I just got a 5870 and have been toying with it and there is an odd problem that it seems to have with Deskscapes. As with most modern video cards, it adjusts its clocks to several levels depending on demand. No surprise, Deskscapes causes it to clock up from it's lowest 150/300 state to a 400/900 state. Ok all well and good, however when you run a 3D game, it doens't clock up further. It stays at 400/900. Games work on, of course, card has power to spare, but they don't work as well as they should. No matter what you do, the clock seems to hold steady when Deskscapes is active, even when you are running a fullscreen 3D app.

When you shut down Deskscapes, the card starts working normally. It'll clock up to 850/1200 in games and give them full performance.

This is all on Windows 7 (release) 64-bit with 9.10 drivers.

Just something to look at, and an excuse for teh dev team to get a 5870 to test on. Until it is fixed, 5800 owners probably want to shut it down.