ATI Radeon HD 5970 specifications and pricing confirmed

Robert Hallock 17 Nov, 2009 at 3:37am ET Article published in Tech

UPDATE: AMD has officially launched the Radeon HD 5970; please visit our official coverage for more information.

Last Thursday Austrian comparison shopper Geizhals offered a glimpse at the price and performance structure of AMD’s impending dual-GPU Hemlock board, now known as the Radeon HD 5970. Today, the Czech gaming site CzechGamer has released several slides from an AMD presentation on the 5970.

The 5970 is not quite twice the hardware of a 5870 as the memory clock has been dropped from 1200MHz to 1000MHz, while the core clock has been reduced from 850MHz to 725MHz. Raw numbers alone dictate that the card should fall a hair shy of CrossFired Radeon HD 5870s. These changes were made specifically to keep the Radeon HD 5970’s TDP under 300W at load, with the retail model squeaking under the wire at 294W.

On the other hand, a $600 MSRP puts the 5970 well under the $800 that’s needed to put a pair of 5870s CrossFireX. In terms of price/performance, the new 5970 is the very decisive winner.

Rounding out the feature set, the 5970 has dual DVI ports, HDMI, an mDP port, an 8-channel audio codec, and “unlocked” clocks. AMD promises that the OverDrive limitations in the Catalyst drivers don’t apply to the 5970, and that the 5970 is minted with best-of-breed parts that are ready and waiting for your overclocking talents.

For a complete look at the slide deck, head on over to CzechGamer.

Comments

17 Nov 2009 ~ 3:55am Sledgehammer70 Hmm very interesting... I just wondering if AMD/ATI is showing its full hand? Nvidia has some catching up to do, but from what I hear their new part will do the job and than some.

My other question is... is DX11 to early?
17 Nov 2009 ~ 3:58am lordbean Considering the clock speeds the 5870 is capable of, the factory clock speeds on that card are most likely very conservative. That thing should overclock at least as well as an HD5850 does, if not better.
17 Nov 2009 ~ 4:34am TerminatorUK Awesome, just the news I was looking for and tipped the balance for me!

The massive overclocking headroom was a critical factor to me and is brilliant to hear that there will be no restrictive catalyst cap applied.

Had forsaken watercooling in favour of high-end aircooling but this might now just change

Had been an NVIDIA man for some time (8800 GTX in SLI was awesome!) but not having any graphics cards, this news and the news that the Fermi architecture is delayed to Q1 2010 gets upgrade saving this time around!

Well done AMD!
17 Nov 2009 ~ 8:52am Cliff_Forster $600 puts it out of my league to be honest, but I am still excited for it just the same. Damn you slow economy and my crippled bonus!!
17 Nov 2009 ~ 8:52am mas0n /me drools.
17 Nov 2009 ~ 12:11pm UPSLynx I'm curious about the heat output of this card. They've reduced the TDP, so there is probably less wasted energy, and therefore less heat.

Then again, the HD 5770 runs rather cool, and I understand the 5870 does as well. I'm sure this card isn't far from those marks if at all.
17 Nov 2009 ~ 3:52pm Ace_Jambo @Is DX11 too erly

Haha. DX11 is so late.... DX11 is what 10 should of been. DX10.1 has features that 11 holds such as tessaltion..... Let ATI/AMD do the gaming thang.. nvidia failed in my books when they did DX10
17 Nov 2009 ~ 7:25pm Tim Nice video card, but.... they downclocked it JUST to keep the TDP under 300 watts? God forbid this high end gaming card doesn't get to put the little "GREEN" energy conservation symbol on the box! Who's fooling who here? Any knowledgeable enthusiast will crank it up on the OC, and won't care about an extra few watts of power usage. Anyone crazy enough to pay $600 for a video crad will want wretched excess. As much performance as possible, at any cost of money or power or heat (up to a certain point on the heat).

If keeping the power usage under a certain amount is of concern to a user, they'd be better off buying a 4350 or something like that.
17 Nov 2009 ~ 7:26pm Tim CARD, not crad. typo.
17 Nov 2009 ~ 10:07pm GooD

Tim wrote: »

If keeping the power usage under a certain amount is of concern to a user, they'd be better off buying a 4350 or something like that.

I think the same way, lets wait and see how power usage will look when fully overclock tho. Its not at break point and wont makes me think about another option but i like to know everything about what i buy (and about the way im going to use it, in this case, fully OC on air) :P

This card is everything i want, i dont like Crossfire / SLI option, i want ONE card, but a good one. This card is in the right spot for me Can't wait for more info about it !
2 Mar 2010 ~ 5:05am hanzala abbasi i love ati it is on the top of the world nvidia is no way near ati ati is the best it has given 5.0 shader which is amazing and there is no game in the world which would not run on this card wih full graphics i can assure
you
2 Mar 2010 ~ 12:44pm Sledgehammer70 But also no game in the world that needs this card.
2 Mar 2010 ~ 1:10pm Cliff_Forster

Sledgehammer70 wrote:

But also no game in the world that needs this card.

If your running in eyfinity you might be able to justify it, for a single monitor, unless your really obsessive compulsive about your framerate in Crysis, not really.
2 Mar 2010 ~ 8:33pm ardichoke I dunno... Shattered Horizon is pretty harsh on the GPU is it not?