Asus Voltage Tweaks Radeon HD 5870 To A 38% Performance Boost

We tell you, ATI has a hit on its hands. We haven't seen a Radeon card generate this much buzz and industry support in what feels like years, but the powerful Radeon HD 5870 is doing just that. With our own testing (and you really have to see this) proving that it's entirely capable of pushing the latest game engines at simply the fastest frame rates we seen yet from a single card, a slew of graphics card OEMs are hustling to produce cards based on the chip. Including Asus.

Rather than just pushing out a stock 5870 though, Asus has today launched what is being called the world's first EAH5800 series graphics card with "voltage tweak technology" that promises up to a 38% boost in performance. The new 1GB EAH5870 and 1GB EAH5850 are the planet's first two cards to utilize this new tech, which essentially gives power users the ability to boost GPU voltages via the SmartDoctor application to enjoy up to a 38% improvement in performance.


Obviously, both GPUs support Windows 7 and DirectX 11, and both are built on 40nm process technology and GDDR5 memory. Each single card can run up to three displays (that's Eyefinity for ya!), and better still, each one comes bundled with DiRT 2, a highly anticipated DirectX 11 title. If you're curious about how that "voltage tweaking" really works, here's the deal: It enables users to raise GPU voltages from 1.15V to 1.35V and from 1.088V to 1.4V respectively, boosting GPU and memory clock performance from 850 / 725 MHz to 1035 / 1050 MHz and from 4800 / 4000 MHz to 5200 / 5200 MHz respectively. Evidently Asus doesn't expect the factory overclocking tool to harm any system parts, and there's no need to mess with BIOS settings in order to make it all work. Sadly, Asus isn't coming forward with pricing just yet, but we'd expect these in stores very, very soon.