I've been testing/benchmarking my ATI RADEON 5850 during the last month and I wanted to inform you about the results, since this card will draw a lot of consumers and I thought that some more benchmarks of what we've already seen, would put things in better perspective! Is it good? Is it bad? You decide!
This time, to make things more interesting, I used 54 benchmarks of my GTX 260 core 216, to compare against the ATI 5850. I used Forceware 190.62 for the Nvidia card and Catalyst 9.10 for the ATI card. Yeah they are both a bit old, September and October respectively, but the good thing (or is it a bad thing?) is that none of the companies have brought any significant speed increases with their newer driver sets anyway.
Heck, if anyone is at a disadvantage here, that's the ATI 5850, which uses what essentially is, a launch driver, while the GTX 260+ uses a 14month mature driver. I really don't have the time, nor the resources to do these benchmarks any faster, so they span along a couple of months period of time and I have to finish the benchmarks with the driver I started.
So what I did, is basically overclock the sweet Jesus out of both of these cards and do a series of benchmarks on my Q9550@4.0Ghz. The ATI card was clocked at 950Mhz-1Ghz for the core (most tests are at 1Ghz) and 1250Mhz video ram, from its stock 725/1000 frequency. The Nvidia card was clocked at 670-710Mhz core, 1440-1480Mhz shaders, and 1200Mhz video ram, from the default GTX260+ clocks of 576/1242/1000.
I will stress the importance of the GTX 260+ clocks, since its effective performance at these clocks, is between GTX 275 and GTX 285, depending on the benchmark of course, but obviously closer to the GTX 275.
The system used was a Q9550@4.0Ghz, Asus P5Q Deluxe, 4GB DDR2-1000 Ram, Windows 7 x64. All benches were performed at 1920X1080 resolution with highest settings, unless otherwise specified. 3Dmark06 and Vantage were run at their default resolution obviously. 4XAA is my antialiasing setting of choise so, except Guerrilla, everything was with 4XAA or noAA at all, if the game engine didn't support it.In any case you can watch the respective video if you need to know anything more.
What video you say? Well apart from doing 54 benchmarks, I also video recorded them in HD and uploaded the results on Youtube, so you can have a better perspective of how both these cards perform.
The benchmark results will be presented threefold, meaning, there is one plain text table, of which the framerates/results are actual links to their respective video, there is an excel spreadsheet with which I calculated the percentage differences of the cards (sorted from the biggest performance difference to the smallest) and there are also a few good ol' bar charts.
Oh I almost forgot. I have separated the results in two sets. The good scaling ones and the bad scaling ones! "Bad" benchmarks are the ones in which the 5850 scored lower than a 25% speed increase over the GTX 260+ (except one bench of Far Cry 2 which I didn't want to separate from its brother
). At the second part of the excel spreadsheet, in which are the "bad" benchmarks, I have done a global average anyway, but each part has its own average, so it will be clear what is the true potential of the chip.Also please note, that the first part of the benchmarks, also includes a comparison of the stock clocked 5850, so we can see what we gain performance wise. The stock clocked benchmarks do not come with a video link. The table with the video links, includes only the OCed results. There are a couple of stock clocked results, left on the second part of the excel spreadsheet, just for good measure. I didn't think it would do any good to test all of them, since these were obviously problematic.
Enough talk. Enjoy the benchmarks.
First is the text table. Don't forget to click on the framerate result if you want to watch the respective video.
For all the following benchmarks, a Q9550@4.0Ghz has been used.
The resolution is 1920X1080 except the 3dmark benchmarks. Max available AF
has been used in all cases. Framerate results that don't have a hyperlink, are included in the above link (ie 3Dmark06, Devil May Cry).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Game - Benchmark ......................|.Quality.|.....GFX CARD........|
|#######################################|#########|GTX 260 OC|.5850.OC..|
|#######################################|#########|#####################|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|FUEL.DX9.............................. |...4XAA..|...72,339.|..63,407..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|FEAR.2.DX9.............................|...4XAA..|...93,540.|.144,463..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|LEFT.4.DEAD.DX9........................|...4XAA..|..109,647.|.132,896..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|CALL.OF.JUAREZ.DX10.BENCH..............|...4XAA..|...35,400.|..66,300..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|PRINCE.OF.PERSIA.DX9...................|...4XAA..|...88,730.|.116,509..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|TOM.CLANCY'S.HAWX.DX10.................|...4XAA..|...57,000.|..73,000..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|FALLOUT.3.OUTDOORS.DX9.................|...4XAA..|...65,733.|..66,596..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|FALLOUT.3.INDOORS......................|...4XAA..|...76,551.|..83,631..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|GOTHIC.3...............................|...NOAA..|...61,184.|..65,282..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|SUPREME.COMMANDER.FORGED.ALLIANCE......|...4XAA..|...41,475.|..69,175..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|BATMAN.ARKHAM.ASYLUM.NOPHYSX...........|...NOAA..|..136,000.|.170,000..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|PROTOTYPE..............................|...4XAA..|...68,622.|..78,029..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|RACE.DRIVER.GRID.......................|...4XAA..|...85,757.|.108,988..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|COMPANY.OF.HEROES.DX10.BENCH...........|...4XAA..|...83,500.|.124,800..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MASS.EFFECT............................|...NOAA..|...86,943.|.106,684..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|CRYSIS.WARHEAD.AMBUSH.ENTHUSIAST.DX10..|...NOAA..|...25,380.|..38,040..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|CALL.OF.DUTY.IV........................|...4XAA..|..143,370.|.164,093..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|RES.EVIL.5.DX10.BENCH..................|...4XAA..|...94,800.|.102,400..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|STREET.FIGHTER.IV......................|...4XAA..|..105,530.|.117,700..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|FAR.CRY.2.DX10.DEMO.PLAYBACK...........|...4XAA..|...49,220.|..65,500..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|FAR.CRY.2.DX10.LONG.RANCH..............|...4XAA..|...58,770.|..72,820..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|CALL.OF.DUTY.V.WORLD.AT.WAR............|...4XAA..|...76,577.|..98,541..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|CRYSIS.WARHEAD.AVALANCHE.DX10.GAMER....|...NOAA..|...44,940.|..58,650..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|TIMESHIFT..............................|...NOAA..|..120,427.|.169,227..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|CALL.OF.JUAREZ.BOUND.IN.BLOOD..........|...NOAA..|...80,255.|.122,738..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|SERIOUS.SAM.2..........................|..MED.AA.|...78,959.|..94,932..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|CRYSIS.DX10.VERY.HIGH..................|...NOAA..|...23,645.|..38,160..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|CRYSIS.DX10.HIGH.......................|...NOAA..|...42,940.|..61,160..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|HALF.LIFE.2.LOST.COAST.................|...4XAA..|..147,868.|.167,890..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|CLIVE.BARKER'S.JERICHO.................|...4XAA..|...65,700.|..67,276..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|RED.FACTION.GUERRILLA.DX10.VERY.HIGH...|...NOAA..|...25,990.|..40,975..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|ANNO.1404..............................|...4XAA..|...53,257.|..61,284..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|OBLIVION...............................|...NOAA..|...75,625.|..81,515..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|TRINE..................................|...4XAA..|...50,560.|..66,603..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|STALKER.CLEAR.SKY.DX.10.SUNRAYS.ON.....|...4XAA..|...18,008.|..40,530..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|UNREAL.TOURNAMENT.III..................|...NOAA..|..140,000.|.149,000..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|TOMB.RAIDER.UNDERWORLD.................|...4XAA..|..103,219.|.158,093..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MIRROR'S.EDGE..........................|...4XAA..|...87,907.|.115,871..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|ENEMY.TERRITORY.QUAKE.WARS.............|...4XAA..|..127,000.|.134,000..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|3DMARK.VANTAGE.PREFORMANCE.GPU.SCORE...|...NOAA..|...11020..|..15230...|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|3DMARK.2006.DEFAULT.SM.20.SCORE........|...NOAA..|...7761...|..8305....|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|3DMARK.2006.DEFAULT.SM.30.SCORE........|...NOAA..|...8335...|..10535...|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|WORLD.IN.CONFLICT......................|...NOAA..|...50,000.|..60,000..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|TRACKMANIA.FOREVER.UNITED..............|...4XAA..|..109,000.|..82,600..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|HALF.LIFE.2.EPISODE.2..................|...4XAA..|..172,013.|.188,921..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|DEVIL.MAY.CRY.IV.DX10.SCENE.1..........|...4XAA..|..143,670.|.144,890..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|DEVIL.MAY.CRY.IV.DX10.SCENE.2..........|...4XAA..|...98,550.|.114,210..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|DEVIL.MAY.CRY.IV.DX10.SCENE.3..........|...4XAA..|..169,270.|.173,060..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|DEVIL.MAY.CRY.IV.DX10.SCENE.4..........|...4XAA..|...97,830.|.107,470..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|BIOSHOCK.DX10..........................|...NOAA..|..133,436.|.153,302..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|BIONIC.COMMANDO........................|...NOAA..|..103,919.|.116,546..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|UNIGINE.TROPICS.DX10...................|...4XAA..|...29,000.|..60,900..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|PT.BOATS.DX10..........................|...4XAA..|...47,400.|..55,000..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|ASSASSIN'S.CREED.DX10..................|...NOAA..|...68,608.|..68,734..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|ARMA.II.HIGH.PRESET....................|..NORMAL.|...46,000.|..58,000..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|CALL.OF.DUTY.2.........................|...4XAA..|...97,538.|.111,958..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|COLIN.MC.RAE.DIRT......................|...4XAA..|...59.790.|..61,491..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|CELLFACTOR.REVOLUTION..................|...NOAA..|...46.353.|..47,533..|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
Ok now let's proceed to the first part of the excel/graph benchmarks. Those that gave the best results for the 5850.
So far so good. We see some great performance gains here. Also please notice the difference between the stock 5850 vs the GTX 260 OC, as well as the performance we can gain thanks to the overclocking of the 5850.
But what about those benchmarks that do not show very good performance?
As we can see on the second part of the benchmarks, the performance is not that good. There is only a 9.05% performance gain and that is an average of more than half the tests that were done. So what's going on?
Well, there are a couple of explanations that I have thought, but I haven't concluded yet. First of all, the primary suspect is as always the driver. Then we could be looking at severe CPU limits here, but come on, severe CPU limits on a 4.0Ghz Yorkfield? Seems a tad unlikely, at least in the majority of the cases. Last but not least, we could be seeing some game engine limitations here, but I cannot be sure of that, since I am not a developer. I know for sure though, that there is no gpu throttling, due to overheat. I have seen awesome performance with higher temps on some of these benchmarks.
If I had to choose from all the above, I would pick the imature driver option. In some of these benchmarks, I have recorded at the end, the gpu usage while the game was running and you will be surprised to see severe underusage (is there even such a word?) in games like Fuel, Gothic 3, Oblivion and a few others, while the temperature was pretty OK. On the other hand, Timeshift for example, stressed the gpu far more than pretty much anything else, thus reaching quite a high temperature and still performed great. So no, the problem is not thermal throttling here. I did not do the gpu usage recording in all videos though, but I did only after I started getting these weird results.
All in all, the performance is great though and I do believe it will get better. It is far important for me to see great performance gains, in really heavy games like Crysis, Clear SKY and Guerrilla, than on Trackmania for example. Don't get me wrong, Trackmania is great, but go ahead and see the gpu usage graph on that too. Meh!
Other ATI Radeon HD 5850 gaming videos that could not be included to this comparison, since I did not have the GTX any more.
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz DX11 BATTLEFORGE BENCHMARK 1920X1080 4XAA
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz WARHAMMER 40000 DAWN OF WAR II BENCHMARK ULTRA 1920X1080 AA
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz COLIN MC RAE DIRT 2 BENCHMARK DX11 ULTRA 1920X1080 4XAA
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz COLIN MC RAE DIRT 2 GAMEPLAY DX11 ULTRA 1920X1080 4XAA
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz SECTION 8 BENCHMARK 1920X1080
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz DEAD SPACE 1920X1080
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz AVATAR 1920X1080 8XAA
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz MECHA DX11 DEMO 1920X1080
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz LADYBUG DX11 DEMO 1920X108
YouTube - ATI 5850 @950MHz Q9550 @4.0GHz STALKER CALL OF PRIPYAT BENCHMARK DX10 1920X1080 4XAA
YouTube - ATI 5850 @950MHz Q9550 @4.0GHz STALKER CALL OF PRIPYAT BENCHMARK DX11 1920X1080 4XAA
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz DRAGON AGE ORIGINS 1920X1080 4XAA
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz DIVINITY 2 EGO DRACONIS 1920X1080 4XAA
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz CALL OF DUTY MODERN WARFARE 2 1920X1080 4XAA
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz UNIGINE HEAVEN BENCHMARK DX10 1680X1050 8XAA
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz LEFT FOR DEAD 2 DEMO 1920X1080 8XAA
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz UNIGINE HEAVEN DX11 1920X1080
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz UNIGINE HEAVEN BENCHMARK DX11 1920X1080 4XAA
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz CRYSIS WARHEAD BENCHMARK AMBUSH DX10 ENTHUSIAST 1920X1080 8XAA
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz CRYSIS BENCHMARK DX10 HIGH 1920X1080 16XAA !!!
YouTube - ATI 5850 @1.0GHz Q9550 @4.0GHz CRYSIS BENCHMARK DX10 VERY HIGH 1920X1080 16XAA !!!
Oh and here is how the 5850 looks!
YouTube - XFX ATI RADEON HD 5850 - OPENING THE BOX
Last but not least...
THE FUN SECTION
Ok here are a couple of Hitler parody videos I made, regarding the Evergreen series and GT 300. If you understand German, please turn down the volume. I meant no direspect to the Germans, so sorry for malesting your language guys. It was made just for fun! There is too much swearing on these videos, so if you are easily offended, please skip this.
YouTube - Hitler gets informed about the rumored ATI Evergreen prices
YouTube - Hitler, as Nvidia's CEO, gets informed about ATI's Evergreen series
I hope you guys find this thread useful.
Cheers!
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