chips.

The PC board had excellent solder quality and precise component placement, as can be seen here. The component placement is quite good; this is the area on the back side of the board, directly below the GPU, and is one of the most crowded sections of the board. I've included a standard sewing pin in the photo below to show a sense of scale; the littlest components are just specks when viewed with the naked eye. By my estimate, it looks like you could fit two or three of those resistors on the head of a pin. This is one of the most critical sections of the PCB for build quality, as variations in stray capacitance here could impact the performance of the GPU, and certainly its overclocking ability.

I wasn't impressed by the amount of stray fibers stuck to the surface of the board. They're probably remnants of a brush that is used in the cleaning process, after the wave soldering step. I also saw some residue between components, which should have been removed by the same cleaning process. Manufacturers are under pressure to minimize the environmental impact of their operations, and cleaning processes have historically produced some of the most toxic industrial waste streams. The combination of eco-friendly solvents, lead-free solder, and smaller SMD components have made cleaning a lot more difficult than it used to be. Everyone in the idustry struggles with this, as it's hard to find a balance between cost, effectiveness, and ecological impact. As the old saying goes, "I can give you two out of three, no more."

The layout on the front and back of the printed circuit board is standard for a card in this class. Due to the simpler design, there are fewer components mounted on the back side than on a 5870 reference card, but the front side is just as crowded. The GPU cooler is mounted with four spring-loaded screws, and the help of a skeleton back plate. The black PCB was clean and shiny, with very little residue, aside from those brush fibers, and there was no visible evidence of rework.

The board is fed from two PCI-E power connectors exiting the rear of the card, breaking with the original reference design by replacing one of the 6-pin connections with an 8-pin. ASUS is not the first vendor to do this, but many have questioned the effectiveness of the move. The 6-pin PCI-E connection is highly underrated, at 75W each. Since the 8-pin connection is rated for 150W, I don't understand how 33% more pins give 100% more power. And BTW, the extra two pins are both for ground; there are still only three 12V+ pins, so it's really like 0% more pins providing 100% more power. The real capacity of a 6-pin connector is at least 100W, so there is at least 275 W available from the standard connector arrangement, well above the card's 188W maximum requirement.

What we're seeing is a design that makes use of the knowledge gained from six months of experience in the marketplace with the reference design. There isn't as much of a shift away from the basic elements of the reference design as we've seen with some other vendors. The changes are more evolutionary; a refining of the design rather than a redefining. We'll examine the impact of these design decisions in our testing section. For now, though, let's look at some of the components of the ASUS EAH5870 v2 in more detail.

Detailed Features: ASUS EAH5870 V2

With high-end video cards, the cooling system is an integral part of the performance envelope for the card. Make it run cooler, and you can make it run faster has been the byword for achieving gaming-class performance with all the latest and greatest GPUs. The ASUS EAH5870 v2 uses a fairly standard GPU cooler design that is similar to the reference design, but it contains some enhancements, some more visible than others.

Three large diameter heatpipes pass directly over the GPU die and then spread to the outer reaches of the fin assembly. It's obvious to see, but the entire fin assembly is constructed from copper, which is a significant performance upgrade from the typical set of aluminum fins. Two of the heatpipes are 8mm diameter and the shortest one, that is also closest to the blower wheel, is 6mm. ASUS does not use the direct contact method here; instead a thin copper plate is what interfaces directly with the top of the GPU. Considering the power density of modern GPU devices, it makes sense to contact every square millimeter of the top surface with the heatsink if you can. I shake my head in wonder when I see 5-pipe direct-contact designs where the outer two pipes don't contact the GPU at all!

The air all flows in one direction, from the front of the card towards the rear and then out the rear vents, for the most part. There are several relief vents cut into the shroud, but the majority of the heated air exits out the back of the case. I always check to see how much air is exiting the case while I'm benchmarking, and to see how hot it is. The ASUS EAH5870 v2 makes good use of the larger vent on the back plate, made possible by the deletion of the second DVI port, which most of the other cards squeeze in. This design, even more than the reference cards, is well suited to multi-card CrossFireX applications.

The GPU makes contact with a copper block that is soldered to the three heatpipes passing directly over the top of the GPU. The thermal interface material (TIM) was evenly distributed by the factory, but was still piled on thicker than necessary. Excess TIM can cover up sloppy assembly methods, but for the most part I've only seen even distributions that indicate a certain amount of care was used to mate the two surfaces. The TIM was applied to the top surface of the GPU and then spread out once the HSF was mounted. For a thorough discussion of best practices for applying TIM, take a look here.

The memory chips and all the power transistors that make up the business end of the VRM are all cooled by contact with the large aluminum frame that holds everything in place. Two smaller voltage regulators, which are rated for 2 amps each, get linked in as well. Thermal tape makes up the difference in heights between all the individual chips and provides for a pretty foolproof assembly process. Various sections of the plate are cut out to provide clearance for the taller components on the PCB and to provide spot ventilation.

The main power supply controller chip used on the ASUS EAH5870 V2 is a UP6208AM chip, a 12-phase PWM control IC that supports I2C software voltage control, just like the more expensive Volterra chips used on the reference 5870 boards. In this application, ASUS is using seven of the twelve available phases to provide 6-phase power to the GPU and a single phase for the DRAM. There are also two other uP6205 controllers to generate VDDCI and MVDDC, and a couple of uP7704 2A linear regulators included for supplying some smaller loads on the board.

The ASUS EAH5870 v2 uses standard LFPAK^TMpackaging for the MOSFET power transistors and drivers in the VRM section. This discrete implementation gives up the opportunity to save space, but it does provide the designer a broader choice in component selection, compared to a DrMOS design. The 6030AL devices installed here can source a whopping 79A at an ambient temp of 20C, and are downgraded to 56A at 100C.

The memory choice for the ASUS EAH5870 V2 video card is consistent with the HD 58xx reference designs. The basic HD 5870 specs only require 1200 MHz chips for the memory, but most cards have been using these Samsung K4G10325FE-HC04 GDDR5 parts, which are designed for up to 1250 MHz. Only a few folks have successfully overclocked this RAM above 1300 MHz, but meeting its rated spec of 1250 is generally a cakewalk, an easy upgrade from the stock speed of 1200 MHz. Since the SmartDoctor software supplied with this Voltage Tweak edition doesn't have the capability to modify memory voltage, don't presume that you will get more than the rated memory speed.

We've spent a lot of time in this review on the board design, because we've seen a lot of variation in the 2nd generation HD 5870 cards that ATI partners are releasing lately. The first cards on the market were all reference designs, and even some of the early custom cards from ATI AIB partners, like the Sapphire Radeon HD5870 Vapor-X we reviewed last November, used the reference PCB with all of its electronic design features intact. Now that we've examined some of the unique features and details of this latest generation card from ASUS, let's put the EAH5870/V2 to the test in the next major section of our review.

Video Card Testing Methodology

With the widespread adoption of Windows7 in the marketplace, and given the prolonged and extensive pre-release testing that occurred on a global scale, there are compelling reasons to switch all testing to this highly anticipated, operating system. Overall performance levels of Windows 7 are favorable compared to Windows XP, and there is solid support for the 64-bit version, something enthusiasts have anxiously awaited for years. After several months of product testing with Win7-64, I can vouch for its stability and performance; I can't think of any reasons why I would want to switch back to XP.

Our site polls and statistics indicate that the over 90% of our visitors use their PC for playing video games, and practically every one of you are using a screen resolutions mentioned above. Since all of the benchmarks we use for testing represent different game engine technology and graphic rendering processes, this battery of tests will provide a diverse range of results for you to gauge performance on your own computer system. All of the benchmark applications are capable of utilizing DirectX 10, and that is how they were tested. Some of these benchmarks have been used widely for DirectX 9 testing in the XP environment, and it is critically important to differentiate between results obtained with different versions. Each game behaves differently in DX9 and DX10 formats. Crysis is an extreme example, with frame rates in DirectX 10 only about half what was available in DirectX 9.

At the start of all tests, the previous display adapter driver is uninstalled and trace components are removed using Driver Cleaner Pro.We then restart the computer system to establish our display settings and define the monitor. Once the hardware is prepared, we begin our testing. According to the Steam Hardware Survey published at the time of Windows 7 launch, the most popular gaming resolution is 1280x1024 (17-19" standard LCD monitors) closely followed by 1024x768 (15-17" standard LCD). However, because these resolutions are considered 'low' by most standards, our benchmark performance tests concentrate on the up-and-coming higher-demand resolutions: 1680x1050 (22-24" widescreen LCD) and 1920x1200 (24-28" widescreen LCD monitors).

Each benchmark test program begins after a system restart, and the very first result for every test will be ignored since it often only caches the test. This process proved extremely important in several benchmarks, as the first run served to cache maps allowing subsequent tests to perform much better than the first. Each test is completed five times, the high and low results are discarded, and the average of the three remaining results is displayed in our article.

Test System

• Motherboard: ASUS M4A79T Deluxe (2205 BIOS)
• System Memory: 2x 2GB OCZ Reaper HPC DDR3 1600MHz (7-7-7-24)
• Processor: AMD Phenom II 720 Black Edition (Overclock to 3.6 GHz)
• CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper Z600
• Video: ASUS EAH5870/2DIS/1GD5/V2 Radeon HD 5870
• Drive 1: GSKILL Titan SSD, 128GB
• Optical Drive: Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7190A-OB 20X IDE DVD Burner
• Enclosure: CM STORM Sniper Gaming Case
• PSU: Corsair CMPSU-750TX ATX12V V2.2 750Watt
• Monitor: SOYO 24"; Widescreen LCD Monitor (DYLM24E6) 1920X1200
• Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate Version 6.1 (Build 7600)

Benchmark Applications

• 3DMark Vantage v1.0.1 Benchmark(8x Anti Aliasing & 16x Anisotropic Filtering)
• Crysis v1.21 Benchmark (Very High Settings, 0x and 4x Anti-Aliasing)
• BattleField: Bad Company 2 (High Quality, HBAO, 8x Anti-Aliasing, 16x Anisotropic Filtering, Single-Player Intro Scene)
• Devil May Cry 4 Benchmark Demo (Ultra Quality, 8x MSAA)
• Aliens vs. Predator (Texture Q-Very High, Shadow Q-High, HW Tessellation & Advanced Shadow Sampling-ON, MSAA-4x, AF-16x, SSAO-ON)
• Far Cry 2 v1.02 Benchmark (Very High Performance, Ultra-High Quality, 8x Anti-Aliasing)
• Resident Evil 5 Benchmark(8x Anti-Aliasing, Motion Blur ON, Quality Levels-High)
• Unigine Heaven Benchmark (DX11, High Shaders, Normal Tessellation, 16x AF, 4x & 8x AA)
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat Benchmark (Ultra-Quality, Enhanced DX10 and DX11 light, 4x MSAA, SSAO Default-High and HDAO-Ultra)

Video Card Test Products

• ASUS Radeon HD4850 (EAH4850 TOP - Catalyst 8.732.0.0)
• XFX Radeon HD5750 (HD-575X-ZN - Catalyst 8.732.0.0)
• ATI Radeon HD5770 (Engineering Sample - Catalyst 8.732.0.0)
• XFX Radeon HD5830 (HD-583X-ZNFV - Catalyst 8.732.0.0)
• XFX Radeon HD5850 (21162-00-50R - ATI Catalyst 8.732.0.0)
• ASUS GeForce GTX 260 (ENGTX260 MATRIX- Forceware v197.45)
• MSI GeForce GTX 275 (N275GTX Twin Frozr OC- Forceware v197.45)
• ASUS GeForce GTX 285 (GTX285 MATRIX- Forceware v197.45)
• XFX Radeon HD5870 (HD-587X-ZNFC - Catalyst 8.732.0.0)
• ASUS Radeon HD5870 (EAH5870/2DIS/1GD5/V2) - Catalyst 8.732.0.0)

3DMark Vantage Benchmark Results

3DMark Vantage is a computer benchmark by Futuremark (formerly named Mad Onion) to determine the DirectX 10 performance of 3D game performance with graphics cards. A 3DMark score is an overall measure of your system's 3D gaming capabilities, based on comprehensive real-time 3D graphics and processor tests. By comparing your score with those submitted by millions of other gamers you can see how your gaming rig performs, making it easier to choose the most effective upgrades or finding other ways to optimize your system.

There are two graphics tests in 3DMark Vantage: Jane Nash (Graphics Test 1) and New Calico (Graphics Test 2). The Jane Nash test scene represents a large indoor game scene with complex character rigs, physical GPU simulations, multiple dynamic lights, and complex surface lighting models. It uses several hierarchical rendering steps, including for water reflection and refraction, and physics simulation collision map rendering. The New Calico test scene represents a vast space scene with lots of moving but rigid objects and special content like a huge planet and a dense asteroid belt.

At Benchmark Reviews, we believe that synthetic benchmark tools are just as valuable as video games, but only so long as you're comparing apples to apples. Since the same test is applied in the same controlled method with each test run, 3DMark is a reliable tool for comparing graphic cards against one-another.

1680x1050 is rapidly becoming the new 1280x1024. More and more widescreen are being sold with new systems or as upgrades to existing ones. Even in tough economic times, the tide cannot be turned back; screen resolution and size will continue to creep up. Using this resolution as a starting point, the maximum settings were applied to 3DMark Vantage include 8x Anti-Aliasing, 16x Anisotropic Filtering, all quality levels at Extreme, and Post Processing Scale at 1:2.

Our first test looks promising; at 1680x1050 the ASUS EAH5870V2 shows a 14% gain from the 150 MHz (17.6%) overclock I dialed in for all of the testing. All the results are very even and linear, just the way synthetic benchmarks are supposed to be.

At 1920x1200 native resolution, things look much the same as they did at the lower screen size. The 5870 shows that it keeps going and going as the GPU clock rate goes up. It's the only card that can break 30FPS at this resolution, and it's pretty obvious as the test plays out on the screen. All the lower choices seem choppy by comparison. Let's take a look at test#2, which has a lot more surfaces to render, with all those asteroids flying around the doomed planet New Calico.

In the medium resolution New Calico test, the overclocked ASUS EAH5870V2 sits right on top again and performance scales well with higher clock rates. It takes a 1.0 GHz Cypress core to get over 30 FPS in this benchmark, which shows how tough it really is. Once again, the only card that comes close is the HD 5850, everyone's favorite overachiever.

At a higher screen resolution of 1920x1200, we see the lone 512MB card falling well behind, and the HD 5850 retains its spot as the closest competitor to the 5870 cards. Even the fastest single GPU cards have trouble rendering this scene, with an average frame rate in the mid 20s. Soon this benchmark suite may be replaced with DX11-based tests, but in the fading days of DX10 it has been a very reliable benchmark for high-end video cards. It always scales consistently, and the results here clearly show the benefit of overclocking the Radeon HD 5870 chip.

We need to look at some actual gaming performance to verify these results, so let's take a look in the next section, at how these cards stack up in the standard bearer for gaming benchmarks, Crysis.

Crysis Benchmark Results

Crysis uses a new graphics engine: the CryENGINE2, which is the successor to Far Cry's CryENGINE. CryENGINE2 is among the first engines to use the Direct3D 10 (DirectX 10) framework, but can also run using DirectX 9, on Vista, Windows XP and the new Windows 7. As we'll see, there are significant frame rate reductions when running Crysis in DX10. It's not an operating system issue, DX9 works fine in WIN7, but DX10 knocks the frame rates in half.

Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at NVIDIA, has spoken on the subject of the engine's complexity, stating that Crysis has over a million lines of code, 1GB of texture data, and 85,000 shaders. To get the most out of modern multicore processor architectures, CPU intensive subsystems of CryENGINE 2 such as physics, networking and sound, have been re-written to support multi-threading.

Crysis offers an in-game benchmark tool, which is similar to World in Conflict. This short test does place some high amounts of stress on a graphics card, since there are so many landscape features rendered. For benchmarking purposes, Crysis can mean trouble as it places a high demand on both GPU and CPU resources. Benchmark Reviews uses the Crysis Benchmark Tool by Mad Boris to test frame rates in batches, which allows the results of many tests to be averaged.

Low-resolution testing allows the graphics processor to plateau its maximum output performance, and shifts demand onto the other system components. At the lower resolutions Crysis will reflect the GPU's top-end speed in the composite score, indicating full-throttle performance with little load. This makes for a less GPU-dependant test environment, but it is sometimes helpful in creating a baseline for measuring maximum output performance. At the 1280x1024 resolution used by 17" and 19" monitors, the CPU and memory have too much influence on the results to be used in a video card test. At the widescreen resolutions of 1680x1050 and 1900x1200, the performance differences between video cards under test are mostly down to the cards.

With medium screen resolution and no MSAA dialed in, the ASUS EAH5870V2 card is being held back a bit by my processor. We're not seeing the full benefit of the overclock at the lower resolution, because Crysis is one of those few games that stress the CPU almost as much as the GPU. As we increase the load on the graphics card, with higher resolution and AA processing, the situation will change.

Remember all the test results in this article are with maximum allowable image quality settings, plus all the performance numbers in Crysis took a major hit when Benchmark Reviews switched over to the DirectX 10 API for all our testing. Considering all that, the 5870 hits the sweet spot for Crysis, with no lag detectable in game play.

At 1900 x 1200 resolution, the relative rankings stay the same; even the 512MB card is still hanging in there. With the increased load on the GPU, the 1 GHz core is starting to show its stuff, with a 14% increase in frame rates. Both HD5870 cards take about a 7FPS hit when moving up to 1920x1200, but they're still comfortably above the 30 FPS mark.

Now let's turn up the heat a bit, and add some Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing. With 4x MSAA cranked in, the ASUS EAH5870V2 still makes top marks, but it loses about 5 FPS with the MSAA turned on. None of the GTX200 cards are ever a serious threat to the Radeon HD 5870 in this benchmark; the closest contender is that perpetual upstart, the HD 5850.

This is one of our toughest tests, at 1900 x 1200, maximum quality levels, and 4x AA. Only one GPU gets above 30 FPS in this test, and until recently it was the fastest single-GPU card on the planet, the Radeon HD 5870. The ASUS Voltage Tweak edition gains some ground on its stock counterpart, with a solid 13% gain in FPS when overclocked. The scaling in Crysis is almost as linear as a synthetic benchmark, I think that's one of the reasons it has stayed relevant all this time. In the middle ranges, the HD 5850 holds on to its spot as the value proposition to beat. Even with its low stock clocks, it beats the GTX285 by 28%.

In our next section, Benchmark Reviews looks at one of the newest and most popular games, Battlefield: Bad Company 2. The game lacks a dedicated benchmarking tool, so we'll be using FRAPS to measure frame rates within the game itself.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Benchmark Results

The Battlefield franchise has been known to demand a lot from PC graphics hardware. DICE (Digital Illusions CE) has incorporated their Frostbite-1.5 game engine with Destruction-2.0 feature set with Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 features destructible environments using Frostbit Destruction-2.0, and adds gravitational bullet drop effects for projectiles shot from weapons at a long distance. The Frostbite-1.5 game engine used on Battlefield: Bad Company 2 consists of DirectX-10 primary graphics, with improved performance and softened dynamic shadows added for DirectX-11 users.

At the time Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was published, DICE was also working on the Frostbite-2.0 game engine. This upcoming engine will include native support for DirectX-10.1 and DirectX-11, as well as parallelized processing support for 2-8 parallel threads. This will improve performance for users with an Intel Core-i7 processor.

In our benchmark tests of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the first three minutes of action in the single-player raft night scene are captured with FRAPS. Relative to the online multiplayer action, these frame rate results are nearly identical to daytime maps with the same video settings.

BF:BC2 shows that DirectX10 need not be the death card for NVIDIA GeForce products; the Frostbite-1.5 game engine is partial to NVIDIA products over ATI, despite AMD's sponsorship of the game. In Battlefield: Bad Company 2, a substantially overclocked GeForce GTX275 matches right up with the ATI Radeon HD5830 running standard clocks. The mildly overclocked GeForce GTX285 improves on that performance by 8%, but the stock HD 5870 beats that by about 20 FPS, almost a 50% gain. Of course, cranking the EAH5870 up to 1 GHz puts the crowning touch on it, with an average frame rate of 68 FPS. BF:BC2 is definitely playable, with all the settings maxed out, at that level of performance.

I know general purpose computing uses a very small fraction of the power contained in today's average PC, but it does seem that gaming applications are at least trying to push the envelope. Playing this game with the previous generation of graphics cards is a complete waste of time and effort. Some of that is attributable to advances in 3D Graphics APIs (application programming interfaces) like DirectX11, but at some level the game developers have to make decisions about how much detail to include in the scenes, and how realistically to render soft surfaces like skin and water. I know some of the improvements may look minimal or insignificant when perusing the promotional screenshots, but they all add up, in the final result. Bring it on, I say. I'll find some other use for that old HD 4850 graphics card.

In our next section, Benchmark Reviews tests with Devil May Cry 4 Benchmark. Read on to see how a blended high-demand GPU test with low video frame buffer demand will impact our test products.

Devil May Cry 4 Benchmark

Devil May Cry 4 was released for the PC platform in early 2007 as the fourth installment to the Devil May Cry video game series. DMC4 is a direct port from the PC platform to console versions, which operate at the native 720P game resolution with no other platform restrictions. Devil May Cry 4 uses the refined MT Framework game engine, which has been used for many popular Capcom game titles over the past several years.

MT Framework is an exclusive seventh generation game engine built to be used with games developed for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and PC ports. MT stands for "Multi-Thread", "Meta Tools" and "Multi-Target". Originally meant to be an outside engine, but none matched their specific requirements in performance and flexibility. Games using the MT Framework are originally developed on the PC and then ported to the other two console platforms. On the PC version a special bonus called Turbo Mode is featured, giving the game a slightly faster speed, and a new difficulty called Legendary Dark Knight Mode is implemented. The PC version also has both DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 mode for Windows XP, Vista, and Widows 7 operating systems.

It's always nice to be able to compare the results we receive here at Benchmark Reviews with the results you test for on your own computer system. Usually this isn't possible, since settings and configurations make it nearly difficult to match one system to the next; plus you have to own the game or benchmark tool we used. Devil May Cry 4 fixes this, and offers a free benchmark tool available for download. Because the DMC4 MT Framework game engine is rather low-demand for today's cutting edge video cards, Benchmark Reviews uses the 1920x1200 resolution to test with 8x AA (highest AA setting available to Radeon HD video cards) and 16x AF.

Devil May Cry 4 is not as demanding a benchmark as it used to be. Only scene #2 and #4 are worth looking at from the standpoint of trying to separate the fastest video cards from the slower ones. Still, it represents a typical environment for many games that our readers still play on a regular basis, so it's good to see what works with it and what doesn't. Any of the tested cards will do a credible job in this application, and the performance scales in a pretty linear fashion. You get what you pay for when running this game, at least for benchmarks. This is one time where you can generally use the maximum available anti-aliasing settings, so NVIDIA users should feel free to crank it up to 16X. The DX10 "penalty" is of no consequence here.

The GTX cards from NVIDIA stage a comeback in Devil May Cry 4, but the 5870 cards still take top place. The ASUS EAH5870V2 takes full advantage of the 18% overclock, even at these crazy frame rates, putting up 18% higher frame rates than the 5870 with stock clocks. You can't ask for more than that. I love the fact that this benchmark doesn't seem to get bottlenecked by the CPU, even at these crazy high frame rates.

In Scene #4, the GTX cards pull even closer, but are still about 30 FPS behind the 5870 pair, not that you would notice the difference in game play, at 90+ FPS. The 18% overclock on the Radeon HD 5870 nets a 15% increase in frame rates in this scene; a significant improvement, even if it doesn't quite match the gain from scene #2.

Our next benchmark of the series is not for the faint of heart. Lions and tiger, fine. Guys with guns, I can deal with that. But those spiders......NOOOO! How did I get stuck in the middle of a fight between Aliens vs. Predator anyway? Check out the results from our newest DirectX11 benchmark in the next section.

Aliens Vs. Predator DX11 Benchmark Results

Rebellion, SEGA and Twentieth Century FOX have released the Aliens vs. Predator DirectX 11 Benchmark to the public. As with many of the already released DirectX 11 benchmarks, the Aliens vs. Predator DirectX 11 benchmark leverages your DirectX 11 hardware to provide an immersive game play experience through the use of DirectX 11 Tessellation and DirectX 11 Advanced Shadow features.

In Aliens vs. Predator, DirectX 11 Geometry Tessellation is applied in an effective manner to enhance and more accurately depict HR Giger's famous Alien design. Through the use of a variety of adaptive schemes, applying tessellation when and where it is necessary, the perfect blend of performance and visual fidelity is achieved with at most a 4% change in performance.

DirectX 11 hardware also allows for higher quality, smoother and more natural looking shadows as well. DirectX 11 Advanced Shadows allow for the rendering of high-quality shadows, with smoother, artifact-free penumbra regions, which otherwise could not be realized, again providing for a higher quality, more immersive gaming experience.

Benchmark Reviews is committed to pushing the PC graphics envelope, and whenever possible we configure benchmark software to its maximum settings for our tests. In the case of Aliens vs. Predator, all cards were tested with the following settings: Texture Quality-Very High, Shadow Quality-High, HW Tessellation & Advanced Shadow Sampling-ON, Multi Sample Anti-Aliasing-4x, Anisotropic Filtering-16x, Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO)-ON. You will see that this is a challenging benchmark, with all the settings turned up and a screen resolution of 1920 x 1200, as only the HD5870 cards achieved an average frame rate of 30FPS.

This is truly a DirectX11 only benchmark, so we're limited to looking at the ATI HD 5xxx series of cards I have available. The stock ATI HD 5870, with a core clock of 850 MHz just barely reached 30 FPS as an average frame rate. Using anything less than the top hardware, the scenes had a jumpy quality to them. Maybe an HD 5850 could have come close, particularly an overclocked sample, but that's about it. Overclocking the ASUS EAH5870V2 to 1000 MHz on the core bumped up the average to 32.4 FPS, and also smoothed out some of the places in the action where the minimum frame rate dropped down. This is clearly a tough benchmark, and it's very useful for testing the latest and greatest graphics hardware.

Our next benchmark of the series is for a very popular FPS game that rivals Crysis for world-class graphics in a far away land.

Our next benchmark of the series puts our collection of video cards against some fresh graphics in the newly released Resident Evil 5 benchmark.

Far Cry 2 Benchmark Results

Ubisoft has developed Far Cry 2 as a sequel to the original, but with a very different approach to game play and story line. Far Cry 2 features a vast world built on Ubisoft's new game engine called Dunia, meaning "world", "earth" or "living" in Farci. The setting in Far Cry 2 takes place on a fictional Central African landscape, set to a modern day timeline.

The Dunia engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2, by Ubisoft Montreal development team. It delivers realistic semi-destructible environments, special effects such as dynamic fire propagation and storms, real-time night-and-day sun light and moon light cycles, dynamic music system, and non-scripted enemy A.I actions.

The Dunia game engine takes advantage of multi-core processors as well as multiple processors and supports DirectX 9 as well as DirectX 10. Only 2 or 3 percent of the original CryEngine code is re-used, according to Michiel Verheijdt, Senior Product Manager for Ubisoft Netherlands. Additionally, the engine is less hardware-demanding than CryEngine 2, the engine used in Crysis. However, it should be noted that Crysis delivers greater character and object texture detail, as well as more destructible elements within the environment. For example; trees breaking into many smaller pieces and buildings breaking down to their component panels. Far Cry 2 also supports the amBX technology from Philips. With the proper hardware, this adds effects like vibrations, ambient colored lights, and fans that generate wind effects.

There is a benchmark tool in the PC version of Far Cry 2, which offers an excellent array of settings for performance testing. Benchmark Reviews used the maximum settings allowed for our tests, with the resolution set to 1920x1200. The performance settings were all set to 'Very High', Render Quality was set to 'Ultra High' overall quality level, 8x anti-aliasing was applied, and HDR and Bloom were enabled. Of course DX10 was used exclusively for this series of tests.

Even on a game that typically favors the Green Machine, the HD 5870 cards are top dog again. They also respond to the GPU overclock of 150 MHz above the standard 850 MHz, but only gain about 10% in frame rates here. Even with the higher overclock, the GPU temperature only maxed out at 57C. This test is generally one of the lighter GPU loads among our benchmarks; the coding appears to be highly optimized.

Although the Dunia engine in Far Cry 2 is slightly less demanding than CryEngine 2 engine in Crysis, the strain appears to be extremely close. In Crysis we didn't dare to test AA above 4x, whereas we use 8x AA and 'Ultra High' settings in Far Cry 2. Using the short 'Ranch Small' time demo (which yields the lowest FPS of the three tests available), many of the midrange products we've tested are capable of producing playable frame rates with the settings all turned up. We also see a different effect when switching our testing to DirectX 10. Far Cry 2 seems to have been optimized, or at least written with a clear understanding of DX10 requirements.

The higher resolution test doesn't change the rankings at all, and the overclock scaling for the ASUS EAH5870V2 is the same here, netting a 10% gain in frame rates for an 18% overclock. Not too shabby performance, for a game and benchmark that has always favored NVIDIA products.

Our next benchmark of the series puts our collection of video cards against some fresh graphics in the newly released Resident Evil 5 benchmark.

Resident Evil 5 Benchmark Results

PC gamers get the ultimate Resident Evil package in this new PC version with exclusive features including NVIDIA's new GeForce 3D Vision technology (wireless 3D Vision glasses sold separately), new costumes and a new mercenary mode with more enemies on screen. Delivering an infinite level of detail, realism and control, Resident Evil 5 is certain to bring new fans to the series. Incredible changes to game play and the world of Resident Evil make it a must-have game for gamers across the globe.

Years after surviving the events in Raccoon City, Chris Redfield has been fighting the scourge of bio-organic weapons all over the world. Now a member of the Bio-terrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSSA), Chris is sent to Africa to investigate a biological agent that is transforming the populace into aggressive and disturbing creatures. New cooperatively-focused game play revolutionizes the way that Resident Evil is played. Chris and Sheva must work together to survive new challenges and fight dangerous hordes of enemies.

From a gaming performance perspective, Resident Evil 5 uses Next Generation of Fear - Ground breaking graphics that utilize an advanced version of Capcom's proprietary game engine, MT Framework, which powered the hit titles Devil May Cry 4, Lost Planet and Dead Rising. The game uses a wider variety of lighting to enhance the challenge. Fear Light as much as Shadow - Lighting effects provide a new level of suspense as players attempt to survive in both harsh sunlight and extreme darkness. As usual, we maxed out the graphics settings on the benchmark version of this popular game, to put the hardware through its paces. Much like Devil May Cry 4, it's relatively easy to get good frame rates in this game, so take the opportunity to turn up all the knobs and maximize the visual experience. The Resident Evil5 benchmark tool provides a graph of continuous frame rates and averages for each of four distinct scenes which take place in different areas of the compound. In addition it calculates an overall average for the four scenes. The averages for scene #3 and #4 are what we report here, as they are the most challenging.

Looking at the results for area #3, it's blatantly obvious that the NVIDIA cards do exceptionally well in this benchmark, and the Radeon HD 5870 doesn't have the same advantage it had in the other tests. The overclock on the ASUS Voltage Tweak card helped put some distance between the two competitors, but the GTX285 card we used for testing still has some overclocking headroom left in it, too. If this is your main game, the GTX cards offer better value in this one instance, if you can get one at a discount. There is quite a bit of variation in the game play between the four areas, so let's see what happens in the next most challenging scene, area #4.

In area #4, the 5870 convincingly reclaims its title, and the 5850 comes back to compete with the GTX285, just like we've seen on the other titles so far. I'm not sure what it is in area #3 that gives the GT200 cards such an advantage, but it doesn't last throughout the entire benchmark. In both scenes, the overclock on the 5870 returns a 13% gain in performance, which is consistent with the average improvement we've seen in the other benchmarks. Let's keep looking, especially at some new titles that were developed specifically to showcase DX11, and see if there's any more give-and-take or if it remains all take for the HD 5870.

In our next section, we look at the one of the newest DX11 benchmarks, straight from Russia and the studios of Unigine. Their latest benchmark is called "Heaven", and it has some very interesting and non-typical graphics. So, let's take a peek at what Heaven v2.0 looks like.

Unigine - Heaven Benchmark Results

Unigine Corp. released the first DirectX 11 benchmark "Heaven" that is based on its proprietary UnigineTM engine. The company has already made a name among the overclockers and gaming enthusiasts for uncovering the realm of true GPU capabilities with previously released "Sanctuary" and "Tropics" demos.

Recently Unigine released Heaven 2.0 with some new scenes and features. The biggest difference (besides all the newly installed cannons...?!?) is the ability to change the tessellation load. The jaded among us call the new Extreme Mode - "Fermi Mode", given the timing of the release and the fact that Heaven 1.0 was developed using the ATI Cypress chips and Heaven 2.0 was likely developed using NVIDIA GTX480s. For now, the Normal Mode seems best suited for today's hardware and it matches the results from Heaven 1.0 pretty well, so that what I used for testing.

Changes in version 2.0

• Heavier tessellation load
• Several major optimizations of the engine (including more effective culling of tessellated geometry)
• Added new elaborated objects in the world (airship, fort, pier)
• Physics-driven flags
• Added more dynamic lights
• Enhancements of some old assets
• Introduced "moderate" and "extreme" tessellation modes in addition to the "normal" one
  • Moderate Mode - This mode is targeted to provide reasonable performance on a wide range of DX11 hardware.
  • Normal Mode - Default mode available in the benchmark shows optimal quality-to-performance ratio.
  • Extreme Mode - Designed to meet the perspectives of the next series of DX11-capable hardware, pushing up the tessellation level to the extreme in the next 1-2 years.

The "Heaven" benchmark excels at providing the following key features:

• Native support of OpenGL, DirectX 9, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11
• Comprehensive use of tessellation technology
• Advanced SSAO (screen-space ambient occlusion)
• Volumetric cumulonimbus clouds generated by a physically accurate algorithm
• Dynamic simulation of changing environment with high physical fidelity
• Interactive experience with fly/walk-through modes
• ATI EyeFinity support

Unigine Corp. is an international company focused on top-notch real-time 3D solutions. The development studio is located in Tomsk, Russia. Main activity of Unigine Corp. is development of UnigineTM, a cross-platform engine for virtual 3D worlds. Since the project start in 2004, it attracts attention of different companies and groups of independent developers, because Unigine is always on the cutting edge of real-time 3D visualization and physics simulation technologies.

Starting off with a lighter load of 4x MSAA, we see a steady progression of performance as you move up the ATI 5xxx ladder. The HD 5870 puts on a star performance to lead the crowd, and the overclock certainly doesn't hurt anything either. There is still some jerkiness to the display with most of the cards, until you get to the top two. This test was run with 4x anti-aliasing; let's see how the cards stack up when we increase MSAA to the maximum level of 8x.

Increasing the anti-aliasing did nothing to the relative rankings; it just pushed everything down about 15%. It's interesting to note that the HD 5850 doesn't stand out so much with this benchmark; everywhere else, it seems to jump a little higher that its neighbors. I also noticed less impact in Heaven 2.0 from the chimney smoke. In Heaven 1.0, when there was a bit of smoke in the scene, the frame rate dropped dramatically, and it really hurt the older cards in DX10 mode.

Let's take a look at one more benchmark, a decidedly less cheerful scenario in a post-apocalyptic "Zone", which is traversed by mercenary guides called Stalkers.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat Benchmark Results

The events of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat unfolds shortly after the end of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. Having discovered about the open path to the Zone center, the government decides to hold a large-scale military "Fairway" operation aimed to take the CNPP under control. According to the operation's plan, the first military group is to conduct an air scouting of the territory to map out the detailed layouts of anomalous fields location. Thereafter, making use of the maps, the main military forces are to be dispatched. Despite thorough preparations, the operation fails. Most of the avant-garde helicopters crash. In order to collect information on reasons behind the operation failure, Ukraine's Security Service sends their agent into the Zone center.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: CoP is developed on X-Ray game engine v.1.6, and implements several ambient occlusion (AO) techniques including one that AMD has developed. AMD's AO technique is optimized to run on efficiently on Direct3D11 hardware. It has been chosen by a number of games (e.g. BattleForge, HAWX, or the new Aliens vs. Predator) for the distinct effect in it adds to the final rendered images. This AO technique is called HDAO which stands for ‘High Definition Ambient Occlusion' because it picks up occlusions from fine details in normal maps.

Within the limits imposed by the NVIDIA cards that don't support DirectX 11, we can turn the settings on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat all the way up. We're using SSAO, one of the technologies that first made its appearance in DirectX 10. In the first test, with SSAO turned on in Default Mode, and Quality set to High, we see a drastic performance advantage with the ATI boards. As an example, the HD5850 burns up the screen with 70% better performance than a mildly overclocked and more expensive GTX285. Apparently, SSAO really hates the GTX platform, or vice versa. Despite NVIDIA's earlier insistence that DX11 is largely unnecessary, their performance on one of the key enabling technologies of DX10 is also less than compelling. The overclock of the Radeon HD 5870 didn't have as much effect in this benchmark. For an 18% increase in GPU clock, we only got a 9% increase in frames per second.

Once we turn on DirectX 11, we're left with only Radeon GPUs to test with. There's a fairly even step up from one card to the next, similar to what you see in a synthetic benchmark. Overclocking of the GPU with DX11 gave about the same result as with DirectX10, a 9% improvement. The HD 5870 handles this game comfortably at 1920 x 1200 resolution, with the highest settings. With anything less than a 5850, some compromises will be required to get smooth game play. In an earlier article, we showed that MSAA imposes a serious penalty in this game, so that would be the most obvious knob to turn down.

In our next section, we investigate the thermal performance of the Radeon HD5830, and see how hot this fully loaded Cypress GPU runs with the full-copper heatpipe cooler that ASUS paired it with.

ASUS EAH5870 V2 Temperature

It's hard to know exactly when the first video card got overclocked, and by whom. What we do know is that it's hard to imagine a computer enthusiast or gamer today that doesn't overclock their hardware. Of course, not every video card has the head room. Some products run so hot that they can't suffer any higher temperatures than they generate straight from the factory. This is why we measure the operating temperature of the video card products we test.

To begin testing, I use GPU-Z to measure the temperature at idle as reported by the GPU. Next I use FurMark 1.7.0 to generate maximum thermal load and record GPU temperatures at high-power 3D mode. The ambient room temperature remained stable at a very high 30C throughout testing. I know this is much higher than the average American household, but we had a heat wave before I got the central A/C cranked up this year... Besides, I know some of you are not living in iceboxes and would be interested in how well the new cooler would handle high ambient temps.

The ASUS EAH5870 V2 video card recorded 40C in idle 2D mode, and increased to 80C after 20 minutes of stability testing in full 3D mode, at 1920x1200 resolution, and the maximum MSAA setting of 8X. With the fan set on Automatic, the speed rose from 21% (1025 RPM) at idle to 40% (2550 RPM) under full load. I then set the fan speed manually, using Catalyst Control Center, to 100% (4330 RPM) and ran the load test again, and the GPU only reached a maximum temperature of 66C.

80C is a good result for temperature stress testing, especially with such a powerful GPU, stock fan settings, a high ambient of 30C, and fan speeds controlled by the card. It's higher than I like to run my cards, but I'm used to seeing video card manufacturers keeping the fan speeds low and letting GPU temps get into this region. I rarely do my benchmarking tests with fans set on Automatic, preferring to give the GPU or CPU the best shot at surviving the day intact. With an integrated temperature controller in play though, I want to show how the manufacturer programmed the system, and ASUS kept the fan speed low. 66C is obviously a better result, and running the fan on Manual at 100% is not unusual or unwarranted when running such a punishing benchmark as FurMark.

Load temps never got higher than 58C when running continuous gaming benchmarks at 75% fan speed, so the cooling system definitely does the job, and there is a lot of temperature headroom left for the GPU. The noise at 100% speed was pretty excessive, and had the typical sound characteristic for a squirrel cage blower wheel. For me, this type of fan noise is more irritating than what an axial fan produces, but I'm willing to accept it as long as it's a necessary part of a design that pushes all the heated air out the back of the case. It was quieter than the reference design, and had a lower pitch, which is good, but I wouldn't like leaving it there while gaming unless I was wearing closed headphones. For normal usage patterns, I'd leave the fan settings on Auto. For gaming, I would invest some time creating a more aggressive, custom fan profile in SmartDoctor.

FurMark is an OpenGL benchmark that heavily stresses and overheats the graphics card with fur rendering. The benchmark offers several options allowing the user to tweak the rendering: fullscreen / windowed mode, MSAA selection, window size, duration. The benchmark also includes a GPU Burner mode (stability test). FurMark requires an OpenGL 2.0 compliant graphics card with lot of GPU power! As an oZone3D.net partner, Benchmark Reviews offers a free download of FurMark to our visitors.

FurMark does do two things extremely well: drive the thermal output of any graphics processor higher than any other application or video game, and it does so with consistency every time. While FurMark is not a true benchmark tool for comparing different video cards, it still works well to compare one product against itself using different drivers or clock speeds, or testing the stability of a GPU, as it raises the temperatures higher than any program. But in the end, it's a rather limited tool.

In our next section, we discuss electrical power consumption and learn how well (or poorly) each video card will impact your utility bill...

VGA Power Consumption

Life is not as affordable as it used to be, and items such as gasoline, natural gas, and electricity all top the list of resources which have exploded in price over the past few years. Add to this the limit of non-renewable resources compared to current demands, and you can see that the prices are only going to get worse. Planet Earth is needs our help, and needs it badly. With forests becoming barren of vegetation and snow capped poles quickly turning brown, the technology industry has a new attitude towards suddenly becoming "green". I'll spare you the powerful marketing hype that I get from various manufacturers every day, and get right to the point: your computer hasn't been doing much to help save energy... at least up until now.

To measure isolated video card power consumption, Benchmark Reviews uses the Kill-A-Watt EZ (model P4460) power meter made by P3 International. A baseline test is taken without a video card installed inside our computer system, which is allowed to boot into Windows and rest idle at the login screen before power consumption is recorded. Once the baseline reading has been taken, the graphics card is installed and the system is again booted into Windows and left idle at the login screen. Our final loaded power consumption reading is taken with the video card running a stress test using FurMark. Below is a chart with the isolated video card power consumption (not system total) displayed in Watts for each specified test product:

The ASUS EAH5870 V2 pulled 28 (158-130) watts at idle and 265 (395-130) watts when running full out, using the test method outlined above. The idle power consumption test is right on the factory number of 27W, and the load value is 77W above the 188W factory spec. That's about normal for this test, as it isn't possible to isolate the CPU load from the power measurements. You also have to factor in the efficiency of the power supply, which changes at different load levels. I think it's fair to say that the card pulls every bit of the full load current that is specified by the manufacturer, and maybe a few watts beyond that.

So, no major surprises in the power consumption area; it's ATI's biggest GPU, running at high clock rates. A good thing it's built on 40nm technology, otherwise those two billion transistors would be pulling a lot more power and generating a lot more heat. I next offer you some final thoughts, and my conclusions. On to the next page...

Radeon HD 5870 Final Thoughts

The ATI Radeon HD 5870 has been king of the single-GPU hill for 6 months now. Fermi finally launched early this month, and cards are now winding their way into the retail channels. With 50% more transistors and an architecture that is able to use the shader cores for computing tessellation, the GTX480 almost always pulls ahead of the 5870 in gaming benchmarks, particularly DX11 titles. Also, some of the games that feature "TWIMTBP" still radically favor the NVIDIA architecture, even though the GF100 design has evolved quite a bit from the GT200 blueprint from the last decade.

So, where does that leave the HD 5870 hardware? Last I heard, the word on everyone's lips was "Fermi = competition". Well, unfortunately, I don't see it happening any time soon. The GTX480 launched at $500, with 50% more transistors, about 25% better performance and a price that's 25% higher, give or take a few bucks. That's not competition for the HD 5870, that's a different price point. Tell me why ATI or their partners are going to lower their 5870 prices because the GTX480 costs more, does more and sucks electricity like it's free or something. In fact, pricing on the lowest priced 5870 cards is up since the Fermi launch, if anything. Maybe if NVIDIA launches a GTX475 we'll have a comparable card that will offer real competition. That also won't happen soon, because the Green Team needs to focus on filling out the lower price segments, where there's a much larger market to tap into. For now, the top two GTX cards neatly straddle the HD 5870, leaving it in a secure spot with no real competition.

By all accounts, it wasn't the drivers that delayed the release of Fermi, it was the hardware. The software developers actually had an extra couple of months to optimize the driver package before the products were released to the public. So I think you have to figure that ATI doesn't really have a 6-month lead on NVIDIA for their drivers. Still, beta testing is not the same thing as consumer usage, so from a "bug" standpoint there is probably still some work to be done on the NVIDIA side. There are also some features that they will want to expand upon and refine as time goes on. As far as graphics performance goes, both companies are probably on equal footing for now.

It seems like ATI and NVIDIA typically produce only one set of drivers in any given year that gets universal acclaim from the user community. The other ten times, there is always a small group who are dreadfully unhappy and a sizeable number who say, "That was OK, but what I really want is..." There are also a large number of people who are genuinely happy with that particular update because it fixes the one thing that they were having trouble with. Unfortunately, there is a vocal minority that insists every driver update should improve performance by 15-20% over the last update. I don't know why they get as much press as they do, since they only incite confusion and disappointment for those who have recently joined the gaming community.

So, at the end of its six month reign as champion, I still think you can call the HD 5870 a viable leader in its segment. It has no competition at its price point and it runs cooler with less power consumption than the GT200 or GF100 GPUs from NVIDIA. Essentially, the Fermi introduction had absolutely no effect on the 5870, and the GTX285 had already been blown into the weeds last September.

ASUS EAH5870/2DIS/1GD5/V2 Conclusion

The ASUS EAH5870 V2 easily met or improved on the basic performance levels set by the reference cards. The availability of software voltage control allowed an easy 18% increase in clock rates, with no loss of stability or extreme temperatures. Users of the reference designs have commonly been able to hit the 1 GHz mark, but there was a Catch-22. The software-controlled VRM that enabled the overclock had a bad tendency to overheat, itself. The V2 version from ASUS retains the performance enhancing capability of software voltage control, but does it with more straightforward, robust VRM hardware. Bottom line: with a 1GHz core and 1250 MHz memory clock, this card eats up the landscape in convincing fashion. The new all-copper cooler keeps temps in check and reduces fan speed, which is already a bit lower due to the increased fan size.

The appearance of the ASUS EAH5870 V2 video card is quite good. The larger fan works well with the full shroud and ASUS highlights it with the red trim around the inlet of the blower wheel. The red "V" accents draw attention to the airflow pattern and also remind me that this is the Voltage Tweak model. Other than a small "ASUS" name molded into the shroud, there are no real graphics included in the design. What a change from a few years ago, when every high-end card had an Asian Warrior Girl painted on the face of the cooler. While not a subtle design, the V2 avoids the garish themes that often show up on products marketed at gamers. Now the cover art on the box, that's another story.

The build quality of the EAH5870 V2 was excellent. Everything is well put together, the overall assembly of the card was rock solid, and the packaging was also first rate. I was especially impressed by the full length cast aluminum frame that ties the various components together. It's similar to the one on the ATI reference design, but it secures the I/O plate to the frame, which makes it even more solid. The weak point of the 5870 reference design has been eliminated, with a new power section that's just as sturdy as the physical construction. The Extreme Design features also contribute to the robustness of the card: redundant over-current protection, adhesive bonding of the GPU module to the PCB, and dust sealing of the fan motor all help keep the card running under potentially abusive conditions.

The features of the HD 5870 may seem slightly less amazing, now that we've been using them on a whole host of Radeon 5xxx cards since last September. Still, no one else has an equivalent combination of features that compete fully with DirectX 11, Full ATI Eyefinity Support, ATI Stream Technology Support, DirectCompute 11, OpenCL Support, HDMI 1.3 with Dolby True HD and DTS Master Audio. We've barely scratched the surface of all the features in this review, focusing almost exclusively on gaming performance, but the card excels at other uses as well. This is an area that will change eventually, as NVIDIA ramps up the feature set of their product line with new capabilities. They just got their first working products out the door, now they can expand on some features as they release new driver packages.

As of June 2010, the price for the ASUS EAH5870/2DIS/1GD5/V2 is $429.99 minus a $20 MIR at NewEgg. This is a little bit higher than the lowest price Radeon HD 5870 video cards, but still way below the high prices that some of the factory overclocked cards are fetching. With the software voltage control this board offers, you can zip right past those cards, making this second Voltage Tweak edition an excellent value in my book. The MSI R5870 Lightning card with Afterburner software is its closest competition, and its $50 higher. The PowerColor PCS++ is available at the same price with a 950 MHz core right out of the box, but you can't roll your own voltage settings. They're all worthwhile contenders, and depending on your personal priorities, one will probably stand out to you.

The ASUS EAH5870 V2 earns a Gold Tachometer by focusing on the key design aspects that improve performance, and delivering very high quality, reliable solutions for those elements. The power supply may use ordinary component choices in a classic VRM design, but it offers 50% more PWM phases than some competitors and it's bulletproof. The cooling solution is more compact than most of the non-reference designs, its all-copper construction pulls heat away from the GPU quicker, and most of the heat is expelled outside the case where it belongs. With the use of software voltage control, ASUS greatly improved the stock performance of what was already a high performance model to begin with. Even without it, the slightly higher default GPU voltage allowed me to run a 950 MHz core clock right out of the box. The only real downfall I see is the ironic fact that the iTracker2 monitor & control software from ASUS is a much better product than SmartDoctor, and you can't mix and match software across product lines. SmartDoctor is more of an annoyance than a hindrance, though. All this good stuff is available in ASUS' lowest cost 5870 product, making it a leader in value for the Radeon HD 5870 group. Well done.

Pros:

+ Robust, 6+1 phase power supply runs cool
+ Rock-solid mechanical design
+ Good value AND high quality in one package
+ Lowest price for a SW controlled VRM that won't overheat
+ 1250 MHz Samsung memory is an easy overclock
+ Default GPU voltage was good for an easy 100MHz OC
+ Excellent cooling performance for GPU, Memory, & VRM
+ Most of the heat is exhausted out the back of case
+ Extreme Design features improve reliability
+ Driver updates have offered real improvements in stability
+ Unmatched feature set of HD 5xxx series
+ The power to run 3-panel Eyefinity

Cons:

- SmartDoctor software inferior to ASUS iTracker2
- No software voltage control for memory
- Fan noise very unpleasant at 100%
- Brush fibers left on card after cleaning process
- Extreme Design features not listed in published materials

Ratings:

• Performance: 9.50
• Appearance: 9.00
• Construction: 9.25
• Functionality: 9.25
• Value: 9.25

Final Score: 9.25 out of 10.

Excellence Achievement: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award.

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