Radeon HD 5970 - Still hot?

[Yoshie]

So I was flippin' through PC Gamer's "Build Your Own Gaming PC" Fall 2011 issue when I stumbled upon the hottest hardware list (Pg. 95) and saw the Radeon HD 5970 third from the top of the list of GPUs. GeForce GTX 590 was first and Radeon HD 6990 was second.

So my question is, is the Radeon HD 5970 still really considered a "hot" card to have? Isn't it an entire generation old?

[Nellah]

They're probably going by raw single-card (not single-GPU) performance. The HD 5970 is a dual-GPU card, it has a total of 3200 stream processors to the HD 6970's 1536, split across two GPUs... basically two 5870s strapped together.

[Deleted]

Why not its got power, does not use any more power than the current dual gpu's and it is DX11 enabled card so i would think it will still be considered a good GPU for some time to come.

[haxartus]

The difference between 5970 and 6990 is not that big if you test them at the same frequencies.

[BicycleMafioso]

It's more powerful than a GTX 580 if you run single-card configs.

[Deleted]

Unless you run at 2560x1600, you wont really notice if the 5970 is a little bit fast.

But ya, it might be faster, but.. its a dual gpu card - so kinda unfair to put it up aganist the 580.

However, just as 590 can suffer from SLI like issues, the dual gpu cards from ATI can suffer from Crossfire like issues.


But to the topic, ya - the 5970 is still a great card.

[Yoshie]

It's more powerful than a GTX 580 if you run single-card configs.

That's really interesting. Good to know.