XFX HD-583X-ZNFC Pro Reviews

The interesting part of the equation is always when comparing the older design with a newer design. The HD 5830 is as it is billed to be a card that performs in between a HD 5850 and a HD 5770 card. As such it is a successful product for the target market it is aiming at. The card supports DirectX 11 features which its rivals from NVIDIA do not. It has a low power consumption rating of 175W maximum which the competition cannot match. On the other hand, the HD 4890 which was the last generation’s high-end card should come close to this card in price and beat it performance-wise. You get all of the features of the HD 5xxx series with the HD 5830 and at the end of the day, the HD 5830 is a great card for the market as it fills a hole for those not wanting to spend over $300 and wanting more performance than a 5770 with DirectX 11 features.

Whether Radeon HD 5830 is faster than GeForce GTX 275 or not depends on the game. From the six games and simulations we ran, Radeon HD 5830 was the winner in three (3DMark Vantage, Crysis Warhead and Unigine Tropics), tied in one (Fallout 3) and lost in two (Call of Duty 4 at 1920x1200 resolution and above – at 1680x1050 both cards achieved the same performance – and Far Cry 2).

The case against the Radeon HD 5830 was made quite clearly in the value scatter plot on the preceding page. This graphics card's price-performance proposition just isn't terribly attractive. That matters a lot in a product like this one, which is essentially a negotiation between the GPU maker and the consumer: we'll cut the price this much, the performance that much, and then see what you think. The fact that you're still better off on an FPS-per-dollar basis with a GeForce GTX 260 than a Radeon HD 5830 is a rather disappointing development in a market where we're used to seeing practically uninterrupted progress.

While the HD 5830 isn’t exactly high on our “recommended” list, XFX’s version does seem like a much better value than any competing product due to its warranty and included game. Unfortunately, those two aspects just can’t make up for the fact that the HD 5830 in general is priced too high in relation to its performance.