Asus Matrix 5870 2GB Video Card Review

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"Lastly, the idle temperature we recorded from the Matrix was surprisingly high. After uninstalling iTracker 2, the card ran a full 10 degrees cooler, while lowering power consumption by 26W. "

I'm confused why iTracker installed vs. uninstalled would affect temperature.  Are you equating "iTracker2 installed" to overclocked, and iTracker2 uninstalled" to reference speeds?

Nice...But I am still going to convert to being a Nvidia customer!

If I am going to use cash for toilet paper then I will go with hardware that will last for a few years, and have more stable drivers :P

rofl yeah but over a few years you will save more in energy on the ATI card than the price of either animatortom

I don't know Rapid...The V8800 has 227/400 power consumption.

The Quadro 6000 is 243/446 Not that much of a difference. But when it comes to having my viewports actually working properly over saving a few bucks, is worth a whole lot more in terms of production times!

Tom, as someone who doesn't have any need for a 1,400 dollar rendering mega-wamba video card, I like both ATI and NVIDIA cards. I have no driver issues with either one of them and I see stellar performance out of both brands when it comes to gaming. I'm leaning towards NVIDIA (two GTX-460's in SLI) for my next buy because they've finally come out with DX11 capability in a card that doesn't melt the insides of your case when you turn it on. (like the GTX-480 does) Something that has low power consumption as well as added functionality (CUDA, Phys-X) that's not available with an ATI card that sells for much more. A pair of them will out-perform a GTX-480 at less than what the single GTX-480 costs, while producing far less heat. (win-win situation)

Now, I did buy an overclocked XFX Radeon HD4850 1GB Black Edition a while back and it's a bitchin' card.

My point is that most of us don't have the issues that you do. So we don't feel the ATI hatred that you're feeling. Their video cards aren't so bad to most of us, and I'm sorry that you spent so much and ended up unhappy with that card.

@ jturnbull65 As part of the review process, I installed iTracker 2 since Asus includes the overclocking utility with the Matrix. After completing power and temperature testing, I noticed relatively high idle power and temperatures which is uncharacteristic of a 5870 card.

After uninstalling iTracker 2 and retesting, idle power and temperature sharply decreased. In both cases, the Matrix was operating at stock speeds of 850 core, 1200 memory. I posted the numbers with iTracker 2 installed and removed to reflect my discovery.

The smart thing to do is just to wait for the "6" series and see what kind of performance they will bring being that they are due out in the next few months. 

If I remember correct the 1GB 460 performance was much better than the 768MB.