![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Monday , April 19, 2010
- Author:
- Matthew Krysiak
- Editor:
- Brent Justice
- Google +1
ASUS EAH5830 DirectCU Video Card Review
The ASUS EAH5830 DirectCU is a beast of a video card with both ASUS’ Voltage Tweak Technology and its new DirectCU GPU cooler. We will see if we can push her to ATI Radeon HD 5850 performance levels in Assassin’s Creed II, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Aliens vs. Predator, DiRT 2, and Crysis Warhead.
Introduction
Today we are going to be taking a look at ASUS’s flagship Radeon HD 5830: the ASUS EAH5830 DirectCU .
Get striking visual effects and dynamic interactivity with DX11
- ASUS Exclusive Voltage Tweak Technology for up to 50% performance
- Up to 20% COOLER during game play and up to 35% QUIETER under idle mode than generic HD 5830 with DIRECTCU Technology
Evaluation Structure
Today we are going to doing our evaluation a little differently. While we usually use at least two other video cards in our comparison, today we will only be using an ATI Radeon HD 5850. Our third video card will be our ASUS EAH5830 DirectCU overclocked with Voltage Tweak. We will overclock and squeeze every bit of performance out of this video card that we can and see how that compares to the ATI Radeon HD 5850. Our goal is to see if the HD 5830 can achieve performance close to HD 5850. Of course we will be using our out-of-box ASUS EAH5830 DirectCU too for comparison. To avoid confusion from now on we will refer to our overclocked with Voltage Tweak ASUS EAH5830 DirectCU as ASUS EAH5830 DirectCU OC. We will finish off the evaluation as we normally do with some temperature and power testing.
ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series
AMD has not disappointed of late with a myriad of video card launches all based on the Radeon HD 5000 series, their next generation GPU technology. AMD’s most recent launch was the ATI Radeon HD 5830, which filled in a much needed space between the Radeon HD 5770 and the Radeon HD 5850. The later being one of the first released and second most powerful single GPU video cards in AMDs line up. Thus it makes it a natural competitor for any ATI Radeon HD 5830 and today we are going to find out just how close the ASUS EAH5830 DirectCU can come.
First though let’s look at the specifications of these two video cards. Like all Radeon HD 5000 series video cards, the ATI Radeon HD 5850 and the ATI Radeon HD 5830 use the 40nm manufacturing process. They also have full DX11 support based on the TeraScale 2 architecture, full Eyefinity support, and have impressive power management features. The Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon HD 5830 both have 2.15 billion transistors and 1GB of GDDR5 at 1GHz. This is where the similarities end though as the HD 5850 has 1440 Stream Processors (vs. 1120), 72 Texture Units (vs. 56), and 32 ROPs (vs. 16). The HD 5850 also has a GPU frequency of 725MHz while HD 5830 has a slightly higher 800MHz GPU frequency. This GPU frequency slightly makes up for the HD 5830 being castrated.
ASUS EAH5830 DirectCU
The ASUS EAH5830 DirectCU follows the reference specifications and is clocked at 800MHz on the GPU and 1GHz on the memory. However ASUS decided to improve on the design by adding their Voltage Tweak Technology and a new quieter cooling solution. We are always happy to see the addition of Voltage Tweak as it allows us to easily adjust the GPUs Vcore in side of a Windows environment. In this case the default Vcore has been set to 1.168v and can be adjust from .95v to 1.35v. The second improvement, the cooling solution, fits perfectly with Voltage Tweak and hopefully will provide a superb cooling ability and let us crank the Vcore up all the way up to the 1.35v redline.
The ASUS EAH5830 DirectCU has an MSRP of $260.
The front of the ASUS EAH5830 DirectCU’s box is the standard affair with ASUS’s classic black knight on horseback, a few minor specifications, and a lot of marketing. The back continues this theme but makes three claims. The first is that with Voltage tweak you can achieve up to a 50% performance gain. The second is that the with the DirectCU heatsink the video card is up to 20% cooler. The final claim is that with the DirectCU heatsink the video card is up to 35% quieter than a generic HD 5830. Also take note of the heatsink picture on the box and how you can see the copper on the heat-pipes; we will get back to this later.
Thankfully ASUS has taken a step away from their Formula 1 inspired heatsink design with the DirectCU. Though while the looks may have improved we still feel there are some designs flaws. The first is that this design still does not directly exhaust hot air out of the case. This is a shame since in most cases this will lead to a hotter running video card if not a hotter running system. This design also does not provide any direct cooling for the memory as there is not even a heat spreader on them.
The ASUS EAH5830 DirectCU is 10 1/4" long and takes up two PCI slots. It differs from the reference design and has only one DVI port along with one HDMI and one DisplayPort. This is a negative for anyone needing dual DVI ports as you will have to use an adapter to turn the HDMI port into a DVI port. The auxiliary power connector requirements are also different and require one 6-pin and one 8-pin instead of just two 6-pin. This should provide more power to the video card for Voltage Tweak. Just make sure your power supply can handle it. Along the top is a metal L video card brace, though the heatsink doesn’t seem heavy enough to require it, and the CrossFireX connections.
We removed the EAH5830 DirectCU’s heatsink, cleaned up the thermal compound, and took some close-up shots. Now we can see the shiny GPU cover and the Samsung K4G10325FE-HC04 memory which is specified to run at 1250MHz (5000MHz GDDR5 effective.) We can also now see the bottom of the heatsink with the two heat pipes directly embedded in it. We are a little underwhelmed by the finishing job. Everything has been plated and there is no direct contact with copper as the name implies. Taking a closer look at where the GPU and heatsink meet also left us wanting to lap the surface as there are some notable grooves in it.
The back of the video card was left uncovered and we can see the four bolts that hold down the heatsink. The EAH5830 DirectCU comes with a SpeedSetup Guide, a Manual CD, a HDMI to DVI adaptor, a DVI to D-Sub adapter, a two 4-pin to 6-pin power adapter, and a Crossfire bridge.