ATI Radeon HD 5970 review

The fastest graphics card in the world - but is it worth £600?

ATI Radeon HD 5970
The ATI Radeon HD 5970 is the newly crowned fastest graphics card in the world

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ATI radeon hd 5970

We only tested the 5970's performance at the very highest levels available - after all this is the high-end card de jour.

Hence 2,560 x 1,600 all the way. The DiRT 2 results and lack of a Resi 5 bench show up the typical multi-GPU driver issue, but the rest of the results, on stock settings, show how far ahead the 5970 is.

When overclocked it blows the 5870 out of the water.

DX11 Performance

DiRT 2 - FPS: higher is better
HD 5970 - 40
HD 5870 - 40

STALKER: Call of Pripyat - FPS: higher is better
HD 5970 - 34
HD 5870 - 22

Unigine Heaven - FPS: higher is better
HD 5970 - 30
HD 5870 - 18

DX10 performance

World in Conflict - FPS: higher is better
HD 5970 - 58
HD 5870 - 39

Far Cry 2 - FPS: higher is better
HD 5970 - 71
HD 5870 - 46

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This review was written in conjunction with:

PC Format magazine