ATI Radeon HD 5830 1GB Review

Item: ATI Radeon HD 5830 1GB Review
Author: Harry Butler

Written by Harry Butler

February 25, 2010 | 11:47

Tags: #hd5830 #radeon-hd-5830

Companies: #amd #ati

Results Analysis

With the HD 5830’s specs placing it smack bang between the HD 5770 and HD 5850, it’s not too surprising to find that the HD 5830 performed pretty much exactly how we’d expected in Fallout 3. Minimum frame rates were almost smack bang between the two older ATI cards, but what was perhaps surprising is that last year’s Radeon HD 4890 was a touch faster, especially at very high resolutions.

It was much the same story in STALKER: Clear Sky, with the HD 5830 sitting nicely between the HD 5770 and HD 5850. STALKER is a game that favours ATI hardware, but it was still impressive to see the HD 5830 outperforming the now ageing GeForce GTX 285 at most resolutions (bar 1,280 x 1,024). The HD 4890 was also less of a contender in STALKER, where the HD 5830 conclusively outperformed ATI’s previous gen top-end single-GPU card at every resolution but 1,920 x 1,200.

Dawn of War II performance was pretty difficult to judge due to the obvious driver issues of our pre-release driver. Minimum frame rates were lower than those of a HD 5770, while average frame rates were comparable (or sometimes higher) than those of the HD 5850. We’ll see if this issue resolves itself when we get partner cards and a WHQL driver to test with.

Crysis is still the title by which any graphics card is judged, and the HD 5830 was, to be fair, rather disappointing. While performed somewhere between the HD 5850 and HD 5770, it was much closer to the latter, especially when we increased the resolution. At 1,920 x 1,200, the minimum frame rate was identical to that of the HD 5770, while the average fps was just 10 per cent faster.

The jump in performance over the HD 5770 in Call of Duty: World at War was much better though, especially when you look at minimum frame rates, which are as much as 30 per cent higher at 2,560 x 1,600, with no AA. Elsewhere, the HD 5830 fell almost exactly between the two ATI cards either side of it: at 1,920 x 1,200 with no AA, the HD 5830 had a minimum average of 44fps rather than the 38fps of the HD 5770 and the 55fps minimum of the HD 5850.

Usually we’d judge a cards thermal performance, power consumption and overclocking abilities, but in this case there’s no point. Every HD 5830 card will be different, with unique power delivery and cooling – we’ll therefore look at these aspects of each card as and when we test them.

Conclusion

We actually held off publishing this review until we could see live prices, as we didn’t believe the £200-or-so prices we were quoted. However, this seems to be the case – where there is stock and pricing, there’s no HD 5830 that costs less than £200. Scan has an XFX for pre-order at £215, eBuyer has ten cards for pre-order for £207 or £212 and Overclockers has pre-order cards for between £206 and £211.

As the HD 5830 delivers performance almost perfectly between that of a HD 5770 and HD 5850, even if we account for the apparent price rise in the HD 5850 to £250, the HD 5830 should surely split the difference between the two existing Radeon cards. This would place the HD 5830 at £182.50, a more reasonable price for the comparative level of performance.

At £200, the HD 5830 is pitched at being a high-performance graphics card, and that claim is hard to fathom from our testing. Both the GTX 275 and the HD 4890 deliver similar, and in some cases superior performance to that of the HD 5830, and it’s something of a symptom of mid-range Radeon HD 5000-series cards that absolute bang-for-buck hasn’t moved on much since the DX10 era. If you’ve got a high-end GeForce GTX 200-series card or a fast Radeon HD 4890, the £210 for this card gets you only lower power consumption and DX11 support.

ATI has a DX11 monopoly, and so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that the company is charging a premium for its cards. Indeed, we're not against companies wanting a return on their investment in new technology - but quite simply, the pricing of this card just isn't fair, and if you spend £200+ on a HD 5830 you are getting a product that is very poor value.

This isn’t just a case of wishful thinking on our part. The performance of the HD 5830 is mid-way between that of a HD 5770 and a HD 5850 and yet its price isn't. Perhaps partner cards can sweeten the deal with excellent cooling, overclocking wizardry or generous bundles, but we’ll wait till we see those cards before getting our credit cards out.

So what are your options if you can't get a good deal on a HD 5830? At £250, the HD 5850 is a touch pricey, although if you can afford it, it's great. Really though, the pricing of this card and the HD 5850 leaves the HD 5770 as the real bargain of the current ATI lineup. As ever with mid-range next-gen cards though, you need to be sure that it's really going to be faster than your existing GPU.