ATI Radeon HD 5850 launch date confirmed?
A little bird has told us that we won't have to wait long for the lesser HD 5800 card to arrive.
Judging by the pre-order prices, the HD 5850 looks to be around £200-220 when it does finally launch, and the specs don't look so dissimilar to those of the HD 5870. The lesser GPU may 'only' 1,440 stream processors (rather than the 1,600 of the HD 5870) and operate at 725MHz rather than 850MHz, but it still connects via a 256-bit memory interface to 1GB of GDDR5 memory.
The memory of the HD 5850 runs slightly slower than that of the HD 5870, but ATI hasn't cut the ROPs from the lesser GPUm nor the range of display outputs. Peak power has been shaved from 188W of the HD 5870 to only 151W for the HD 5850 - this is due to the fewer stream processors and lower clock speeds. Both cards still require two 6-pin PCI-E power connectors though.
Here's a low-down of comparative specs and pre-order pricing:
- Aria - XFX, £195.49 (inc VAT) | Asus, £229.94 (inc VAT)
- CCL Computers - XFX, £206.83 (inc VAT) | Sapphire, £190.53 (inc VAT)
- Novatech - PowerColor, £218.49 (inc VAT) | Sapphire, £206.99 (inc VAT) | XFX, £218.49 (inc VAT)
- Overclockers UK - VTX, £199.99 (inc VAT) | PowerColor, £198.98 (inc VAT) | XFX, £198.98 (inc VAT) | Sapphire, £198.98 (inc VAT)
- Scan - PowerColor, call for price | Sapphire, £202.63 (inc VAT) | MSI, £210.28 inc VAT | XFX, £212.42 (inc VAT)
Prices in the US seem to be between $299 and $259 (ex tax) depending on where you go and what brand you want.
Quite a few HD 5850 cards will come with DiRT 2, click to enlarge
So, there we go - could we have a repeat of the Radeon HD 3800-series on our hands, where the lesser card of the range was actually the more desirable? At this point, a £100 saving for a few less stream processors and slightly lower clock speeds seems a good deal. Let us know your thoughts in the forums!
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Discuss in the forums Replylols, I'm so used to typing 4870 by now...
should be pre-ordering one soon - just gotta wait for some decent benchmarks to make sure theyre the real deal
People love to knock Nvidia over their poor paper launches but it looks like ATI want to get in on the act. Shameless....
They might have had some stock. Newegg had very limited stock in the US (it sold out within 5 minutes of launch), and ETA for the new stock is 9/28 or 9/29.
I think that the difference in price is to much for a small performance diference.
CrossfireX of dual overclocked 5850 is the way!
"The memory of the HD 5850 runs slightly slower than that of the HD 5850"
5850 looks sweet, much better bang for the buck
"With the ATI Radeon HD 5870 ever so slightly disappointing"
aside from the price and noise I'm not disappointed, but price will come down and noise can be bettered by changed fan settings
crompers"good prices, these should come down to £150 fairly soon. excellent bang for your buck"
I think the 5850 will likely increase in price due to demand like occured with the 4850 I believe, though that may of been the currency
I've got this unfounded feeling that if it was an nvidia card it would have been better received though probably just to much caffeine this week
Can't wait to see what nvidia comes back with, i'm thinking 4billion transister 40Nm monster huge power hungry gpu
actually everytime i went to newegg they had stock, even as late as 7PM (-5 GMT) xfx was the last brand to sell out.
Yeah, but it's only as fast as the fastest current generation cards and for the same price as those cards. Not a case of 'OMG, must buy now!' more a, 'Yeah, it's pretty good, but let's see what else you got before i get my wallet out' situation.
Oh, and the wording was 'ever so slightly disappointing'. not out-and-out disappointing. :b
Are we all getting spoiled? I mean, performance-crown products have always cost a lot of money. It looks like the 5870 X2 will be around 600 pounds/euros, but that's still less then what the 8800GTX was first marketed for.
Because I'll be gaming at 1680x1050 and if it can play Crysis on high (AA too, if possible) I'm all for it.
As for disappointing? Like it was said previously the HD5870 has the performance of last year's dual GPU offerings at a price that resembles the GTX285 and it draws significantly less power than other high-end cards. I find that to be a pretty good deal. :)
Wow, they had stock that late? I didn't check until around 7 or so, and there were sever reviews by people who said that they sold out within 5 mins of launch. However, I believe that the XFX and possibly the HIS cards were added later in the day, so maybe that is why they were still in stock.
sorry to disappoint but I do believe I'll be winning it:)
but nothing about 5850x2
When the 4850 came out, I got it about a week or two after release for £115..
upgrading from a 9800GT ur bound to notice a BIG difference in performance