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Review: AMD ATI Radeon HD 5850 single-card and multi-GPU evaluation

by Tarinder Sandhu on 30 September 2009, 15:16 4.3

Tags: Radeon HD 5850, AMD (NYSE:AMD)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qauab

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Filling up the Table

Graphics cards NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 1,792MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1,024MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 1,024MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 896MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 896MB ATI Radeon HD 5870 1,048MB ATI Radeon HD 5850 1,024MB AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 2,048MB AMD Radeon HD 4850 X2 2,048MB AMD Radeon HD 4890 1,024MB AMD Radeon HD 4870 512MB AMD Radeon HD 4850 512MB
PCIe PCIe 2.0
GPU(s) clock 576MHz 648MHz 602MHz 633MHz 576MHz 850MHz 725MHz 750MHz 625MHz 850MHz 750MHz 625MHz
Shader clock 1,242MHz 1,476MHz 1,296MHz 1,404MHz 1,242MHz 850MHz 725MHz 750MHz 625MHz 850MHz 750MHz 625MHz
Memory clock (effective) 1,998MHz 2,484MHz 2,214MHz 2,322MHz 1,998MHz 4,800MHz 4,000MHz 3,600MHz 1,986MHz 3,900MHz 3,600MHz 1,986MHz
Memory interface and size 896-bit (2 x 448-bit), 1,792MB, GDDR3 512-bit, 1,024MB, GDDR3 512-bit, 1,024MB, GDDR3 448-bit, 896MB, GDDR3 448-bit, 896MB, GDDR3 256-bit, 1,024MB, GDDR5 256-bit, 1,024MB, GDDR5 512-bit (2x 256-bit), 2,048MB, GDDR5 512-bit (2x 256-bit), 2,048MB, GDDR3 256-bit, 1,024MB, GDDR5 256-bit, 512MB, GDDR5 256-bit, 512MB, GDDR3
Memory bandwidth 223.8GB/s
 159GB/s
 141.7GB/s
 130GB/s
 111.9GB/s
 153.6GB/s 128GB/s
 230.4GB/s
 127.1GB/s
 124.8GB/s
 115.2GB/s 63.5GB/s
Manufacturing process TSMC, 55nm TSMC, 55nm TSMC, 65nm TSMC, 55nm TSMC, 55nm TSMC, 40nm TSMC, 40nm TSMC, 55nm TSMC, 55nm TSMC, 55nm TSMC, 55nm TSMC, 55nm
DirectX/ Shader Model DX10, 4.0 DX10, 4.0 DX10, 4.0 DX10, 4.0 DX10, 4.0 DX11, 5.0 DX11, 5.0 DX10.1, 4.1 DX10.1, 4.1 DX10.1, 4.1 DX10.1, 4.1 DX10.1, 4.1
Vertex, fragment, geometry shading (shared) 480 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue + MUL (unified) 240 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue + MUL (unified) 240 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue + MUL (unified) 240 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue + MUL (unified) 216 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue + MUL (unified) 1,600 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue (unified)) 1,440 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue (unified) 1,600 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue (unified) 1,600 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue (unified) 800 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue (unified) 800 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue (unified) 800 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue (unified)
Data sampling and filtering 160ppc address and 160ppc bilinear INT8/80ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF 80ppc address and 80ppc bilinear INT8/40ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF 80ppc address and 80ppc bilinear INT8/40ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF 72ppc address and 72ppc bilinear INT8/36ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF 72ppc address and 72ppc bilinear INT8/36ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF 80ppc address and 80ppc bilinear INT8/40ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF 72ppc address and 72ppc bilinear INT8/36ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF 80ppc address and 80ppc bilinear INT8/40ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF 80ppc address and 80ppc bilinear INT8/40ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF 40ppc address and 40ppc bilinear INT8/20ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF 40ppc address and 40ppc bilinear INT8/20ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF 40ppc address and 40ppc bilinear INT8/ 20ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF
ROPs 56 32 32 28 28 32 32 32 32 16 16 16
Peak GFLOPS 1,788 1,063 933 1,011 805 2,720
 2,088 2,400 2,000 1,360 1,200 1,000
Peak fillrate Gpixels/s 32.256 20.736 19.264 17.724 16.128 27.2
 23.2
 24 20 13.6 12 10
Peak Gtexel/s (bilinear) 92.2 51.84 48.16 45.576 41.472 68
 52.2
 60 50 34 30 25
Peak Gtexel/s (FP16, bilinear) 46.1 25.92 24.09 22.788 20.736 34
 26.1 30 25 17 15 12.5
Board power (max) 289W 183W 236W 219W
 182W
 188W 151W
 286W 220W
 190W
 160W 110W
Connectors (native) 2 x dual-link DVI, HDTV-out,HDMI 2x dual-link DVI
HDTV-out		 2x dual-link DVI
HDTV-out		 2x dual-link DVI
HDTV-out		 2x dual-link DVI
HDTV-out
 2x dual-link DVI
HDMI, DisplayPort, HDTV-out, Eyefinity*		 2x dual-link DVI
HDMI, DisplayPort, HDTV-out		 2x dual-link DVI
HDMI, DisplayPort, HDTV-out		 2x dual-link DVI
HDMI, DisplayPort, HDTV-out		 2x dual-link DVI
HDMI, DisplayPort, HDTV-out		 2x dual-link DVI
HDMI, DisplayPort, HDTV-out		 2x dual-link DVI
HDMI, DisplayPort, HDTV-out
Current price £330 £240
 N/A £160
 £120
 £299
 £200
 £250
 £200
 £125
 £95 £80


Analysis

Priced at £200, the Radeon HD 5850's opposite number falls between the GeForce GTX 275 and GTX 285 GPUs.

An apples-to-apples technical comparison is difficult because one man's shaders and memory-bandwidth operate at a different efficiency than another's.

Noting the caveat, the GeForce GTX 285 card has better bandwidth but is mauled with respect to shading. Texturing, however, is reasonably similar.

Enough technology, let's bust out the card(s).

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