ATI Radeon HD 5970 Hemlock Video Card

Written by Olin Coles

Wednesday, 18 November 2009

Table of Contents: Page Index
ATI Radeon HD 5970 Hemlock Video Card
Radeon HD 5970 Features
ATI Eyefinity Multi-Monitors
ATI Radeon HD 5970 Closer Look
Video Card Testing Methodology
3DMark Vantage GPU Tests
BattleForge Performance
Crysis Warhead Tests
Devil May Cry 4 Benchmark
Far Cry 2 Benchmark
Resident Evil 5 Tests
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Radeon HD 5970 Temperatures
VGA Power Consumption
Radeon 5000-Series Final Thoughts
ATI Radeon HD 5970 Conclusion

Page 2 of 17

ATI Radeon HD 5970 Features

Microsoft DirectX 11 Support (only available on Windows 7 and Vista)
ATI Eyefinity Technology
ATI Stream Technology Designed for DirectCompute 5.0 and OpenCL
Accelerate Video Transcoding
40 nm Process Hemlock GPU Technology
Advanced GDDR5 Memory Technology
2nd Generation TeraScale Engine
Microsoft Windows 7 Support
ATI CrossFireX Technology
Enhanced Anisotropic Filtering
Accelerated Video Transcoding
Display Flexibility, Supports DL-DVI, DP, HDMI and D-Sub
On chip HDCP Support
ATI CrossFireX multi-GPU support for highly scalable performance. (Use up to four discrete cards with an AMD 790FX based motherboard)
ATI Avivo HD Support
- ATI Unified Video Decoder 2 (UVD) for Blu-ray and HD Video.
- Accelerated Video Transcoding (AVT)
- DVD Upscaling
- Dynamic Contrast
- Built-in HDMI with 7.1 surround sound support
- Dynamic power management with ATI PowerPlay technology including memory clocks
- Dolby TrueHD and DTSHD Master Audio Support

ATI Hemlock Specifications

AISC: ATI Radeon HD 5870
Bus Interface: PCI-E x16 (PCI-E 2.0/2.1)
Memory: 2048MB / 512-bit GDDR5 (256-bit per GPU)
Clock Speed: 725 MHz Eclk / Effective 4000 MHz Mclk
Cooling System: Dual slot Fan with auto fan control
Bracket: Full Height
Display Support: Dual DL-DVI-I, Display Port, HDMI, VGA (Via adaptor)
HDCP: Supported
Crossfire Support: Native Hardware Crossfire
External Power: PCIe Graphic External 8+6 pin

Video Card Attributes

	Radeon HD 5850	Radeon HD 5870	Radeon HD 5970
Process	40nm Cypress	40nm Cypress XT	40nm Hemlock
Transistors	2.15B	2.15B	4.3B total
Engine Clock	725 MHz	850 MHz	725 MHz
Stream Processors	1440	1600	1600 per GPU
Compute Performance	2.09 TFLOPS	2.72 TFLOPs	4.64 TFLOPS total
Texture Units	72	80	160 total
Texture Fillrate	52.2 GTexels/s	68.0 GTexel/s	116.0 GTexel/s total
ROPs	32	32	64 total
Pixel Fillrate	23.2 Gpixel/s	27.2 GPixel/s	46.4 GPixel/s total
Z/Stencil	92.8 GSamples/s	108.8 GSamples/s	185.6 GSamples/s total
Memory Type	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5
Memory Clock	1000 MHz	1200 MHz	1000 MHz
Memory Data Rate	4.0 Gbps	4.8 Gbps	4.0 Gbps
Memory Bandwidth	128.0 GB/s	153.6 GB/s	256 GB/s toal
Maximum Board Power	170W	188W	294W
Idle Board Power	27W	27W	42W

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Comments

# the diffrence — Jeff 2010-03-24 07:12

In my opinion. the diffrence between ATI and NVidia when it comes to gameing, is that NVidia seems to have alot of technical problems and games seem to crash every so often. With ATI the video card drivers and software can be more user friendly. the cards are outstanding in the performance and there are no problems when it comes to games, movies, etc. The best part of ATI, is Eye Finity.... Hopefully they can come up with a card that can hold the 3 screens, but dont have to order a dual link to DVI adapter off the internet... which seems to be the biggest problem for most people....

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# Drivers Blow !!! — Mike 2010-03-26 17:01

ATI's drivers are horrendous!! I have had nothing but problems with them. Tons of in game glitches and outright crashes and they are never optimized when a new game is released. It takes forever for them to address individual game issues ( see Batman Arkham Asylum and AA ). They might release a driver a month but I think all they do is change the version number and kick it out the door. If you really want bad drivers just run any of their 2x gpu cards then it gets even worse...

Jeff sounds like ATI employee at the very least.

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# ... So Does Mike ;) — EetMe 2010-04-10 09:59

ATI is clearly the "hardware" king-o-graphics/GPU's right now. Mike sounds like a poor-loser nv-fanboy. tough eh ?

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# Fanboy at the LEAST — Rj 2010-04-13 07:17

Yes, fanboy at the least, or some dumbass that doens't know how to use a GPU lololol

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# RE: ATI Radeon HD 5970 Hemlock Video Card — Frostbite 2010-05-03 15:53

I still don't get why people complain about ATI's drivers. I keep up to date monthly and sometimes much longer periods before I do update, and I haven't had a single issue. Yeah, the games have crashed but hell, they did that to me back in 95. Learn how to keep your drivers in shape newbies, as I've yet to experience anything overly frustrating in this many years of ATI.

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# ATI and NVIDIA both have issues. — Olin Coles 2010-05-03 16:07

I've already pointed out problems with NVIDIA drivers here: benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=194
What I haven't pointed out is how NVIDIA drivers lack 60Hz support, and instead offers a lower 59Hz option. On the other hand, ATI delivers the full 60Hz experience, and Battlefield Bad Company 2 loads levels in only 10 seconds and not 62 like the latest Forceware driver. As I see it right now, ATI has an edge over NVIDIA drivers.

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# IT guy — Dave 2010-05-07 07:48

I'm unsure if Mike understands how to correctly install the drivers for his GPU. The only time I've ever had issues with my 5970 is when USER error was involved. Yes I am human too. haha. If you are switching from Nvidia or if you wish to have a clean install use a product like Driver Sweep. Download the newest drivers from ATI first. Run Driver Sweep and remove the ATI drivers. For an extra layer of assurance uninstall your video drivers/hardware in safe mode as well, re boot and install the new drivers!! Easy cheesy! :-)

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# Not 1 single problem — Recon 2010-08-06 10:19

I have buy this card. And i love nv (always buy Nividia). But i was afread bugged drivers because i have see so many bad reviews its like the trying to rip off ati, however a friend buy this card. And i was like OMFG this can not be happening, Well see that beast in action i can not belive wat that thing can do. So i buy this card. So far not even 1 single crash. Perhaps people need to chill down and buy this card. Realy the love it when the have this card. If ati stay that way i will follow.

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# RE: ATI Radeon HD 5970 Hemlock Video Card — mike 2010-08-22 21:12

Uh well my HIS HD4870 has major problems. Actually, I have two of them and they both exhibit the same problems. I can't even run MOH:AA without cat A.I. on at least low. Took me about 2 years to figure this out, so I went 2 years without playing one of all time favorite classic games. No one had an answer, including ATI. I also can't play the game with Vsync on, or my mouse becomes erratic. This does not happen on ANY other video card I've had, but does with both HD4870s. Add to this numerous other glitches and I've pulled all of my hair out over it the past couple of years. I don't know if this is a hardware issue with this particular model of card, or a driver issue, or both. I just hope, really hope that if I spend another 400 dollars on my next ATI card that I do not have these glaring issues.

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# Ati Vs Nvidia — Roy 2010-10-08 13:35

i always used to have an Nvidia card, but now it was time to change to an Ati card.
Ati has the best ones at this moment in my eyes.
i just bought an Sapphire Hd 5850 Toxic, it runs great, silence and it doesnt gets hot.

If you wanna buy an new graphics cards, then buy an ati, there the best now.
(ati is the cheapest and it wont use as much power as an nvidia as well atm)

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