Asus Matrix 5870 2GB Video Card Review
Test System and Unigine Heaven 2.0
HOW WE CONFIGURED THE TEST SYSTEM: In order to provide comparable results, the graphics cards featured here were installed on the same, high end X58 based test system. The components used consisted of the Asus Rampage III Extreme motherboard, Core i7 980X Extreme Edition processor, and 6GB of OCZ Blade memory.
Within the BIOS, we configured the processor to an overclocked speed of 4.27GHz and memory to 1869MHz. We feel these settings will minimize the occurrences of non-GPU related performance bottlenecks during benchmark runs and allow the graphics cards to show their true potential. Furthermore, our Crucial M225 solid state drive entered the testing process with a clean copy of Windows 7 Professional 64-bit installed. Once installation was complete, we fully updated the OS and installed the latest drivers and applications relevant to the review article.
|
|
|
|
Hardware Used: Asus ROG Matrix 5870 2GB |
Display: |
In order to find out where the Matrix 5870 fits in the high end graphics market, we put it up against some of the fastest video cards you can buy. The comparison group consists of four other top end models. In place of a reference design HD 5870, we used Gigabyte's Super Overclock HD 5870 1GB and dialed it down to stock speeds. Of course, we expect the Matrix to show similar performance due to identical GPU and memory frequencies, but it will be interesting to find out if the extra video memory helps out. Equally important is the comparison between the Matrix 5870 and the GTX 480 Amp Edition from Zotac, since both cards can be found at the $500 price point.
|
|
|
|
|
The Unigine Heaven Benchmark v2.0 is built around the Unigine game engine. Unigine is a cross-platform real-time 3D engine, with support for DirectX 9, DirectX 10, DirectX 11 and OpenGL. The Heaven benchmark, when run in DX11 mode, also makes comprehensive use of tessellation technology and advanced SSAO (screen-space ambient occlusion), and features volumetric cumulonimbus clouds generated by a physically accurate algorithm and a dynamic sky with light scattering. |
As the graph shows, the Matrix 5870 lags behind every card in the comparison group. The only exception was the stock clocked 5870 1GB card, which it matched up with in both average and minimum frame rates.
