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Gigabyte Radeon 5830 Review August 07, 2010 Jacob Vandy VanDerWerf |
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Summary: With dual fans and copper heatpipes, Gigabyte's Radeon 5830 board is designed for enthusiasts who value excellent cooling. See how this board performs and overclocks in today's review!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 16 ) |
The GeForce GTX 460 was released just a few weeks ago, but that doesnt mean much to the scores of ATI fans out there with a strong sense of brand loyalty. Those guys are more than willing to sacrifice a little bit of performance in order to back their team of choice in the competitive world of computer graphics. For them, the Radeon HD 5830 is the way to go, as it shares the same $200-230 price range.
Built on the RV870 graphics core and 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface, the 5830 isnt too far removed from the Radeon HD 5850 and 5870. However, in order to justify selling it at half the price of the latter, some changes needed to be made. To start, many of the stream processors were disabled, leaving a total of 1120 (the 5870 has 1600). The ROPs were reduced by half to 16, while there are 56 texture units compared to 80. Finally, the clock speeds are lower, at 800MHz core and 1GHz memory by default. See the ATI Radeon HD 5830 Performance Preview for a more detailed comparison.
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Gigabytes Radeon HD 5830 1GB boasts all of this inherent bang for your buck, along with several premium features that come standard on most of their other graphics cards and/or motherboards. The most obvious is the inclined dual-fan cooling solution with copper heatpipes, which is supposed to reduce temperatures by 27% compared to the standard cooler used by the reference design. Despite all of that, its actually one of the cheapest 5830s available on Newegg, at $199.99.
Bundle and accessories
As well as the flashiest outer packaging Ive ever seen on a video card which doesnt show up well in the photo, unfortunately -- the Gigabyte Radeon HD 5830 1GB comes in a sturdy, foam-padded box with the following accessories:
- Multilingual user manual/installation guide, driver CD
- Two 6-pin PCI-E power adapters
- VGA to DVI adapter
- CrossFire link bridge
| Gigabyte Ultra Durable VGA Features | Page:: ( 2 / 16 ) |
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The features on this page comprise the basis for the Ultra Durable VGA classification that Gigabyte uses to label its newer graphics cards. All told, this combination of premium components is said to increase overclocking capability by 10-30%, decrease power switching loss by 10-30%, and reduce GPU temperatures by 5-10%.
2 oz. Copper PCB
By doubling the amount of copper that goes into construction of the circuit board (most use 1 oz. of copper), Gigabyte drastically increases its thermal conductivity. This results in more efficient heat dissipation, and so reduces the overall temperature of all components, particularly around the GPU. In general, less heat correlates to greater life expectancy in electrical components, so improved longevity is another effect.
Tier 1 Samsung or Hynix Memory
Gigabyte uses only the highest quality Samsung and Hynix memory in its Ultra Durable VGA products. (This particular HD 5830 board uses Hynix, but were unsure whether it varies between models or batches, etc.) These chips are fully tested to ensure the highest level of performance and reliability.
Japanese Solid Capacitors
The solid capacitors Gigabyte uses in their video cards and motherboards have two distinct advantages over the cheaper electrolytic ones. First, the organic polymer used in solid capacitors is a much better conductor than a liquid electrolyte, and better electric conductivity increases efficiency. Also, these high quality solid capacitors from leading Japanese manufacturers are rated to last through more than 5 years of constant use at 85° C, which is much longer than even other solid capacitors last.
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Ferrite Core Chokes
Ultra Durable VGA chokes are made out of an iron-oxide compound, rather than plain iron. This enhances their capabilities as inductors (storing energy and regulating current) to reduce core energy loss. Additionally, the mixed composition of the ferrite core resists rust much better than iron does on its own. This is advantageous to users in humid climates because it means the graphics card wont degrade so prematurely due to rust damage.
Lower RDS(on) of MOSFET
A MOSFET is an electrical switch built into the circuitry of the graphics card, which allows or disallows current to flow through it. In using the more expensive Low RDS(on) variety of MOSFET, less power is consumed when the switching occurs. This means the switching process is faster and there is less heat generated, as well, contributing to an even lower overall board temperature.
| System Setup | Page:: ( 3 / 16 ) |
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield @ 3.6GHz (Turbo off)
EVGA X58 3-Way SLI
6GB OCZ Gold Triple-channel DDR3-1600 @ 1440MHz
Gigabyte Radeon HD 5830 1GB
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
Catalyst 10.6
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768MB
EVGA GeForce GTX 460 768MB SC
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 896MB
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB
ForceWare 258.80
1TB Western Digital Caviar Black
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Benchmarks
Unigine Heaven 2.1
Colin McRae DiRT 2
Aliens vs. Predator
Metro 2033
STALKER: Call of Pripyat
Just Cause 2
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Far Cry 2
Resident Evil 5
Crysis: Warhead
| Unigine Heaven 2.1 DirectX 11 | Page:: ( 4 / 16 ) |
| DiRT 2 DirectX 11 | Page:: ( 5 / 16 ) |
| Aliens vs Predator DirectX 11 | Page:: ( 6 / 16 ) |
| Metro 2033 DirectX 11 | Page:: ( 7 / 16 ) |
| STALKER: Call of Pripyat DirectX 10/11 | Page:: ( 8 / 16 ) |
| Just Cause 2 DirectX 10 | Page:: ( 9 / 16 ) |
Notes
*Both the Bokeh Filter and GPU-Simulated Water settings were left off for these tests because Radeon cards do not support them.
| Battlefield: Bad Company 2 DirectX 10/11 | Page:: ( 10 / 16 ) |
| Far Cry 2 DirectX 10 | Page:: ( 11 / 16 ) |
| Resident Evil 5 DirectX 10 | Page:: ( 12 / 16 ) |
| Crysis: Warhead DirectX 10 | Page:: ( 13 / 16 ) |
| Overclocked Performance | Page:: ( 14 / 16 ) |
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 15 / 16 ) |
Pros
High ratio of price to performance. As far as the HD 5000 series of Radeons goes, the 5830 is the sweet spot.
Premium board components. Gigabyte takes a hit to their profit margin to provide its users with higher-performance, more durable, and longer-lasting graphics cards.
Inclined dual-fan cooler. Features three copper heatpipes, two 75mm fans, and an aluminum heatsink spanning the length of the board.
Moderate overclocking headroom. 900MHz core and 1100MHz memory isnt even pushing the limits.
Cons
Physically large. The 5830 card is long enough that it may not fit easily into some cases.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 16 / 16 ) |