Pros: Nice slick design, very smooth and futuristic and I like the load light indicators on the cards.

Cons: I own a Lian Li A80B full tower case, due to the cards "Safe Mode" button I was a literal pain to get these in and I eventually ended up cutting the metal bands in the expansion card slot bay to fit these, ended up damaging one case expansion slot beyond use but the slot was unusable anyway with 2 vid cards going.

Other Thoughts: The Safe Mode button needs to be either built into the cards circuit board like most mobo's have or the button needs to be smaller so it doesn't snag on the case when installing/removing.

Pros: Runs COOL with 10.7 drivers, idles at 157 in the mid to low 20,s. Runs everything I throw at it with ease - built to last.

Cons: Asus drivers set the clocks at idle too hi - go with the ATI drivers- or mod a profile in CCC for the lower cooler clock speed if that's your thing.

Other Thoughts: Running this card in my system now the temp is 27C have not got past 50C running Fur-Mark with 10.7. Had to uninstall the new asus drivers didn't like the temps and too lazy to just mod a profile in CCC for the lower idle clocks.

Pros: This card is a well engineered card with a lot of exceptional components, like the super hybrid engine, the high efficiency fan the bios reset button, the 2gigs of ram, and the ability to overclock with ease, and itracker2 is fairly efficient at adjusting the cards setting. But that where it ends

Cons: This my second card that I have had the first was RMA because it would not idle down and the card maintained an idle temp of 50'C, and Newegg sent me a new one. This card also when first setup also ran at 50'C until I downloaded the new bios from ASUS along with their updated driver 8711_Win7Vista64, not the one from ATI 10.6, then my idle temp went to 40'C and my clock speeds dropped to 157MHz/300MHZ this was from 400MHz/1200MHz. The problem is that ASUS has not updated the drivers that will support the bios that allows the idle speeds to adjust to there optimum speeds with either the newest driver that ASUS has published or either ATI 10.7 or ATI current driver ATI 10.8 both of which support Open CL. While the older ASUS driver 8711_Win7Vista64 does not. I have contacted ASUS Tech Support and they told me that it was an ATI problem and that they would contact ATI about fixing it that wat back in August when ATI 10.7 came out.

Other Thoughts: If you can stand the noise of a turbine, and the heat generated at idle of 50% fan and 50'C. Then this is a card for you. I just wish I had bought something that ran as advertised. and Also none of this is Neweggs fault. AS far as I'm concerned I would give Newgg 5 eggs, but this is not about Newegg.

Pros: This card runs very quiet (as compared to others) and much cooler than other 5870's. The lighted "Matrix" on the side is not a gimmick--it's actually very useful. It has four color phases ranging from light blue (when idle) to bright red (when pushed hard). The iTracker2 software is one of the best programs Asus has ever developed. You get the best of the GPU batches hand-picked for this card, allowing for huge overclocks (if you so desire). The card can handle it. Playing Metro 2033, the card has not gone over 59ºC! Right now it is purring along at 42ºC.

Cons: No cons, except for the people complaining about the length of this card. It's actually SHORTER than the ATI reference HD 5870 cards by about 1/2", and if people don't do their Homework before purchasing, then they deserve to be upset if the card won't fit.

Other Thoughts: We may not need 2GB's of memory right now (except for Eyefinity), but future games are going to be extremely demanding and will put 2GB's of memory to good use. So, this is a "future-proof" card. Keep in mind that if you don't have a powerful CPU, then this card is overkill. If you pair it up with an Intel i7, then you can unleash the card's potential. I installed the card, then the drivers from Asus's website, then the iTracker2 software and everything has worked perfectly ever since.

Pros: Very fast. I didn't play with the OC features, but they looked pretty fancy.

Nice packaging.

Cons: Large. Runs the full length of the motherboard. Position of the "safe mode" button can make card insertion difficult in some PC cases.

Noisy(er). Pretty quiet when you're idling in Win7 desktop, but the harder it works the faster then fan spins and the louder it gets. Probably not an issue for a gaming rig.

First two cards were defective and RMAed (see "other thoughts", below).

Output to analog VGA on the 5870 was not as sharp as a 5770-based card. I use a KVM switch with VGA D-sub inputs, and a 20" monitor at 1600x1200 60Hz. While swapping cards back and forth I noticed that the default system font on Windows 7 was much sharper with the 5770-based card. I didn't try to evaluate the DVI-D output.

Other Thoughts: First card was borderline DOA -- loud clacking from the fan, overheating while in motherboard BIOS screen during initial PC construction. I sent that back, and bought a (much cheaper but much less capable) 5770-based card as a stopgap from a local store. (The cards use the same drivers, so this was easy to drop in.)

A week or so later I got and installed the replacement 5870. At first all was well, but after a few days I started seeing some flickers. A couple more days and my WoW sessions were being interrupted by full-screen vertical stripe patterns for 1-2 seconds. No problems in Win7 desktop, and was okay after it warmed up a bit, but clearly broken.

I went back to the 5770 card, which as noted above produces clearer text, is quieter, and generates less heat inside the case. It works really well at 1600x1200 60Hz. Consider carefully if you need this much video card. (The 5870 came with "replacement only return policy" when I bought it, so I can't simply return it.)

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the issues you are experiencing with this graphics card. Please contact me at OC_Support@asus.com and reference case number NE0645 so that I can issue an RMA to get you a fully tested replacement card.

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

Pros: Quiet, works as advertised

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: Update firmeware and download latest and greatest and its easy. Also works best w/no other video drivers/software installed. I upgraded from 2X7800GTX in SLI to this and nothing would load correctly until all other video software was gone.

Pros: See Below

Cons: See Below

Other Thoughts: Runs OpenCL like a champ, downloaded SDK version 2.2 and 10.7b. OpenCL is not just for N/V cards and it lets a ATI card use CUDA apps if needed. Best of all it was free from the AMD site..

Pros: This thing can take everything I have to throw at it, and I still haven't pushed it high enough to turn the load indicator red.

Cons: It's a bit big (which is expected for a card in this class, I guess). It costs money.

Other Thoughts: I don't have anything I can really push this card with, it may have been more than I needed. Eventually I'd like to get a second one and try it with Crossfire but that would be even more overkill.

Pros: -High out of the box clock speed
-2gb of memory
-looks dam fine
-runs cool 45c idle 57c load
-crossfires well

Cons: none so far, have had no problem with any benchmarks or games at 2560x1600 in xFire

Other Thoughts: i went with a p55 chipset and got the i7 875k. after the first benchmark with far cry 2 across many resolutions i realized it was flatlined in frames per second, it seems that the two cards are vastly out performing my 2 video cards here hahaha. i figure i will upgrade to the x58 chipset and go with a more powerful i7



-Coolermaster HAF X case
-ASUS Maximus III Formula LGA 1156 Intel P55 mobo
-Intel i7 875k @ 4.0 (coolermaster hyper 212 plus heatsink)
- (2) ASUS ROG MATRIX 5870 2GB
-8gb g.skill trident DDR3 1600
-KINGWIN Lazer LZ-1000 1000W PSU
-HP LP3065 30" widescreen LCD monitor

Pros: Looks awesome through the see-through side covers of my case. Slightly over-clocked out of the factory and very easy to further over-clock using iTracker 2. I know that the 2GB of RAM will pay off in the coming generation of games.

Cons: It's big; getting the card into my case was a like playing a beginner's game of Tetris, but it fit.

The card blocks a 5.25" drive bay and a mini PCI Express 4x slot (directly underneath the PCIe 16x slot that it is in); these are not a big deal for me because I was not going to use them anyway.

Other Thoughts: Case = Antec Nine Hundred Two, 902
Motherboard = Asus ROG Rampage II 2 Gene X58 Chipset
Processor = Intel Core I7 930 2.8 Ghz
Video Card = Asus Matrix 5870 Platinum Radeon with 2 GB GDDR5 Video RAM P/2DIS/2GD5
RAM = 6 GB (3 x 2 GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) G.Skill 2Gx3|GSK F3-10666CL7T-6GBPK -- run at great voltages and very fast latency timings; one very easy BIOS setting to over-clock, using Intel's Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)
2 Hard Drives in RAID 1 = 300 GB Western Digital VelociRaptor 10000 RPM, 16 MB cache per drive WD3000HLFS
OS = Windows 7 Home Premium 7 64 bit
Blu-Ray Drive and DVD burner (cheap) = BD-COMBO LG | UH10LS20 OEM
HDMI Cable = 6-foot CABLES UNLIMITED|PCM-2295-06
Power Supply = Antec Earthwatts EA750 750 Watt