Left 4 Dead
Sapphire HD 5870 shows that the Cypress GPU with its 1600 shaders packs a mean punch. It beats AMD's top card, the HD 4870 X2 at every single resolutions, and holds its own nicely versus the dual-GPU GTX 295. We must say that 87fps at 2560x1600 with antialiasing is an impressive result. The same resolution with antialiasing on sees the HD 5870 only 4fps slower than the GTX 295. Geforce GTX 285 lags behind by sometimes more than 30%, and the performance difference is more evident at higher resolutions.
HAWX
Thanks to DirectX 10.1 instruction support, ATI Radeon clearly has an upper hand, of course if DX 10.1 option is turned on. Unfortunately, although Sapphire HD 5870 is a DX11 card, there are currently no games made for this new API. On the other hand, Cypress GPU will surely make DX11 gaming a treat, and 59fps at 2560x1600 stands as a testament to that.
World in Conflict
World in Conflict shows that HD 5870 is still not ready to take the "fastest card" title, and although Sapphire's HD 5870 produced playable framerates at all the tested resolutions, the GTX 295 turned out to be invincible in this game. Of course, we're yet to see whether the future dual-GPU version of this card, codenamed Hemlock will change that.
