KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
When testing video cards, it is important to use a system which would suit the target audience. For this review we are using a Intel Core i7 980x processor paired with the excellent, KitGuru award winning Asus Rampage III Extreme Motherboard – check out the review here if you missed it.
We will compare the card to the reference HD 5870 model as well as a reference HD5850 and pre-overclocked Sapphire Toxic Edition HD5850. A very small percentage of the audience (1%) use a 30 inch screen so we like to include 24 inch resolutions when possible (1920×1200). Keeping in HD5850 results is also a good indication of what people can expect if they sold a 5850 and wanted to upgrade to the higher end model.
Test System:
HIS HD 5870 iCooler V Turbo
Sapphire HD5850 Toxic 1GB Edition
AMD Reference HD5870
AMD Reference HD5850
Intel Core i7 980x
Coolit ECO A.L.C.
Asus Rampage III Extreme Motherboard
6GB Corsair DDR3 1866mhz Memory
Intel 160GB SSD Drive
Lacie 730 30 inch screen.
Western Digital Raid 0 (2×1TB Drives)
Enermax 1250W Revolution PSU
Lian Li Armorcase
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit – all newest patches applied
Fraps Professional
Catalyst 10.5 driver
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Digital Sound Level Meter (Bruel & Kjaer)
Resident Evil 5
Batman Arkham Asylum
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat
Left 4 Dead 2
Colin McRae Dirt 2
Crysis Warhead
3dMark Vantage
All the latest bios updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru test all games across five closely matched runs and average out the results to get an accurate median figure.
HD5870 is a great card and I like the look of this one. cooler is a bit ugly I think but its nice to see improved/higher fan speeds for cooler temps.
I never really notice fan noise, unless its wild helicopter style noise. This looks like a good buy. I never see them in america tho, not in stores anyway
Sapphire model is better but it costs more. which I would say would be pretty obvious
Well I like being proved wrong, I had assumed HIS was a POS, but this review has certainly changed my view.
mega OC on that. weird they only overclock it a little out of the factory. its hardly ‘turbo’ more ‘shoved a little’
Glad to see you mentioning the hardly overclocked speeds. I dont know why they launch these as TURBO editions when its hardly even overclocked in the least, which is shown on the graphs. So much headroom and I think a small portion of the audience will even know how much they can get out of it. ID have gave it 3 out of 5 just for that point. TURBO should be TURBO.
Well I was expecting good temps, but more noise over reference? surely thats not right
nice review, very thorough, thanks.
Excellent, I like that card a lot. I prefer cooler to quieter.
I would probably still opt for Sapphire, they just seem a better company
I would probably still opt for Sapphire, they just seem a better company
I just ordered one of these and got a bit of a bargain, 50 off retail price 🙂