I've put the Radeon 5870 through an initial set of benchmarks with Half Life 2 and Far Cry 2. With the first set I compared the 5870 to an array of NVIDIA cards we had previously tested, including the GTX295 and the GTX275 SLI. Next, we updated our benchmark baseline to Win7. In the NVIDIA comparison we tested both 5040x1050 and 5760x1200. In the update, we dropped 5040x1050. In both instances we ran a full AA matrix on Far Cry 2 in DX10 mode.
In general the Radeon 5870 performed on par with the NVIDIA GTX295. However, it did so with a lower thermal, power and noise threshold. And, it provides this performance at a much lower price point. It did however leave the NVIDIA cards behind when testing Far Cry 2 in DX10 mode, and fared better in our Far Cry 2 AA analysis. Below are some charts from the benchmark articles.