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AMD's ATI Radeon HD 5850 Video Card Review

The ATI Radeon HD 5850 is launching today! It is based on the same 5800 architecture as the HD 5870. We aim to find out how it compares to an HD 5870 in single GPU and 5850 CrossFireX configurations. The ATI Radeon HD 5850 is bringing with it an incredible PC gaming value.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game

For Ghostbusters: The Video Game we picked a level that allows us to show a wide variety of the games scenery. While there are specific spots in the game that drag our framerates down no matter what we do, we find this to be a fair representation of the game. Our mission starts outside while we shoot our way into a hedge maze. Once setting a switch, we then head inside and find ourselves in a cut scene, then in a battle, another cut scene, and then in deep dungeons of the castle fighting our way towards saving our companions.

Highest Playable Settings

Ghostbusters: The Video Game is graphically intensive with higher AA settings. We were surprised how much enabling AA really affects performance in this game on every video card. It requires a lot of processing power to achieve high levels of AA in this game.

A single ATI Radeon HD 5850 was playable at 2560x1600 but without AA, it just couldn’t push 2X AA in this game at that resolution. Similarly the GeForce GTX 285 was also playable without AA. However, the Radeon HD 5850 is definitely pulling in faster framerates.

The ATI Radeon HD 5870 is able to do 4X AA at 2560x1600 smoothly. ATI Radeon HD 5850 CrossFireX is able to up that and enable 8X AA at 2560x1600, which is quite an achievement in this game! Therefore, HD 5870 will get you 4X AA over No AA on HD 5850 and GTX 285 and HD 5850 CrossFireX will get you 8X AA.

If you want AA enabled on the single Radeon HD 5850 it is possible at a lower resolution. We found that at 1920x1200 8X AA, yes 8X AA was very playable. So just dropping to 1920x1200 makes a big difference in this game and the HD 5850 can now enable 8X AA and you’ll get a brilliant gameplay experience on the Radeon HD 5850.

We also tried some SSAA modes and found that even just to use 2X SSAA on the HD 5850 you have to play at 1920x1200. So that is an option, but you’ll be stuck at 2X SSAA at 1920x1200, 4X SSAA is just not playable at that resolution.

Apples to Apples

In our apples-to-apples testing we have setup two graphs for you to compare with, to make things easier to read.

We are testing at 2560x1600 4X AA/16X AF.

HD 5850, 5850 CrossFireX vs. HD 5870

We are seeing exactly what we expect here, the ATI Radeon HD 5850 is slower than ATI Radeon HD 5870 and HD 5850 CrossFireX provides a noticeable boost in performance.

HD 5850, 5850 CrossFireX vs. GTX 285

The ATI Radeon HD 5850 is close to GTX 285 performance at 4X AA. ATI Radeon HD 5850 CrossFireX is significantly faster with performance to spare.