ATI Radeon HD 5570: Reasonable Gaming Performance For $80?
Table of contents
- 1. AMD's $80 DirectX 11 Card
- 2. Radeon HD 5570 Architecture
- 3. Radeon HD 5570: Features
- 4. Radeon HD 5570: The Reference Card
- 5. Test System And Benchmarks
- 6. Benchmark Results: 3DMark Vantage And Far Cry 2
- 7. Benchmark Results: Crysis And Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
- 8. Benchmark Results: Resident Evil 5 And World In Conflict
- 9. Benchmark Results: Fallout 3 And Left 4 Dead
- 10. Benchmark Results: H.A.W.X. And DiRT 2
- 11. Benchmark Results: Anti-Aliasing And Anisotropic Filtering
- 12. Power And Temperature Benchmarks
- 13. Overclocking And Eyefinity Benchmarks
- 14. Conclusion
In September of 2008--almost a year and a half ago--ATI surprised everyone on a budget with the launch of its Radeon HD 4670. Released at $80, the card was priced to fight the entry-level GeForce 9500 GT, and yet the 4670's specifications were comparable to the previous-generation's Radeon HD 3870 flagship.
To make a long story short, the Radeon HD 4670's performance humiliated its competition. With 320 shader cores at its disposal, the Radeon HD 4670 changed the game at its price point. The card's presence forced Nvidia to create the GeForce 9600 GSO from high-end parts that were more expensive to manufacture, also causing the company to drop the price of its GeForce 9600 GT.
Since its inception, the Radeon HD 4670 has remained one of the best budget gaming cards on the market (and a staple recommendation in our Best Graphics Cards For The Money column). It is also notable that it held the distinction of being the fastest reference card that didn't require a dedicated PCIe power cable for over a year, until Nvidia introduced its GeForce GT 240, later bested by ATI's Radeon HD 5670.
ATI truly raised the bar on what we now expect from an $80 graphics card with its Radeon HD 4670. And it just so happens that today, AMD is releasing the spiritual successor to that venerable card in its Radeon HD 5570, also priced to compete at $80.
With the Radeon HD 5450 too slow to provide enthusiast-class gaming performance on a budget, and the Radeon HD 5670 priced at $100, we certainly can't help but to have high hopes that this new card might be the Holy Grail; an offering able to deliver usable triple-monitor Eyefinity gaming performance on an entry-level budget.
for 20 more bucks i'd go for the Radeon HD 5670 its a 20% boost in performance that might come in handy andyou can always find 20$ more to spend.
Quite a disappointing card. As stated, if you had the slightest interest in gaming, $20 is a minimal increase, and if you have no interest in games and only want decent blu-ray support, the 5450 is the card for you. This card just doesn't quite cut it for either market.
If DX11 is a selling point, why aren't all games that are able like Far Cry 2 being tested in DX10?
Very interesting and in-depth article, Don
55700 seems to have very good power characteristics - much less than a 9600GT would use at idle.
The card does what it says on the tin. But it's a budget card trying to enter a crowded and ever-changing market, including ATI's own product range. Therefore we see compromise. For average use and when the price falls a bit I wouldn't mind this card, maybe as a pro HTPC solution or cheap gaming unit with say, a Phenom II 555.
I think it could have done with some more texture units, to be honest..even when overlocked it's struggling to take on the NVIDIA's 9600GT, and as mentioned, the 5670 offers much better performance for a few bucks more. With so many options at such reasonable prices it's easy to pick though, I guess, especially without taking into account the economic situation people are operating under as well as the cost of overheads.
Looks like I've finally found a replacement to my HD4550 small form factor graphics card. Right all I need to find now is somewhere that stocks them in the UK.
It's not the end of new 5000 series yet - 5830 is still waiting to be launched
It is really clear the power of this new card is, that it uses hardly any power:-) Excellent card for for people who never play games or run any 3d applications, but do not want to have the performance impact of integrated-videocars.