Board Analysis

Part of the reason why ATI’s 5830 consumes so much power in comparison to the 5850 is the high clocks, but the other reason was obvious the moment we removed the 5830 reference board from the FedEx box it was shipped in: the 5830 reference board design is identical to the Radeon 5870.

ATI takes the exact same components from the 5870 reference board and adapts it for the Radeon 5830.

Clearly this is a pretty expensive way for ATI to go: the 5870 features a more robust 4-phase power subsystem for the GPU (versus 3 phases on the 5850), and there’s obviously the 11” PCB and quad-heatpipe cooling on the GPU. In comparison, the 5850’s PCB is just 9.5” long and is cooled with two copper heatpipes.

ATI even puts the aluminum plate on the bottom of the 5830 reference board, just like the 5870.

Because of the 5830’s high clocks, ATI has decided to use the 5870 reference board design for the Radeon 5830. They’re recommending their board partners to do the same for their retail 5830 boards, although they are leaving it up to their partners to come up with their own unique board designs for their 5830 cards.

Gigabyte 5830 pictured

Gigabyte 5830 cooler features dual fans

Sapphire Radeon 5830

While we normally frown on reference board designs, this may be one case where getting the reference board wouldn’t be a bad move. By using the Radeon 5870 reference board design on the slower 5830, it’s actually overbuilt for its use on the 5830. As a result, if you happen to get lucky and score a good 5830 chip, this could potentially give you lots of headroom for OC’ing.

HIS 5830 apparently includes Modern Warfare 2

PowerColor 5830

The XFX 5830 apparently uses the 5770 board design

To keep their board-level costs down, ATI’s board partners may not want to implement the 5870 reference design on their retail 5830 boards though. In fact, one mockup 5830 board from XFX appears awfully similar to the 5770 board design. (All retail 5830 board photos depicted in this article were supplied directly by ATI PR, so they may not be representative of final shipping products.)

With ATI allowing their board partners to implement their own unique board designs for the 5830, you will see a variety of different boards out there: we’re just hoping someone has the guts to do a properly OC’ed board with excellent cooling and power delivery.

Because the 5830 is priced at $239 though, some manufacturers may be reluctant to integrate too many bells and whistles into their 5830 offerings considering that the Radeon 5850 is lurking out there priced at $300.