Is It a Power Hungry Heater?
Well, yes and no. On one hand, the copper heat pipes look hot. On the other hand, are they too hot to handle? Thankfully, GIGABYTE’s solution easily manages to keep temps quite low. Idle temps were about 37 C and while fiddling around the desktop, the temps bounced between 40 and 43 C. During full load 3D testing, the GPU didn’t top 60 C which is actually quite surprising. This is all without the associated fan noise created by the stock cooling solution.
Speaking of fan noise, the Inclined Dual Fans didn’t top 35 dBA during the card’s worst desktop beating. It’s really nice having a card this quiet that can perform so well. It was completely drowned out by the GTX295 and GTX280 in other machines next to the work station. This means that simply replacing that hair dryer of an nVidia card with one of these puppies will not only improve performance, but drop the noise level too.
Almost true to the number in the HD 5870’s specifications, power consumption figured in at about 30 watts. Full load was right at 189 watts. That’s only a couple watt variance from specs and is mostly like due to the selected test platform. Compared to any of the test cards, the HD 5870 is extremely energy efficient and that’s good for mother earth and eco friendly gamers. Can we put it any simpler than that?
Final Thoughts
What GIGABYTE’s HD 5870 1GB GDDR5 Video Card does on an LCD monitor with 1920 x 1200 resolution was nothing short of graphical bliss. The card produced more than playable frame rates as well as sharper, finer graphical details. This added a renewed experience to the gaming experience thanks to DX11 and Tessellation. It’s really funny when you find yourself subconsciously trying to avoid environmental distractions like bugs and flying debris. And, yes, DX10 performance was also excellent. The other thing that was kind of interesting to note was just how noticeably sharper image quality was compared to any of the nVidia cards in both 2D or 3D modes. This makes the card excellent for both productivity and entertainment tasks alike.
Even though this video card weighs in at a hefty $499 US MSRP price tag, you will at least get your money’s worth. This is thanks to GIGABYTE’s greatly improved card design which gives you some street cred over your standard reference design. This is made possible thanks to ATI’s efforts to polish up their newest 40nm GPU that requires surprisingly less power. Cooling the GPU is very easy for the specially designed Inclined Cooling Fan setup and heat pipe cooler.
Overall, being that it’s not a whole lot more than a stock reference card, definitely consider it if you want something quieter and cooler than your standard garden variety HD 5870.
Pros:
- Great HD 5870 performance
- Efficient “Inclined Dual Fan” and heat pipe cooling
- Low fan noise at all times
- Triple display and EyeFinity support
- Excellent 2D and 3D image quality
- No complaints when it comes to performance
- A great alternative to “stock-looking” reference based cards
Cons:
- You pay for the performance
- Can we get a black PCB?
Overall Rating: 9.0 / 10.0
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