ASUS EAH5850 DirectCU TOP/2DIS/1GD5 Graphics Card Review

ATI have gone from strength to strength with their DX11 line of graphics cards. Will the DirectCU continue this success?

Product on Review: ASUS EAH5850 DirectCU TOP/2DIS/1GD5
Manufacturer and Sponsor: ASUS
MSRP: Not listed
Street Price: £269.99

It’s no mystery that ATI have hit Nvidia hard with their latest generation of graphics card. Having released their entire line-up of DX11 cards before the competition could even enter the market is testament to a revolutionized work ethic that saw smaller, more efficient cores trump bigger and hotter GPUs. Below ATI’s flagship Hemlock based HD5970 are the Cypress based HD5870 and HD5850. The latter two cards were released back in October last year and since then, have been highly successful to this day. Of course, it’s been a rollercoaster ride with prices fluctuating wildly due to high demand and low supply, not helped by the economic crisis and the falling value of the Pound in the UK market. But finally, stabilized pricing has caused a resurgence in their popularity, only marred by growing competition from the Green Team (always a good thing for customers).

The HD5850 has always provided an excellent compromise between price and performance. Compared to its bigger brother, the HD5870, which shares the same core, all the main features are present with the main difference being 8 less texture units, 160 shader cores disabled and a slightly lower clock speed on the former. The question has always been if the £100/$100 price difference is worth the performance difference so the review today will focus on this.

ASUS are renowned for the extras that they bundle with their graphics card offering, namely their voltage tweak utility, which we previously saw in their HD5870 review. The tool is of added benefit to the HD5850 by not only giving ASUS an advantage over other manufacturers but also unlocking its full potential to compete with HD5870. Coupled with a custom DirectCU cooler and a mild overclock, ASUS aim to deliver superior performance without the inconvenience of heat and noise.

A bit about ASUS:

ASUS comes from the last four letters of Pegasus, the winged horse in Greek mythology that represents the inspiration of art and learning. ASUS embodies the strength, creative spirit and purity symbolized by this regal and agile mythical creature, soaring to new heights of quality and innovation with each product it introduces to the market.

ASUS pursues technological and aesthetic perfection through continuous innovation. We place ourselves in our customers’ shoes to develop a deep understanding of, and genuine empathy for, their needs—enabling us to create user experiences that transcend the norm.

ASUS Design Philosophy

ASUS Design develops high-quality solutions our customers will enjoy.
Our design process is built on thorough research, early anticipation and well-planned execution.

We act with a global vision and a focus on local strengths, conditions and heritage.

In this review, our main aim is to investigate if the HD5870 is worth the price premium over the HD5850 so without further ado, let’s take a closer look!

Specifications

The HD5850 is based on the Cypress RV870 core, packing an impressive 2.15 billion transistors on a 334mm2 die size thanks to the 40nm process it is based on. This is only two thirds of the 3.0 billion transistors the Nvidia GF100 Fermi core sports but as proven with the last generation of cards, bigger is not always better.

To differentiate the two GPUs using the Cypress cores, ATI have disabled a few stream processors and texture units. The full core, as found on the HD5870, features 1600 stream processors, 80 texture units, 32 ROPs and a clock speed of 850/4800MHz. The HD5850 on the other hand, has one cluster disabled thus featuring 1440 stream processors and 72 texture units, representing a 10% reduction. The number of ROPs has stayed intact but the clock speeds have been lowered to 725/4000MHz for increased yields. The table below summarizes the key specifications for the reference designed boards.

The resultant memory bandwidth, fill rate and shader operations are certainly very impressive. The HD5850 should be provide about 80% of the HD5870 based on those figures alone but the benefit is a 16% drop in maximum power draw and a lower price.

The ASUS card tries to alleviate some of the deficit with a mild 40 MHz overclock on the core and 500 MHz on the memory, a 5.5% and 12.5% increase respectively. Of course, this isn’t enough to threaten the HD5870 but we will see how it overclocks later on.

ASUS Specifications

Features

Here’s what ASUS have to say about their HD5850:

Only the most hardcore TOP 15% of graphics cards make it tough ASUS selection, the strictest in the industry. They’re chosen for extreme duty and have the gear to match – EAH5850 DirectCU TOP/2D1S/1GD5 are sorted under 800MHz and offer 110% of reference design speeds for enthusiast gamers looking to dominate

Features:

•1GB GDDR5 video memory
•ATI EyefinityTM Technology for 3-monitor output!
•HDCP compliant
•ATI CrossfireXTM Technology with multi-GPU support
•ATI PowerPlayTM Technology
•Variety Connectivity: Dual DVI * 2/D-Sub/HDMI/HDCP/DisplayPort Compliant
•More than 2 teraflops!
•ATI Stream Technology for parallel processing tasks
•Microsoft Direct X 11 & OpenGL 4.0 compliant
•PCI Express 2.1 support
•ASUS Exclusive innovations

ASUS Exclusive innovations
•ASUS Splendid: Watching video on PCs is now as good as on the best TVs
•ASUS GamerOSD: Real-time overclocking, benchmarking and video capturing in any PC game!
•ASUS SmartDoctor: Intelligent hardware protection and overclocking tool for your graphics card
•GPU Guard: Doubles structural reinforcement

ASUS Voltage Tweak
ASUS Exclusive Voltage Tweak Technology for up to 50% performance

ASUS DirectCU
Up to 20% COOLER during game play and up to 35% QUIETER under idle mode than generic HD5850.

Note: the screenshot was taken with crossfire enabled

Packaging and Content

The front of the box
The ASUS HD5850 comes in a neatly packaged box that clearly depicts its features in a well laid out fashion. The box uses a subtle black and blue colour theme with a mythological graphic art to reflect the roaring performance of the actual card. Marketed as the TOP edition, the card is advertised as having a 10% overclock. In reality, the core is overclocked by 5.5% with the memory overclocked by 12.5%. The 10% may refer to the fact that the card is guaranteed to work at 800 MHz on the core. It can also be noted that the card uses a custom fan design, dubbed as DirectCU. We will have a closer look later of the cooler later on.

Turning to the back…
The back of the box is crammed with information about its features and specifications, translated in several languages for global appeal. These are centred around an illustration of the graphics card and its main selling points.

Closer look at the features
Taking a closer look at the back, we can see the design of the ASUS HD5850 with its DirectCU custom cooler and the additional voltage tweak feature which allows for much higher overclocking potential. According to ASUS the TOP edition cards are highly binned cores that are guaranteed to work at 800MHz despite the GPU being clocked at only 765Mhz. The cooler dubbed DirectCU, thanks to direct copper heat pipe contact with the core, claims 20% cooler operation when gaming and 35% quieter operation at idle than reference designs.

The interior packaging
Upon opening the box, we are greeted with another sleeker looking one with the gold ASUS emblem right in the middle.

The various compartments
The interior box uses several compartments to neatly bundle the graphics card and all the extra accessories. The top compartment is a standalone flat box that holds the manual and installation discs. Below is a foam enclosure where the graphics card can be found wrapped in an anti-static bag. Finally on the side is a box containing the extra cables and connectors.

The bundle
The whole bundle contains:
– the utility and driver discs
– the setup manual
– 1 x Molex to 6 pin PCIe power connector
– 1 x DVI to D-Sub adaptor
– 1 x HDMI to DVI adapter
– 1 x Crossfire cable
– the HD5850 graphics card

Closer Look

The graphics card
The graphics card uses a very attractive black PCB and custom cooler design. The shroud of the cooler uses a tough plastic construction and the shape is reminiscent of a sports car with its aerodynamic shape. The shroud is more for aesthetic purposes than actual cooling performance but it does act to protect the fan. The card itself spans 26cm, around 2cm shorted than a reference HD5870 but 2cm longer than a reference HD5850. Thankfully, ASUS keeps their tradition of not using tacky stickers to deface the shroud and instead settle on a small ASUS badge.

The back of the card
On the back of the graphics card, the PCB is fully exposed. There aren’t any components to cool on the back so ASUS have opted out of using a backplate. We can also see the mounting mechanism for the heatsink above, which uses 4 spring loaded screws for security and optimal pressure on the GPU core.

The CrossFire connectors
On the side of the card are the two CrossFire connectors which along with the supplied CrossfireX adaptor can support up to 4 cards in a quad-fire setup.

The I/O plate
The I/O plate sports a plethora of connections including 1 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort and 1 x Dual-Link DVI connectors (going from left to right). Unlike reference cards and other custom designs, the ASUS only has one DVI connector. The reason is for additional vents on the I/O plate to exhaust more heat from the case. The three connectors are still enough for ATI Eyefinity technology support.

The power connectors
At the other end of the graphics card are the power connectors. The card makes use of 1 x 6 pin connector and 1 x 8 pin connector for additional power. The latter ensures that the card can overclock more stably, especially when additional voltage is taken into account. The placement of the connectors is one of the card’s downsides since it adds to the length once plugged in. So users have to make sure they have adequate amounts of space in their case before purchasing the card.

The sidebar support and dual heat pipe cooler
The reason for the placement of the power connectors becomes more apparent in this picture. The card sports a side bar support to keep the PCB rigid. This is an excellent feature, factoring in the card’s length and the cooler’s weight. Here, we can also have a closer look at the two thick copper heat pipes running from the GPU core to the heatsink.

Closer Look (Continued)

The RV870 Cypress core and memory configuration

Taking the cooler off, the RV870 core and a total of 8 memory modules are exposed. The core is small in comparison to the Nvidia GF100 core, with a 334mm2 die size oriented diagonally. The core is surrounded by eight 128MB memory modules to give a total of 1GB of GDDR5 memory.

The K4G10325FE-HC04 memory modules

The memory modules are manufactured by Samsung and these particular chips, with model number K4G10325FE-HC04, are rated at 0.40ns for an effective maximum speed of 5.0Gbps. These are superior to the modules used in the MSI GTX465 reviewed previously. Despite the rating, the memory is only clocked at 4500MHz. Unfortunately here, we see another downside, this being the lack of memory heat spreader to cool the memory modules. We will see later on if this omission limits overclocking.

The voltage regulators and PWM phases

The card uses a small heatsink to cool the VRMs and on either side, the PWM phases can be seen. The power circuitry is excellent, and the solid state chokes and capacitors should deliver smoother power delivery when overclocking than reference designs. The heatsink is mounted using push pins as opposed to screws.

The DirectCU heatsink

The heatsink is composed of 32 densely packed fins, two copper heat pipes and a PWM fan. The two heat pipes have been milled at the base for direct contact to the core. This innovation can be seen in numerous CPU coolers nowadays under the H.D.T moniker, ensuring more efficient heat transfer to the heatsink. The aluminium base plate has four stand offs for the screws to install into from the back of the PCB. One complaint I have is that the fan cable isn’t braided as that would have given the card a neater finish.

An all ASUS PC…

And finally, a photo of the HD5850 installed…

Test Setup

CPU – Intel Core i7 920
RAM – 6GB (3x2GB) OCZ platinum DDR3 1333mhz
Motherboard – ASUS Rampage III Extreme
Power Supply – Enermax Revolution 85+ 850W
Hard Drive – Samsung F1 320GB
Western Digital Caviar WD3200AAKS 320GB
Cooler – Noctua NH-D14

Graphics Cards:
MSI N465GTX Twin Frozr II 1024MB (602/3206MHz & 815/3600MHz) – ForceWare 257.21
ASUS EAH5850 TOP 1024MB (765/4500MHz, 850/4800MHz & 950/4800MHz) – ATI Catalyst 10.5
XFX HD5870 1024MB (850/4800MHz) – ATI Catalyst 10.5

Benchmark Suite
MSI Afterburner & Kombustor
FRAPS
Crysis Warhead using the FRAMEBUFFER Crysis benchmark tool
Far Cry 2
Resident Evil 5
Street Fighter IV
Unreal Tournament 3 using the HOC Bench tool
Enemy Territories Quake Wars using the HOC Bench tool
Colin McRae DIRT 2
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Battlefield Bad Company 2
GTA IV
Colin McRae DIRT 2
3DMark 06
3DMark Vantage
Unigine V2.1 DX 11 Benchmark

Software Bundle

The driver CD includes the user manual, drivers and ASUS utilities, presenting them in an attractive bubbly user interface. I would recommend using the latest drivers from AMD’s website.

The ASUS SmartDoctor tool is an overclocking utility that has the unique capability of allowing users to increase the GPU core voltage. The user interface isn’t as sophisticated as MSI’s Afterburner application but keeping it simple is not always a disadvantage. At the bottom are three slider bars where users can select the VCore and clock speeds. The maximum limit for the voltage is 1.35V while the clock speed is limited to 1200/5600MHz, plenty of headroom for any enthusiasts. On the main screen, the application displays the temperature or selecting the fan tab will show you the fan speed. Going into the settings, it’s possible to create a fan profile based on temperatures.

Here, we can see how easy it is to overclock. Simply use the sliders to set the desired clocks and it’s good to go. Of course, this doesn’t imply that all clock speeds will work and users will still have to go through the usual steps of testing for stability. Voltage wise, ASUS have set a safe maximum limit of 1.35V which translates to 1.343V when applied. This voltage will have an impact on temperatures so make sure to watch them when overclocking.

The GamerOSD utility is akin to the popular FRAPS application allowing users to record gameplay movies and take screenshots. It also handily displays the user’s IP at the top.

Overclocking and Temperatures

Overclocking

Overclocking is a breeze with the DirectCU HD5850. To do so, I relied on ASUS SmartDoctor and the MSI Afterburner 1.6 application. ATI Overdrive can also be used but the former two have a wider range of options that simplifies the process whilst allowing users to monitor other parameters. As mentioned before, the DirectCU TOP card already comes pre-overclocked at

765/4500MHz

from the reference

725/4000MHz

clock speeds. On stock voltage (1.0688V idle/ 1.118V load), the card can easily reach

850/4800MHz

i.e. reference HD5870 clock speeds.

The major selling point of the card is its Voltage Tweak capability so using the SmartDoctor tool, I increased the core voltage to the maximum recommended 1.35V. With that set, the overclocking headroom was further increased and a final result of

950/4800MHz

was achieved. This represents a 30% increase over reference core speed and 26% boost over the DirectCU TOP’s stock speeds. Memory overclocking was a bit disappointing, not being able to exceed 4800MHz. It is still a remarkable increase over reference clocks but not enough to exceed the HD5870. The main issue here was the lack of memory heat spreader which could have alleviated the problem. Remember that the mileage may vary from card to card so the results attained here are only an indication of what to expect.

To test stability, a combination of MSI Kombustor and games were used to make sure the graphics card didn’t crash or overheat.

Clock for clock, the HD5850 only loses out to the HD5870 on texture fill rate and shader operations and even then, it’s by a mere 10% to reflect on the 160 less shaders. For a card that is priced much lower than the equivalent HD5870, it’s not a big loss at all.

Temperature

The card ran quite cool under full load until more voltage was applied to attain the final overclock. At stock speed, the fan idled at a quiet 32% speed and the idle delta temperature was a mere 26C. Whilst not as impressive as the Twin Frozr II cooler on the MSI GTX465, it was still acceptable. Under load using MSI Kombustor, the delta temperature rose to 44C, at which point the fan operated at 50%. At that speed, the fan wasn’t intrusively loud so kudos to ASUS for creating a quiet and efficient cooler.

Overclocking to HD5870 levels had very little impact on temperatures, a welcoming feature of the ASUS HD5850. To keep the temperatures at such levels, the fan did have to ramp up to 33% at idle and 54% under load but again, the slight increase in noise level is a small price to pay for improved performance.

At 950/4800MHz with the core voltage at 1.35V, the temperature increases dramatically to a delta value of 61C under load. To sustain the temperature, the cooler’s fan had to operate at a deafening 88% which was audible even when gaming (without headsets). Idle temperatures also saw a slight rise and the fan worked at 35%.

On the while, the DirectCU cooler did a tremendous job keeping the graphics card cool and quiet but it had trouble with higher voltages. I would have preferred to see use of more heat pipes over the direct core contact technology.

Crysis Warhead

Following the success of Crysis, the stand alone expansion “Warhead” was hotly anticipated to bring more game play, more weapons, improved visuals whilst maintaining better performance, the latter being what gamers wanted most. After all how many people upgraded their rigs just to play this game… In the game, you play as the upbeat Brit Sergeant “Psycho” Sykes, chasing down a Korean nuclear warhead. Throw in some ice shooting aliens and we’re bound to have a great game. It sure delivered.

The ASUS HD5850 performs very admirable in Crysis Warhead. At stock speed, it outperforms Nvidia’s GTX465 and more impressively, manages to stay close to HD5870 levels. The difference is at most 12.5%. Clock for clock, the performance difference narrows to around 1FPS which is a mere 3% difference! This is excellent considering the 10% shader deficit. Overclocking further, the results are even more outstanding, with the HD5850 outperforming the stock HD5870. Of course, the latter can also be overclocked but the notable observation is just how close the two cards are at the same clocks.

Far Cry 2

One of the most hyped games of 2008, Far Cry 2 had some big shoes to fill. It was built to be the next best thing since well… Far Cry I suppose. Combining an open-world game play with highly detailed graphics, physics and AI, what more could we possibly want? The game puts us in the body of a malaria inflicted mercenary hunting down the “Jackal” in the heart of Africa, in a bid to stop an ongoing conflict between two rival factions. The storyline can be hard to follow sometimes but I’m no game reviewer, so let’s concentrate on the graphics and performance. After all, we all need to know if our hardware will be able to handle the scorching savannah burning at the hands of our flamethrowers.

We have seen previously that the Nvidia card dominated the Far Cry 2 results, especially when overclocked so we will focus on the HD5850 VS HD5870 results. The trend continues from what we saw with Crysis Warhead. The performance is only 6-9% lower at stock speed and clock for clock, the gap narrows to around 3% both in average and minimum FPS. Fully overclocked, the HD5850 manages to pull ahead by up to 4.6%.

Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5 is the sequel to the Resident Evil series, exploring the life of main protagonist, Chris Redfield. You play as either Chris Redfield or Sheva Alomar in an African desert area in Kijuju. In true Resident Evil fashion, your main objective is to investigate a terrorist bio-organic weapon threat whilst killing infected “Majinis” on your way.

On Resident Evil 5, the ATI card once again trumps the Nvidia offering. Compared to the HD5870, the HD5850 lags behind by around 7-9% at stock clocks. At the same clocks as each other, the difference is less than 1%, suggesting that the game isn’t benefitting from the extra shader processors as effectively as other games. Unsurprisingly, the fully overclocked HD5850 outperforms its bigger brother at stock clocks by around 5%.

Street Fighter IV

Street Fighter is back in its 4th iteration and its bigger and better than ever. Combining fluid, fast based sparring with stunning artistic visuals, the game delivers tremendous game play. Be reacquainted with some of the most popular characters in video game history while you battle your way to the top, be it with Ryu or the mighty Bison. The game might be frustratingly hard in some cases but there’s nothing like the satisfaction of K.O’ing your opponent with a well stringed death bringing combo.

Street Fighter IV sees the GTX465 performing much better than the ATI cards at 1680×1050 but at the higher resolution, it has to be overclocked to gain an advantage. The HD5850 performs very well and is only 10% short of the HD5870’s FPS. At 850Mhz, this is a mere 2% deficit below the HD5870. Once again, the HD5850 manages to pull ahead at 950MHz where it gains an advantage in texture/pixel fill rate and shader operations.

Unreal Tournament 3 & Batman Arkham Asylum

Unreal Tournament

Built around the unreal 3 engine, Unreal Tournament is all about mindless fast paced shooting, decapitation with a plethora of game modes to so in. Not much else can be said really except that it promises hours of enjoyment on multiplier whether it be against bots, your friends at a LAN or online. It was one of the more popular games out there to adopt PhysX in the form of partially destructible maps, tornadoes and hail.

Unreal Tournament 3 is another game where the MSI GTX465 performs similarly to the ASUS HD5850, both at stock speed and when overclocked. Between the HD5850 and the HD5870, the difference with both at stock speed is 6% at 1680×1050 and 10% at 1920×1200. The widening gap is no doubt due to more shader intensive gameplay at the higher setting. At the same clock speed, the performance gaps is around 4%. Overclocking the HD5850 to 950MHz on the core gives it a slight advantage over the stock HD5870 by 1-2FPS.

Batman Arkham Asylum

The Dark Knight takes on his greatest challenge yet when he becomes trapped with all of his most dangerous villains inside the insane asylum of Gotham City – Arkham Asylum. The game exposes you to a unique, dark and atmospheric adventure that takes you to the depths of Arkham Asylum, Gotham’s psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane.

In Batman Arkham Asylum, the HD5850 clearly leads the GTX465 by a margin, although overclocking the latter goes a long way at reducing the gap. The HD5850 is overall, 10% slower than the HD5870 and overclocking it to 850MHz reduces this gap to 4-7% based on the resolution. In this instance, the 950MHz HD5850 performs worse due to a massive drop in the minimum FPS. The cause is unknown but repeated tests showed the same results.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

Earth is struck once again by Extra-Terrestrials, this time in the form of the Strogg. In the game you play as either the humans, defending the their beloved planets, or the Stroggs, attempting to invade with their arsenal of futuristic weapons. The games has vast open battlefields with an enormous array of vehicles and weapons at your disposable promising fast paced strategic battles.

ATI holds a lead over Nvidia’s offering here, which even when overclocked is unable to match the ASUS HD5850. The difference between the two ATI cards on the other hand, amounts to 10%. This drops to a mere 3% with both cards clocked at the same speeds, the HD5850 losing out as expected. The situation changes when the HD5850 is overclocked another 100MHz.

Colin McRae DIRT 2

DIRT is back and it’s bigger than ever. With an onslaught of famous X-Games competitors such as Ken Block and Dave Mirra, extreme is being brought back to rally. The game not only delivers outstanding gameplay in lush environments but also stunning visuals in the form of Direct X 11 implementation. If you want some fast paced, arcade style racing, then look no further than Colin McRae DIRT 2.

As we saw with Unreal Tournament 3, the GTX465 gives another good showing, especially when overclocked. Overall, ATI still reigns superior. Between the stock HD5850 and HD5870, the performance difference is around 7%, not surprisingly favouring the latter. At the same clocks, this reduces to less than 2.8% difference, still in favour of the HD5870 with its higher number of shader processors. The standings change when the HD5850 is overclocked further, gaining a few FPS lead over the stock HD5870.

Battlefield Bad Company 2

Battlefield Bad Company 2 is the new rendition of the widely successful Battlefield series of game. Having more in common with the console release of Bad Company, the sequel hopes to inject the DNA of the timeless Battlefield 2 online experience with the witty action packed single player shooting adventure of the original. As Private Preston Marlowe, your goal as a member of Bad Company is to once again save the world by securing a scalar weapon device.

The GTX465 is unable to match the similarly priced HD5850 in Battlefield. The performance difference ranges from 35-40% and even when overclocked, the narrowed margin isn’t enough to convince buyers to opt for the Nvidia card. Comparing the two ATI cards, we see the HD5850 falling short of the HD5870 by up to 12% and by 1-5% with both running at the same speed. Once again, the HD5850 scrapes a lead when running at 950/4800MHz.

Grand Theft Auto 4

GTA IV follows a whole series of highly successful predecessors and this one is no exception. You play as Nico Bellic, fresh off the boat from Russia, seeking to live the American dream. But Liberty has far more sinister plans for you as you delve quickly into the criminal underworld to make a living and survive. Hours of game play later, it still retains its flare to guarantee that you go back to it at every opportunity.

All three cards performed equally in this benchmark. The only exception is that the fully overclocked HD5850 results had to be omitted due to stuttering during the runs.

3DMark 06 & Vantage

3DMark06

Futuremark has been the testing ground for enthusiasts ever since their first release in 1999! While 2006 is long gone, it’s still very popular amongst benchers.

The results show how CPU limited 3DMark 2006 has become with the latest graphics card offerings. Even with an overclocked i7, all three graphics card share similar results and overclocking them does very little to improve the scores except with the GTX465. Unfortunately here, the HD5850 is unable to beat its bigger brother under all three settings.

3DMark Vantage

This latest benchmark suite from Futuremark introduces DX 10 & PhysX support. Despite being on the verge of DX 11 games arriving, Vantage is still the chosen benchmark amongst enthusiasts these days.

3DMark Vantage does a much better job at differentiating the three cards. Under the performance preset, the HD5850 is ahead of the GTX465 but falls 11% short of the HD5870 both at stock speed. The trend continues under the extreme preset but this time the difference is 14%. Clock for clock, the performance disadvantage of the HD5850 is only 4-6% while the fully overclocked HD5850 manages to outperform the stock HD5870.

Unigine V2.1 DX 11 Benchmark

Unigine’s benchmark is to showcase the benefits of DX 11 and the use of tessellation as opposed to normal rendering techniques. The demo has impressive visuals that gives an insight into what we can expect from gaming in the future.

Under DX11, the Nvidia GTX465 leads the packs with excellent performance when tessellation is applied. The ATI cards are disappointing in that respect but comparing the two, we see an 11% drop going from the HD5870 to the HD5850. The difference is only 2% at the same clocks and overclocking the HD5850 even more allows it to beat the HD5870. The minimum FPS on both ATI cards are lowly 6.5/6.6FPS. Unfortunately I forgot to record the minimum FPS on the Nvidia cards, hence the missing results.

The story couldn’t be more of a contrast when the benchmark is set to DX10. Lacking tessellation, the settings favour the ATI cards. The HD5870 leads the stock HD5850 by 15% but this drops to 4.4% when the HD5850 is set to the same clocks. Again though, the HD5850 exceeds the HD5870 when fully overclocked.

Tessellation

DX 10

DX 11 Tessellation off

DX 11 Tessellation off – wireframe mode

DX 11 Tessellation on

DX 11 Tessellation on – wireframe mode
Let’s focus on a few characteristics of tessellation in the first image. Firstly, when we compare the wireframe mode, it is clear that tessellation, triangular in this case, is adding a lot more features and details, which may at first not be recognisable. The surfaces are divided in many more triangles, allowing the objects to replicate more complex structures. The ground for example is one of the features that benefits from it. To make it as efficient as possible, tessellation becomes a function of distance, generating more polygons closer to the viewer.

Now let’s look at the application of this. If we gaze at the rock pillar closest to us, we can immediately notice that with tessellation, they are not just mere square blocks but instead have irregular surfaces, more representative of a natural rock. Now, let’s move on to the stairs, which again is a notable improvement on past rendering methods. Rather than being flat, they have depth, giving the impression of real steps as opposed to a slide. The same applies to the cobbled road although the compressed/downsized pictures make it hard to judge. The last thing I’ll point out are the tiled roofs. With tessellation, the individual tiles form a more complex/realistic shape instead of appearing flat with repeated textures. You’ll have to take my word for it if you don’t notice them or try the demo for yourself!

Power Consumption

The power consumption graph truly demonstrates the efficiency of the Cypress core. At 765 and 850Mhz on the core, the power consumption is significantly less than Nvidia’s mid-range GTX465. It’s very welcoming to see that the initial overclock comes at little cost in terms of power drawn. More surprisingly is that clock for clock, the HD5850 consumes 60W less power than the HD5870. A 15% drop in power for only a mere 5% or less drop in performance highlights the efficiency of ASUS’s superior card design. Overvolting the HD5850 increases power consumption significantly but considering how close it is to the stock HD5870 results and the slight performance advantage, it shines the ASUS card in a positive light.

Despite the use of an 8 pin connector rather than the second 6 pin PCIe power connector, the ASUS card remained very efficient.

Conclusion

The ASUS EAH5850 DirectCU TOP is an excellent graphics card. Some could say that the HD5850 is a crippled version of the high end HD5870 and that the former should not be considered in the same league. But our results today show that the difference between the ASUS HD5850 and the stock HD5870 was mostly 10% or less, although reaching up to 12% in some instances. Of course, we have to remember that this particular card is the TOP edition and as such comes pre-overclocked at 765/4500MHz as opposed to 725/4000MHz but there\’s no doubting that other reference designs can easily reach the same clocks. As a separate SKU, it makes perfect sense, retaining most of the features of the full Cypress core but at $100/£100 cheaper.

Most potential buyers or enthusiasts would be interested in how the 160 stream processors and 8 texture unit deficit impacts the performance so in the review, I looked at clock for clock comparison. The result is a mere 3% difference on average, not much considering the 10% decrease in shader operations and texture fill rate. Based on that, the ATI HD5850 is a bargain. More importantly, the ASUS card can achieve these clocks without any tweaking on the core, showcasing its excellent power circuitry and overclocking headroom. On that note, we can also conclude that ASUS\’s offering is very attractive compared to other manufacturers. Coupled with an excellent cooler and voltage tweak ability, it can be overclocked to an impressive 950/4800MHz clock speed, at which point it edges in front of the HD5870. The ASUS card is also very power efficient but is this the icing on the cake?

It would have been, had the cake not been marred by its shortcomings. Looking at the street pricing, I found the cheapest DirectCU TOP card at £242.21 and £269.99 at more reputable sites. This wouldn\’t have been too bad, were it not for the declining prices of the reference HD5870 which can be bought for around £274.99 at its cheapest. For a small extra, buyers can have the full 1600 shader processors and 80 texture units. For a card that was meant to be challenging its bigger brother for a fraction of the price, the DirectCU TOP card fails to deliver on the last aspect. My personal recommendation would be too opt for the non-TOP card that features all the same characteristics but without the pre-overclock and a more acceptable price tag of £220.

Pros
+ Very cool and quiet operation
+ Stable and high overclocking headroom
+ Excellent performance
+ Aesthetically pleasing
+ Voltage tweak capability
+ Low power consumption
+ Eyefinity support

Cons
– Price
– Lack of memory heat spreader

ASUS have done a tremendous job with their EAH5850 DirectCU TOP and earn themselves the Vortez Hardware Gold Award.