![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Sunday , October 25, 2009
- Author:
- Matthew Krysiak
- Editor:
- Brent Justice
- Google +1
ASUS EAH5870 Video Card Review
Today we look at ASUS’s brand new, voltage tweakable and highly overclockable EAH5870 based on AMD’s new ATI Radeon HD 5870. With the ability to increase the core voltage we cannot wait to see how high it will go, but first we must see how it compares to its rivals in some of the latest and most demanding games.
Need for Speed: Shift
Need for Speed: Shift is the next title in the Need for Speed franchise. This new game completely changes gameplay compared to the previous titles. The new NFS: Shift is a DirectX 9 game, but employs the latest DX9 graphical features such as HDR, depth of field, motion blur, high quality shadows, multisample AA on alpha textures, and crisp high quality textures. For our manual run-through, we will drive on the Nordschleife track, which is 12+ miles long and lasts 10 minutes. We have enabled 15 opponents to really burden the system, and the time of day set is Midday.
Highest Playable Settings
In Need for Speed: Shift each of the video cards were playable at 2560x1600 with 16X AF and the highest in-game settings. The only differentiations between the video cards were their AA ability: with the ASUS EAH5870 12X CFAA was playable, with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 8X CSAA was playable, and with the ATI Radeon HD 4890 only 2X MSAA was playable.
The higher AA levels in Need for Speed: Shift defiantly improved the image quality and gave us a better gameplay experience, even at 2560x1600. Therefore, the ASUS EAH5870 takes the top spot followed closely by the GTX 285 here. As for the HD 4890 it came in last place; we won’t say it performed poorly, you can still have a great experience at these settings, it was just outclassed by the other two video cards quite thoroughly.
Apples-to-Apples
For our Need for Speed: Shift apples-to-apples comparison we are using the highest in-game settings at 2560x1600 with 4X MSAA and 16X AF. Here once again it is clear the ASUS EAH5870 and the NVIDIA GTX 285 both have a substantial lead in performance over the ATI Radeon HD4890s with its mere 37.9 average FPS. The ASUS EAH5870 is much faster than the previous generation ATI Radeon HD 4890.
Image Quality
Above in the image we can see that both the ASUS EAH5870 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX have similar performing AA at their respective settings. The ATI Radeon HD 4890 at only 2X MSAA on the other falls way behind them with much more notable aliasing.