So here we have the two Radeon HD 5830 cards we'll test today; we now move on to the product photo-shoot which will be followed by initial tests on heat, power consumption and noise levels.

So as you can see, here we have the Radeon HD 5830. Quite a card to look at really. It's encased with a cooler similar to the 5870, which is in fact larger than the 5850. This might have something to do with the higher clock frequency and thermal design for cooling (more cooling required hence the bigger design). This is a reference design, we expect board partners to come up with their own (smaller) solutions and configurations.

When we rotate the card a bit we can see that the more affordable 5830 has as much connectivity as the 5850/5870 offers. Let's zoom in a little.

I hope it is safe to say that we can leave the explanation of single and dual-link DVI behind us. It is quite amazing to see how much connectivity this card can deal with. With the standard reference Radeon HD 5830 we get four digital connectors at our disposal, we spot two DVI, an HDMI and a DisplayPort connector.

If you want to go 3x 2560x1600? Mate, not an issue. It's that kind of flexibility I like very much. BTW check out our Eyefinity article right here.