ATI Radeon HD 5830 – AMD Completes its HD 5000 Line-up

When the original Call of Duty game launched in 2003, Infinity Ward was an unknown. Naturally… it was the company’s first title. But since then, the series and company alike have become household names. Not only has the series delivered consistently incredible gameplay, it’s pushed the graphics envelope with each successive release, and where Modern Warfare is concerned, it’s also had a rich storyline.

The first two titles might have been built on the already-outdated Quake III engine, but since then, the games have been built with improved graphical features, capable of pushing the highest-end PCs out there. Modern Warfare 2 is the first such exception, as it’s more of a console port than a true PC title. Therefore, the game doesn’t push PC hardware as much as we’d like to see, but despite that, it still looks great, and lacks little in the graphics department. You can read our review of the game here.

Manual Run-through: The level chosen is the 10th mission in the game, “The Gulag”. Our teams fly in helicopters up to an old prison with the intention of getting closer to finding the game’s villain, Vladimir Makarov. Our saved game file begins us at the point when the level name comes on the screen, right before we reach the prison, and it ends after one minute of landing, following the normal progression of the level. The entire run takes around two-and-a-half minutes.

The results seen so far are a bit interesting, because the HD 5830 doesn’t quite shine as I hoped it would. It surpasses the performance of the GTX 260, but just barely. For the $25 premium the HD 5830, I expected a bit more. But, it might be safe to assume that AMD isn’t at all charging a premium for performance, but rather all of the other features that the HD 5000 series brings to the table (and those are good, to be fair).

As has been the theme with all of our current-generation mainstream cards, the HD 5830 handles the game fine at 2560×1600 with max details, so that’s where our best playable remains.