![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Sunday , October 25, 2009
- Author:
- Matthew Krysiak
- Editor:
- Brent Justice
- Google +1
ASUS EAH5870 Video Card Review
Today we look at ASUS’s brand new, voltage tweakable and highly overclockable EAH5870 based on AMD’s new ATI Radeon HD 5870. With the ability to increase the core voltage we cannot wait to see how high it will go, but first we must see how it compares to its rivals in some of the latest and most demanding games.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
We are using the full Steam version of Batman: Arkham Asylum patched to version 1.1. This is an Unreal Engine 3 game and does support PhysX, and we are going to treat that like any other game option. Due to support issues, we have to use the ATI control panel to force on AA, while NVIDIA video cards may use in-game AA settings. We have also forced on 16X AF on all video cards. Our run-through in this evaluation is going to be the very first mission, "Intensive Treatment." We found this first level to actually be quite demanding on graphics, and other than the "Scarecrow" level, is one of the more graphically intensive areas. Through most of the game you are indoors, and performance is quite high since it is closed indoor spaces. Our run-through lasts ten minutes.
Highest Playable Settings
In Batman: Arkham Asylum, the ASUS EAH5870 and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 were both playable at 2560x1600, 4X MSAA, 16X AF, and with the exception of PhysX, the highest in-game settings. With the ATI Radeon HD 4890, the same was true except we were forced to disable AA all together.
The gameplay experience in Batman: Arkham Asylum is definitely improved by enabling 4X MSAA, even at 2560x1600. Without AA there is noticeable shimmering as you are walking through the game. Therefore, the EAH5870 and the GTX 285 tied for the best gameplay experience as far as that goes. If we had been able to turn the PhysX to "normal" on the GTX 285 it would have been another story. The smoke/fog effects are incredible in Batman: Arkham Asylum! Though the paper effects seemed to be overdone, and in fights papers flying all around caused our framerates to sink and made the game unplayable with it on in those scenes.
Apples-to-Apples
For our apples-to-apples comparison we used the highest in-game settings of the ASUS EAH5870 and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285. While the aforementioned video cards had an average of about 40 FPS The ATI Radeon HD 4890s framerates plummeted at these settings. With no AA, we had an average of 43 FPS and with 4X MSAA our framerates dropped by 15 to 28 average FPS. The ASUS EAH5870 seems to be quite a big improvement over the performance of the Radeon HD 4890.
Image Quality
The image above shows the difference between 4X MSAA and no AA. The jaggedness off the desktops and chairs are quite noticeable on the ATI Radeon HD 4890, while on the other two video cards they are less pronounced.