FiringSquad takes advantage of the shortage affecting supplies of the ATI Radeon 5870 by publishing a great review of Sapphire’s version of the card.
Part of the problem is that ATI’s the only game in town right now if you want to upgrade to next-generation DirectX 11 graphics and performance. The 5870 runs about 1.5 times faster than ATI’s previous high-end offering, the Radeon 4890, and while NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 295 card is the faster overall graphics card, no single GPU comes close to offering the 5870’s unique combination of features, technology, performance, and surprisingly sublime power consumption.
Without a natural competitor, the 5870 enjoys all the high-end GPU sales. And the 55-nm GPU shortage exacerbates the situation. Finding a GeForce GTX 285 or 295 in stock at a reasonable price is becoming tougher by the day. As a result, demand for the 5850 and 5870 is even greater.
@A-Nom-Nom-Nom All of them are Radeon 5870’s, so the only differences are personal preferences (and beliefs) in the manufacturers, and perhaps the cooling solutions (how loud the fans are).
Personally I prefer Asus of the 3 listed.
Are Saffire good compared to XFX or Asus? Which would be best to buy as the prices are similar? The XFX version like this… http://www.chompingturtle.co.uk/index.php/xfx-radeon-hd-5870-1gb-pci-e-2-0-dual-dvi-hdmi-displayport-graphics-card.html or Asus http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-ati-radeon-5870-hd-1gb-pci-express-2-0-hdmi-68HB.html Ideas?