5870 unboxing and install in 09 MP + gt120 comparison

[galstaph]

So I finally got my 5870 in today, and figured I'd add my pics and thoughts about it as well. I have a 2009 2.26 octo (6gb RAM [next upgrade]) that had the gt120 in it. i would have to say first off this new card is massive compared to the 120 (see pic), also it is quiet I cannot hear it at all, I guess I didn't realize the 120 was getting louder, fan was getting pretty dusty.
As to performance, I ran cinebench and here are my results:
Cinebench 11.5 OSX 64bit
OpenGL GT120 15.36
OpenGL HD5870 24.32

Cinebench 11.5 Windows 7 Professional 64Bit
OpenGL HD5870 44.67

My cpu results for those interested was 8.24 on either os

For thouse who had inquiries about jumping lines in autocad for mac, so far with a little testing, no jumping, runs great.

so what this tell me is that yes, drivers are indeed the issue

 

[dissolve]

Wow never realized how tiny that GT120 is...or how giant the 5870 is

 

[mulo]

Wow never realized how tiny that GT120 is...or how giant the 5870 is

funny how the graphics card dwarf every other component in a computer except for the dvd drive, which really isn't anything to measure against.

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

Galstaph, could you run The xbenchtest of your Card?
TIA

 

[deppest]

I went through a similar exercise with an ATI4870 which I toook out from a MacPro 2006 and put into a 2009 8x2.26 MacPro. It's a 1Gb reflashed PC card .

Cinebench scores are very similar to what you posted for the 5870, i.e. 24.9 Open GL under OSX10.6.5 and 49.9 under Windows XP. Not much difference there between 4870 and 5870 but a big one between OSX and XP. Obviously, the 5870 (and the 4870) could do much better if it wasnt for the poor drivers in OSX.
cheers

 

[galstaph]

Galstaph, could you run The xbenchtest of your Card?
TIA

xbench results:
Results 229.59
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.6.5 (10H574)
Physical RAM 6144 MB
Model MacPro4,1
Drive Type SAMSUNG HD103SJ
CPU Test 167.25
GCD Loop 255.67 13.48 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 151.04 3.59 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 98.78 3.26 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 306.66 53.40 Mops/sec
Thread Test 877.89
Computation 846.79 17.15 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 911.35 39.21 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 318.28
System 309.66
Allocate 407.35 1.50 Malloc/sec
Fill 199.67 9708.47 MB/sec
Copy 449.42 9282.65 MB/sec
Stream 327.39
Copy 329.42 6804.10 MB/sec
Scale 319.76 6606.18 MB/sec
Add 336.31 7164.14 MB/sec
Triad 324.52 6942.30 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test 248.16
Line 183.84 12.24 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 258.66 77.23 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 217.75 17.75 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 219.73 5.54 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 588.38 36.81 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 215.81
Spinning Squares 215.81 273.76 frames/sec
User Interface Test 368.53
Elements 368.53 1.69 Krefresh/sec
Disk Test 112.97
Sequential 229.30
Uncached Write 255.66 156.97 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 310.12 175.47 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 152.99 44.77 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 265.10 133.24 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 74.95
Uncached Write 27.11 2.87 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 377.53 120.86 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 112.39 0.80 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 202.62 37.60 MB/sec [256K blocks]

 

[2contagious]

How do you find the fan noise in comparison to the GT120?
I bought a cheap GT120 on eBay after finding the GPU fan too noisy on the 5870 and the GT120 is silent, but crappy. The 5870 is loud, but has much much more power. Well..I get kind of a high whistle noise from its fan and that's really annoying me :/ other than that it's not really 'loud', but that high fan sound is driving me nuts sometimes because it comes and goes, slowing down the fan stops the noise..

 

[galstaph]

How do you find the fan noise in comparison to the GT120?
I bought a cheap GT120 on eBay after finding the GPU fan too noisy on the 5870 and the GT120 is silent, but crappy. The 5870 is loud, but has much much more power. Well..I get kind of a high whistle noise from its fan and that's really annoying me :/ other than that it's not really 'loud', but that high fan sound is driving me nuts sometimes because it comes and goes, slowing down the fan stops the noise..

in comparison to my gt120, the 5870 is silent, I can just barely hear it (mind you I haven't pushed it yet... maybe a round of CODMW2 is in order). I find it quieter, but the gt120 had been getting louder due to dust in the fan, (I admit I didn't clean it out when I cleaned the rest of the computer), time will tell if the 5870 gets louder with dust accumulation.

 

[Major Reeves]

For thouse who had inquiries about jumping lines in autocad for mac, so far with a little testing, no jumping, runs great.

That's good to know.
Well, since we all know quadro drivers are just pure crap on mac and the quadro 4000 lacks ECC ram thus making it useless for "scientific computing". Just ordered a hd5870, receiving it tomorrow or next monday, if it ends up being delayed because of the NATO crap here.

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

xbench results:
MacPro 4,1 with Ati Radeon 5870
Quartz Graphics Test 248.16
Line 183.84 12.24 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 258.66 77.23 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 217.75 17.75 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 219.73 5.54 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 588.38 36.81 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 215.81
Spinning Squares 215.81 273.76 frames/sec
User Interface Test 368.53
Elements 368.53 1.69 Krefresh/sec

Strange, I was expecting better results than the GT120, but it isn't the case
Mac pro 4,1 with nVidia GT120
Quartz Graphics Test 252.51
Line 219.67 14.62 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 289.60 86.46 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 242.55 19.77 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 248.58 6.27 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 273.99 17.14 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 220.21
Spinning Squares 220.21 279.34 frames/sec
User Interface Test 359.20
Elements 359.20 1.65 Krefresh/sec

However, there is a difference in the Cinebench test, but much more between OSX and XP.
This proves that the ATI drivers in 10.6.5. could be much better.