In our Radeon HD 5830 preview, we tested a sample card from AMD that wasn’t really representative of the final retail products. One of the cards we talked about in the review was XFX’s version of the 5830. XFX’s card looked to be one of the most promising offerings of the lot, so we asked them to send us one for a closer look. I had hoped to do a quick-turnaround review on this card by comparing it to our existing test data, but the arrival of a six-display Eyefinity rig in Damage Labs caused a major disruption. I had to disassemble my GPU test bench, essentially, to make room.
As a result, I’m not sure exactly when I’ll be able to give this 5830 card a full and proper review, but I thought you all might want to have a brief look at it.
Yep, still a good-looking card. One thing you may notice right away, though, is that it’s not exactly as compact as the sample shot of it we received from AMD, which looked like so:
Um, yeah. The real thing is a 10"-long card that is, crucially, just under an inch shorter than a Radeon HD 5870 with its Batmobile cooler. That’s just fine, even good compared to some 5830s, which are based on the 5870 reference design. But it’s not quite the feat of miniaturization that first PR picture suggested.
The complement of ports and power connectors is pretty standard, with a single DisplayPort, one HDMI, and two DVI ports in back and a pair of six-pin power connectors on the board’s opposite edge.
I said in the original review that the custom coolers chosen by each vendor will be particularly important for 5830 cards, since there is no reference cooling solution from AMD. Looking only at the shroud, you might think XFX’s effort was a little weak. However, if you peek under the shroud…
Things take a happy turn in a Zalman-inspired (if not Zalman-supplied) direction. I’ve not yet tested its effectiveness in any formal way, but the cooler seems to radiate quite a bit of heat with a minimum of fan noise. Another nice touch: the thing doesn’t spin up to Dyson-death-vortex levels at POST time, like many video coolers do these days.
The inclusion of a Steam coupon for Aliens vs. Predator also sets the XFX card apart from the pack. I believe this is the only 5830 with that game bundled; most others have gone with Modern Warfare 2 or no games at all. The inclusion of a newer, DX11 game might help offset the Radeon HD 5830’s relatively weak value proposition, at least.
The caveat here is that Newegg is currently selling the XFX 5830 for $259.99, which is 20 bucks more than XFX first told us to expect. That’s frustrating, and the current upsurge in graphics card prices isn’t likely to abate until the supply problems with 40-nm GPUs have been fully overcome. Until then, Radeon HD 5830 cards will probably continue to be priced higher than we’d like. If you’re determined to buy a graphics card in this price range, the 5830 may soon be the only game in town—and certainly the only option with a DirectX 11 feature set. In that context, XFX’s take on the 5830 may be your best option. Here’s hoping we’ll see this same card selling for $199 before long.
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Why couldn’t they have slapped this onto a 5850 PCB, would have atleast made it more attractive from a buyers standpoint.
loving my 5770 i got for $160 🙂
I agree as the prices have gone up the cost benefit of the 5830 makes it a
poor choice as its only 10%-15% up on the 5770. so spending a few more
bucks for the 5850 is a better choice.
/[<"And don't try to use shareholders as some all-excusing argument, it is not nor ever will be."<]/ It is the /[<*only*<]/ argument with every company. Ultimately they must return shareholder stock valueg{<.<}g Haiti relief? There must be a benefit to shareholders, even as trite as it may seem. TR contest giveaways? If it cost TR instead of brought in pageviews, we likely wouldn't see them. Decision by Toyota to sue/badmouth whistleblowers? Cost comparison and crunching numbers by people with shareholder value always in the back of their mind.
Unimpressed consumer is unimpressed. 🙁
Gold has many useful properties and cost some to harvest from ore so even when it wasn’t used as a value item it would still cost more than 10 cents.
And don’t try to use shareholders as some all-excusing argument, it is not nor ever will be.
One man’s greed is another man’s fiduciary duty to shareholders. A graphics card is worth what people are willing to pay for it. Or are you selling gold at 10 cents a gram?
I don’t know. Seems to me that the biggest advantage of a dual-slot cooler is the ability to vent heat out the back of the case.
I thought is was painfully obvious that the original XFX picture was just a photoshopped 5750.
The GPU design cycle is 2 or 3 years, so Nvidia and AMD will currently be working on the next two, maybe three, generations of GPU’s.
Though I agree with you that the material doesn’t matter much (as aluminum is sufficiently conductive to be an effective cooler), it just says something about a company when they paint things copper to pass them off as copper.
If it does what he wants and needs it to what does it matter? Some people don’t get off on bragging to others about their posessions as if it makes them better.
Below the 5850 the ATI DX11 cards are at best a debatable value and that’s only for the 5700s, the 5830 is a bad value. The 5600s and below offer nothing in terms of value even versus most new card prices let alone used.
Considering the fins are not faked-copper colored aluminum it’s likely the heatpipe is copper. But heatpipe material doesn’t matter a whole lot because they depend upon phase-change for their heat transfer much more so than the material from which they’re made.
the 9800 is also a joke, considering it’s a rebranded 8800. Equally smoked by the 5850.
Some people are such devout nvidia fans that they will rationalize anything to avoid buyers remorse. The appropriate phrase is the “sunk cost dilemma”.
Scott, I can’t quite tell from the picture but are those legitimate copper heatpipes or is this some cheap metal painted copper? Based on the texture, it looks like its paint.
For some reason I can’t read the entire posts but….. #5, I’m not a fan boy. Don’t try and bait me. #3…. not one site with an absence of the 5k product. No reason to keep the prices high for sake of gluttony.
I just don’t understand this card. Why would *anyone* not pay the extra $40 bucks to get a vastly superior 5850? I guess if you are a uber cheapskate then this card might be for you. However the 5770 is cheaper and a much better deal as well.
Um… the 5850 that rodney referenced outperforms the 5830 at every turn. The 9600gt is a joke compared to these cards. You paid $60 for $60 worth of performance. Why would you want people to know about that?
Have you checked GTX285 and GTX295 prices lately? Please come and tell us how competitive they are.
It’s prime’s job to lob nvidia products. It’s his life mission. I’m still waiting the ignore button to materialize here.
Some of the major B&M chains have had 260s in the $160 ballpark or thereabouts lately as a result of closeout deals.
Best Buy, for one, has been blowing a lot of 260s out in-store, and I believe MicroCenter had them super-cheap, too.
Just one of those cases where retail>online.
I’m honestly thinking Firmi isn’t going to be too competitive.I think it’ll do much better than AMD in the HPC arena, but I think it’ll be about the same in games, maybe marginally better than the 5870. Plus I think it’s going to be nightmarishly expensive for nvidia to produce. Which, now that AMD is profitable again, they will start another price war and it’s going to hurt nvidia even more. I hope for their sake they’ve already got a better team working on the next gen after fermi.
I don’t understand all the praise the $205 GTX 260 is getting when the 4870 and 5770 are both available for $155. Where’s the extra $50 is going again?
TR, have you bothered checking availability/price before recommending it?
When you’ve got lemons make lemonade eh?
I believe they’re angry towards nvidia for being late to the competition and amd had the chance to cash in….
because there is no just price for a luxury item. they aren’t necessary and therefore whoever is selling them can sell them for whatever price people will pay. thus it’s impossible to gouge for anything that isn’t a necessity.
From the previous review:
l[
As I said in this very thread: “And nVidia’s past gouging isn’t something one should strive to emulate.”
Think…$800 GTX Ultra 😉
I think that is actually in the dictionary under gouging.
$650 GTX280 what?
I think he’s confused between the economic definition of gouging and the legal/criminal definition of gouging.
what does being a “luxury item” have anything to do with it?
I also picked up a 5850 for $259 (CAD!) with Dirt2 included. What a steal compared to now 🙂
The $199 in my bank account makes my $60 9600gt that I’ve been using SINCE JUNE 2009 look like a steal. Value FAIL! Thanks a lot Useless Directx1g{<1<}g!!!
q[
You’re very close, I think.
I’m convinced by the silkscreening, heatsink fins and board component layout that the press shot is just a 5750 with the 5830 plastic shroud slapped on top, marketting mock-up style.
§[<http://hardwaremania.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/xfx_hd5700_1.jpg<]§ There is no way that the 5750 juniper PCB has troom for the power circuitry that the double-sized cypress needs, so I call their bluff and say that there will be zero shortened 5830's, period.
You’re very close, I think.
I’m convinced by the silkscreening, heatsink fins and board component layout that the press shot is just a 5750 with the 5830 plastic shroud slapped on top:
§[<http://hardwaremania.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/xfx_hd5700_1.jpg<]§
I was looking at #31 and thinking along the same lines.
Also laissez-faire capitalism in particular… wouldn’t it be acceptable to buy up all your competitors and charge whatever you can get away with, even food and basic necessities of life? I don’t believe you can call a system with anti-trust / anti-monopoly laws as laissez-faire capitalism.
LOL. I do empathize with bdwilcox, but, definitions are definitions. I don’t think his definition of capitalism is technically correct either:
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I think they use fuses on the die to disable units. That showed up sometime during the X800 era, I believe.
IIRC they chose 5870 PCBs because of the extra power regulation on them and the fact that the 5830 is clocked higher than the 5850 and therefore has a higher power draw at load. That’s what I remember reading the reason was, at least.
ok, let’s look at definitions.
gouge – to extort from, swindle, or overcharge.
overcharge – a charge in excess of a stated or just price
swindle – to obtain by fraud or deceit.
extort – to take illegally by reason of one’s office
None of that can possibly apply to an unnecessary, luxury item.
Capitalism is them selling every part they make that otherwise would’ve gone in the garbage because it didn’t meet a certain standard but parts of still work fine. If you’re selling every part you make, why on earth would not charge every penny you possibly can? This ain’t UNICEF, right?
You’re teaching a laissez-faire capitalist about capitalism… oookaaaay…
Definition of *[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gouging<]§
Capitalism is when no one buys your overpriced POS because they know you're gouging them.
It’s called capitalism. They are the only source of that particular performance and feature combo product. If that’s what you want, that’s what it cost. If you don’t feel it’s worth that much, don’t buy it. The term ‘gouge’ doesn’t even apply, you can only ‘gouge’ for things that are necessary, like food and shelter.
Does Dodge gouge you for a car if you buy a viper? No. They produce something of a certain caliber that no one actually needs and they charge what they want for it. There’s no such thing as gouging when it comes to *[
Yes, and they’re gouging you for something that doesn’t perform much better than their much less expensive 5770. They’re basically charging you top dollar for their refuse.
And nVidia’s past gouging isn’t something one should strive to emulate.
I see. Yes you’re probably right that’s the reason they’d choose to use 5870 PCBs. I was just saying that unlockable chips does not follow from using the same PCB if the chips were disabled on a hardware level like they have been for a long time.
A $259 5830 makes my $259 5850 that I’ve been using SINCE OCTOBER look like a steal. Value FAIL! Thanks a lot Fermi!
Yeah, thats how I thought it come across too. But… It would be hard to find ones that were originally 5870’s and ones that are really dud 5870’s. Still, i still think it would be entirely viable to make a 5830 into a fully functioning 5870 if the chip was in good order, and like Damage says, was quickly put into the market to meet demand…
Dremel is your friend.
They are just cashing in while they can while they have the best performing graphics cards in the market place. Nvidia did it with the GeForce 8 series too. If anyone has the compettitive edge, the price stays high for a little while, happens with everything…
I think he was trying to imply, that since they are having supply problems.That they would be alot more likely to use perfectly good 5850 pcb’s on the 5830’s.Just to keep them on shelves(so to speak).
Heyyy, I said style before function dammit! My case is standard ATX size (Jeantech’s Unicorn Case). It’s a excellent case for ventilation, and does look very pretty. Problems come in with long graphics cards because the HDD cage gets in the way (It has a fan mounted to the front of it too, so it pretudes into the case 3-5cm more than a normal one). The GTS 250 just fits in, clearing the edge of the drive cage by 5mm.
Case has served me well – It’s had 3 complete system re-builds in it over 3 years, and is sill running the old GPU’s from my older build, hence I am looking at new GPU’s very closley – Upgrade time (but not this one @ $250!)…
I’m not sure whether you’re being sarcastic or not 😉 I’m not trying to show you up or anything, just talking about unlockable functional units.
I think he’s talking about the vents on the backplate not the shroud over the cooler itself if that’s what you meant by shroud. I expect that GPU temperatures wouldn’t change if the shroud were removed but PCB or VRM temps might, it helps keep the airflow that passes through the heatsink going across the card to other components rather than just turning in to a turbulent mess right away.
get a new case, I’ve got one I bought with powersupply, 4usb and front audio.
price $31.00
Oh, thanks. I had no idea how these things related.
Shrouds like that can improve efficiency too, you know. If I had the card to fiddle around with, that would be something that I’d test just to satisfy the nagging ‘what if’ echoing in my head :p
Right, but that’s a separate issue from potentially unlockable units. Just because the yields are bad doesn’t mean that all the cards binned to 5830 have b[
TMSC’s yield problems have been well documented. 🙂
It looks pretty tho 😛
It’s obviously to reuse existing parts as much as possible, a new backplate for every single card just isn’t the mass production way. Not to mention that it’s necessary to fit the display output options that the rest of the 5800s have.
/[
I would bet money on no unlockable cards at all. Although AMD seemed to tacitly approve of core unlocking for their CPUs, at least formerly since the 8-series chipsets no longer hae ACC built in, unlocking GPUs has been very rare for years. The last ones that were widespread was during the Geforce 6800 era and ATI 9000 series although there were a few Geforce 900GSOs that unlocked. I think they were more of an accident than anything left that way ‘on purpose’ by NV, nowadays units are hard disabled on the die by destroying some required bits and pieces.
I don’t get the design of the casing… what’s the point of making it dual slot with a vent if you aren’t going to case the whole card? Wouldn’t that make air flow less fluent?
Would be curious to see if you could – I would bet money on good batches popping up here and there over time. I would be inclined to leave everything as it is on the card, and just see about unlocking some of those ROP’s they culled (and as a result, crippled it’s fill rates by a little under 50% of a 5850).
Download FlashROM and copy the BIOS from a 5850/70 and copy it to the 5830. You think XFX will mind if you tried this on yours? LOL…
I’m pretty sure the 5830 exists in the puzzling form it does, with so many units and ROPs disabled and higher clock speeds than more expensive Cypress cards, because AMD wanted to get max use of chips with defects in them. Thus, my expectation is that most 5830s won’t be really right with all units enabled. You could try your luck, though, if there’s a BIOS flash that will unlock things.
Ohh, ok. Looks like I missed that point somewhere 🙂 The ones on 5870 PCB’s sound interesting – Are they artifically crippled 5870’s that can be bought back up to full service/spec you think?
LOL @ $260 WTFBBQ 5850 FTW
XFX told us this card is based on their 5850 PCB design. Some others look to be based on a 5870 design, I think.
What’s with the influx of posters with an ax to grind against this site?
Looks like they decided to put most of them onto a 5850 PCB then? Fantastic – It means this card will not fit in my case neither…
(Before any bright spark says to change it, no way! It’s a really pretty case – Has a solid aluminium door, and red perspex side window – Style before function TR Gerbils, lol)
The 40-nm supply issues at TSMC are well documented. So is human nature. 🙂 No one said they weren’t doing a tango together.
We will verify clock speeds prior to testing to make sure performance is what it should be. Standard practice.
You say “supply problems” for the higher prices ? I don’t,I say greed. No reason other than profit do any of AMD/ATI’s current cards need to be $20-$50 over the introductory price.
And you said something to the effect XFX “sent” you a card. Will this “selected” card give the same or better performance than one we the people can purchase ? Or is it hand selected ?
Looks like a 5770 v2 cooler to me.