Windows 7: Radeon HD 5830 review(s)

Now if you compare the 5830 to the 5770 then you are looking at ten, maybe fifteen percent performance difference tops, and as such I find it a tad hard to recommend the Radeon HD 5830. Personally I'd say save yourself the money and go with the excellent HD 5770, that or drop a few tenners more and go for the sweet Radeon HD 5850, which makes a little more sense. The 5830 however comes with 256-bit memory whereas the 5770 does its magic on a 128-bit bus.

So what are your options if you can't get a good deal on a HD 5830? At £250, the HD 5850 is a touch pricey, although if you can afford it, it's great. Really though, the pricing of this card and the HD 5850 leaves the HD 5770 as the real bargain of the current ATI lineup. As ever with mid-range next-gen cards though, you need to be sure that it's really going to be faster than your existing GPU.

At the risk of sounding petty over $20, a $240 5830 is $20 too much. If this were priced at $200-$220 it wouldn’t be a clear choice for the 5830, but it wouldn’t be such a clear choice against it. For $240 you can try to shop around for a 4890 and save $40-$60 while getting a card that will perform better at most of today’s games, or save even more by going with a 4870 that will slightly underperform the 5830. Alternatively you can save up another $60 and get the 5850, a card that is faster running and cooler running at the same time. There is no scenario where we can wholeheartedly justify a 5830 if it’s going to be a $240 card – this really should have been the new $200 wonder card.

the fact that this card uses more energy than the 5850 is something to be concerned about. i feel it was put in to fill a price margin more than anything else. i'd either pick the 5870 or save a little more and just buy the 5850.