Final thougts and rating
When AMD launched the Radeon HD 5870 graphics card in September this year, we lauded it as a step forward. Now derived into a further three products, the DX11 architecture pervades the £100-plus space.The newest member of the R5K series is the Radeon HD 5970 2,048MB. Putting everything else subservient, its sole aim is to dethrone NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 295 as the fastest graphics card in the world.
Performance is based on marrying two Radeon HD 5800-class GPUs to one board, by taking a Radeon HD 5870's architecture and HD 5850's frequencies. In effect, it becomes a Radeon HD 5860 X2.
With 4.6TFLOPs of compute performance and other preposterously-huge numbers under the bonnet, our benchmarks show it to be, on average, 35 per cent faster than an also-dual-GPU GeForce GTX 295, based on DX9/DX10 and OpenGL titles and at the 2,560x1,600 resolution.
Zipping through benchmarks at 2,560x1,600, and you really need this kind of ultra-high setting to do the card justice, we can categorically say that it succeeds in usurping the GTX 295's title... and in some style. Indeed, the legendary Greek philosopher Socrates and NVIDIA's high-end GPUs have something in common: they've both been poisoned by Hemlock.
The effusive praise for the card's performance is tempered by a dose of healthy pragmatism, though. Radeon HD 5800-class GPUs are incredibly difficult to find in-stock, so we fear for the HD 5970's availability, in the short term at least.
Then there's the huge footprint, as wide as an ATX motherboard, which may leave would-be purchasers contemplating a new chassis just to house the card. Finally, at between £425 and £450 performance comes at a considerable price, and such an investment could be split over two Radeon HD 5850 GPUs - motherboard permitting - with change left over for a triple-A game or two.
But that's kind of missing the point. Practical considerations aside, and the ultra-high-end GPU market tends to be marked by a rather whimsical approach to judiciousness, the AMD ATI Radeon HD 5970 2,048MB becomes the fastest gaming card money can buy. Fermi, over to you.
Just a little later on today, we'll be casting our eye over the HD 5970's performance in dual-card CrossFireX, compared to practically all other high-end single- and dual-card solutions, to give you the complete picture.
HEXUS Rating
We consider any product score above '50%' as a safe buy. The higher the score, the higher the recommendation from HEXUS to buy. Simple, straightforward buying advice.
The rating is given in relation to the category the component competes in, therefore the AMD ATI Radeon HD 5970 is evaluated with respect to our 'extreme components' criteria.
AMD ATI Radeon HD 5970 2,048MB
AMD ATI Radeon HD 5970 2,048MB
HEXUS Where2Buy
AMD ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics cards can be ordered now from the following retailers:
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