The HIS Radeon HD 5870
Today we have the opportunity to take a look at the HIS Radeon HD 5870 video card. The HIS Radeon HD5870 which is currently priced at 429.99 is the single GPU flagship of the HIS product line up. The HIS Radeon HD5870 is powered by the RV870 GPU (codenamed Cyprus) and backed up by 1Gb of GDDR5 memory. Before I get into the technical details of the card lets take a look at the physical details first.
Taking a look at the end of the card you can see the typical connections on most current ATI cards. On the right you have a pair of Dual-link DVI ports, the center is your HDMI connection, and last but not least is your Display port. The Display port is required if you wish to run ATI's EyeFinity, though the other monitors can be HDMI or DVI.
On the top of the HIS Radeon HD5870 there are two important items to note. The first being the interconnects required if you wanted to run a second HIS Radeon HD5870 in Crossfire. Also you can see that two 6 pin 75 watt Pcie power connectors are required. The power supply requirements for the HIS Radeon HD5870 aren't as high as one might think. All you need for one HIS Radeon HD 5870 is a 500 watts power supply, if you were to add a second card to the mix it would require a 600 Watt power supply.
On the opposite end of the connectors you have the air intake. Though these account for about 10% of the air intake they do add some style to the card. If this looks familiar you may just be dating yourself since it is very reminiscent of the Batmobile that Adam West drove in the television version of the DC comics Batman.
The back of the cards is covered by a metal plate with a cutout for the GPU. While not as exciting as some of the other features of the card it is important in its own way. The back of the card is home to the serial number which may be needed if you ever need to RMA the card. HIS backs up their graphics cards with a one year warranty.
Let's pull the HIS Radeon HD5870 apart and see whats under the heat sink and take a look at the bare card on the next page
