ASUS Radeon HD 5870 Matrix Platinum
ASUS Radeon HD 5870 Matrix Platinum
Okay, we just talked about the standard reference architecture. ASUS is doing it slightly differently with this model though.
With the release of the Matrix Platinum edition, ASUS tries to do something out of the ordinary. And this product certainly is that.
The AMD 'Cypress' based product (RV870 XT) has been placed on a custom PCB with new VRM circuitry and a kickass cooler keeps the product nicely chilled. Let's have quick peek at some specifications:
- Voltage Tweak Technology (Up to 17% performance increase)
- ASUS Super Hybrid Engine: boost up to 19% GPU performance by reducing 54% power noise
- iTracker2: the worlds only memory timing adjustment and allow you to save the favorite settings into system and recover
- Extreme Cooler: 13% Cooler and 22% Stronger Air Pressure with special designed fan
- ProbeIt: Easily measure the voltage of GPU, Memory and PCI-E bus with the Multimeter
- Core Clock: 894MHz
- Memory: 2048MB GDDR5
- Memory Clock: 4800MHz (Effective)
- Memory Bandwidth: 153.6GB/s
- Processing Cores: 1600
- Bus Type: PCI-Express 2.1
- Display Connectors: 2 Dual-Link DVI-I, 1 HDMI & 1 DisplayPort
- HDCP Capable
- DirectX 11 Support
- OpenGL 3.2 Support
- ATI CrossFireX Ready
- ATI Eyefinity Technology
- ATI Avivo HD
- ATI Stream Technology
- Warranty: 3 Years
As you can see, a couple of things jump out of the ordinary. First off we see a (small) default overclock to 894 MHz, the memory is left untouched though. Also significant is an increase if the frame buffer size, totaling up to 2 GB now. This is trivial though as it pretty much has no effect whatsoever on current modern games, 1 GB simply is sufficient.
But let's place the facts in a chart
| Radeon HD 4870 | Radeon HD 5850 | Radeon HD 5870 | ASUS R5870 Matrix Pla. | |
| Process | 55nm | 40nm | 40nm | 40nm |
| Transistors | 956M | 2.15B | 2.15B | 2.15B |
| Die Size | 263 mm² | 334 mm² | 334 mm² | 334 mm² |
| Core Clock | 750 MHz | 725 MHz | 850 MHz | 896 MHz |
| Shader Processors | 800 | 1440 | 1600 | 1600 |
| Texture Units | 40 | 72 | 80 | 80 |
| ROPs | 16 | 32 | 32 | 32 |
| Memory Type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Memory Clock | 900 MHz | 1000 MHz | 1200 MHz | 1200 MHz |
| Memory Data Rate | 3.6 Gbps | 4.0 Gbps | 4.8 Gbps | 4.8 Gbps |
| Memory Bandwidth | 115.2 GB/s | 128.0 GB/s | 153.6GB/s | 153.6GB/s |
| Maximum Board Power (TDP) | 160W | 170W | 188W | 191W |
| Idle Board Power | 90W | 27W | 27W | 27W |
The card obviously is fully DirectX 11 compatible and has the muscle to play any game to date in the higher resolutions versus the best image quality settings. ASUS gives a 3-year warranty on the product, which definitely is commendable.
The cherry on top of this cake is the inclusion of the iTracker2 application, allowing voltage tweaking and overclocking. We'll demonstrate that in the overclocking section later on though.
