1280 shaders, 750MHz GPU, shipping God knows when
In what could be described as an effort to imitate Nvidia, AMD has
delayed its HD 5830 card by several weeks. The card was originally
scheduled to ship in early February, but it looks like it won't be
widely available until the early days of March. AMD is expected to
launch the card in February, but once again we're not sure about the
exact date.
The card is based on AMD's Cypress LE core, used in HD 5850 cards, but
it features fewer shaders, 1280 instead of 1440 on the HD 5850. It also
has 60 texture units compared to 72 on the HD 5850. All in all it
doesn't sound like AMD crippled it too much and we can assume it will
still pack quite a punch. The GPU clock is apparently set at 750MHz,
which is 25MHz faster than the reference HD 5850. The higher clock
comes as a surprise, but bear in mind that these are unofficial specs
and we're taking them with a grain of salt.
The card will feature 1GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1000MHz, just like
the HD 5850. It will closely resemble the HD 5850, as it will most
likely use the same PCB and cooler. It features support for ATI
Eyefinity and it packs two DVI outs, as well as HDMI and DisplayPort connectors.
According to an early EU listing, the card should cost around €215, but
once again this is an unofficial figure. We guess it could easily drop below
the €200 psychological barrier, but even if it doesn't it still sounds like
a very tempting deal. An average HD 5850 will set you back around €250,
so the €215 price tag sounds quite reasonable.
We won't post the listing link or the name of the vendor in question, thus making it harder for AMD to issue a fatwa against them.
