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During our meeting with AMD, we of course mentioned the Radeon HD 5830 and gave our rather negative opinion on the product. The manufacturer is defending itself and insists on the fact that the card fills the gap between the Radeon HD 5770 and the Radeon HD 5850 and that a 256 bit memory bus, even if not fully used, does give better performance than a 128-bit memory bus.
Both these points are correct, but while the card does fall between the Radeon HD 5770 and the Radeon HD 5850, performances are closer to the first and pricing closer to the second. As for the memory bus, while we may agree that an inefficient 256-bit bus (due to a supposed upstream limitation in terms of ROP bandwidth), gives better performance than a 128-bit memory bus, it is also partly responsible for the disproportionate manufacturing costs of this card in terms of performance.
AMD nevertheless told us that they didn’t have any immediate plans to cut the price of the Radeon HD 5830. The same goes for partners who seem surprised by the modest welcome given to the solution. One told us however that demand for the Radeon HD5800s was in any case so strong that a product didn’t need to stand out to sell successfully as long as it was part of the range.
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