AMD’s Radeon HD 5830: A Filler Card at the Wrong Price
by Ryan Smith on February 24, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
BattleForge
BattleForge is a game we have always taken as being shader-heavy, which is what makes our results here so interesting. While Far Cry 2 was a dead heat between the 5830/4890/GTX275, BattleForge quickly separates the cards. We’re anywhere between 15-20% slower than those cards, leaving the 5830 to hang with the 4870 most of the time, and to even lose there at 1680. Meanwhile against the 5850, it’s 25-30% slower.
Given that the 5830 has a higher ratio of shader power to rendering than any of these other cards, our best conclusion is that BattleForge is in fact a ROP-heavy game when not completely starved of shader power. The result is that the 5830 is placing near a card that costs some 33% less. It’s clear that the impact of cutting the ROPs in half will vary from game to game.
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Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
The article was amended as soon as I woke up this morning.Teemax - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
I agreed with the conclusion. HD 5830 is overpriced for its performance.I hope Anand will be equally tough on NVIDIA's cards when they come. Overpriced GPUs stink.
Slaimus - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
I would guess it is priced high so it would limit demand. It is probably just a stop gap production to exhaust the supply of bad chips. Once Nvidia releases competitive products, the price compression would just squeeze this card off the long run.If it was too good of a deal, they would be forced to keep supplying it even when the future yields become good.
It is a relevant product if you need to build a system now, but cannot afford a 5850.
psychobriggsy - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
A paper launch is something released to review, with the product not showing up in the shops for *many* weeks, whilst the company isn't saying anything about it.Here we have the company saying "they'll be available next week" and giving a perfectly valid reason (get your reviews done before you're all shipped off to cebit), and you're getting all pious.
Get some sense of scale. If three cards get shipped next week, then call it a paper launch. If thousands get shipped next week, then it's not a paper launch. If Nvidia ship 1000 Fermis on day 1, and none for a month, that's a paper launch, but would you call them out on it?
kwrzesien - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
Agreed. Cards are available on newegg NOW!http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a...;cm_re=a...
You WON'T find them under the video guided search, not a category yet. Maybe the paper launch should have started a few days ago!
kc77 - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
Someone else has mentioned it, but I have to concur your reviews lately of ATI/AMD products have been overly negative. I personally buy Nvidia products because I prefer thier Linux drivers to ATI's. However, while I've been waiting for Fermi, it does seem the driver article which was unbelievably negative considering it was a driver release designed to improve the driver situation and this article go way too far to prove a point which eschews the whole picture of the situation.While I agree the 5830 should be priced better, when you look at what Nvidia is offering (or not offering) it makes sense. First, the 260/216 is barely available at all. Niether is the 275. The 285 is going for nearly $400 and is outclassed by a $300 ATI product (which was referred to as not a good deal). If you want to talk about weird pricing on what is basically an technologically obsolete product that would be it. I personally couldn't believe ATI's desire to "profit-taking" was even mentioned at all for a 20 - 40 dollar difference between horrible and ideal. Care to guess what the 260 and 275 prices were when they released? Try $449 and $600+, how big of an objection was raised to that?
While I understand the desire to make sure every reviewer gets their Fermi card for review this isn't the way to do it, considering it's almost 6 months late. If we want lower prices nothing would be better than for the other half of the equation (Nvidia) to do their job as well. Just a thought.
Voo - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
So you think the 5830 is nicely priced and you would love to buy one? Really? You would pay 240$ for that level of performance?I don't think Ryan is the fanboy here, sorry. Also I'd love some examples from the other articles were Ryan was "especially negative" about Ati without any reason.
kc77 - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
If you're not going to pay attention to what I said in an effort to prove a point then there's really no need to respond further.I said "While I agree the 5830 should be priced better" basically saying yes it could be lower. However, there's a difference in looking for a deal within ATI's lineup versus looking for a deal throughout the entire video card market. I specifically said that I bought Nvidia cards for a reason. At this time I cannot upgrade my video card. Why? Because if you like to buy a DX11 card from Nvidia you can't. Not only that but their cards are way over priced right now where this card competes. Even if I wanted to ignore the functionality, I can't ignore the performance.
The 285 goes for 400 (380 and some change) dollars and the 5850 beats it at 300 dollars. That's a $100 difference before you even look at the 5830. I'll say it again the 5830 isn't much of a deal within ATI's own lineup. However, when looking at what's purchasable within Nvidia's lineup it's priced accordingly. If you were to put prices over the benchmarks you would see a $150+ gap between a 285 and a 260/216. Essentially they (ATI) are charging you $40 for Eyefinity and Dx11 with performance that's slightly better than the 216 which sells between $189 - $200 (if you can find it in abundance). I'd hardly call that highway robbery.
Voo - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
So you're agreeing with the main criticsm of this review and still call it unfair? For me a card either has good value or not - independent if the "better" card comes from the same company or not.We all know that Nvidia has no interesting cards in the >200$ bracket, but that doesn't mean that any card >200$ from Ati is automatically a hit.
The first thing I thought when I read the part about "yeah but this card has eyefinity, DX11,.." was, that if you substituted that for CUDA and Physix you had a perfect Nvidia marketing speech ;)
kc77 - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
"So you're agreeing with the main criticsm of this review and still call it unfair? "Same here what would give you the impression that wouldn't be the case for me? First off I don't care per se what manufacturer makes the card. My preference is with Nvidia, but I'm not going to intentionally buy an obsolete card costing upwards of $200. We are not talking budget cards here.
Let me break it down as to why the 5850 is probably the best value out there right now (even though I don't own one).
Nvidia 200/200b GPU
GTX 280 debut price - $649
GTX 260 debut price - $449
ATI 5xxx GPU
5870 debut price - $389
5850 debut price - $279
(those prices reflect the actual possible at release not what the manufacturer quoted)
Do you see the difference? It's just as crazy to say that any >$200 card that ATI releases is a hit, as it is to not recognise that the prices are FAR LOWER then what they normally have been in the past, and not include that reality in your determination of what is value. The 5830 isn't what I would call value, however for the performance of the 5850 (which was also mentioned) it just doesn't make sense to not see the value in that card.