Conclusion
It might be worth a retrospective to consider the Radeon HD 4770. It was April 2009 and the GeForce 8800 GT and Radeon HD 4830 were true champions of the ~$100 price point. Then, AMD introduced the Radeon HD 4770, a potential game-changer built on TSMC's efficient 40nm process. The card boasted similar hardware specifications compared to the Radeon HD 4830, yet with a 175 MHz higher core clock and performance that often approached its powerful Radeon HD 4850 predecessor. Originally intended to compete at the same $100 level, the Radeon HD 4770 had incredible potential.
Ultimately, this seemingly unbeatable card never lived up to its potential as the budget gamer's savior. This is due to three main factors: supply issues, rising prices, and falling Radeon HD 4850 prices. The problem with supply is often blamed on the early days of TSMC's 40nm process, rumored to have produced lower yields than expected (and affecting the 5000-series until only recently). Poor supply, of course, leads to higher prices, with the Radeon HD 4770 commonly being sold between $110 to $140 online, instead of its $100 target. But the real nail in the card's coffin was the Radeon HD 4850 falling to near-comparable prices. Soon after the 4770's introduction, the Radeon HD 4850 could be found cheaper--as low as $100--effectively making the Radeon HD 4770 redundant.
Why the history lesson? Well, if you can't learn from history, you're doomed to repeat it. No matter how good a graphics card is, it needs to be priced appropriately in order to provide desirable value.
In fact, we've learned a little from recent history. The GeForce GT 240 was released in November of last year and built on TSMC's same 40nm process. We saw it as an opportunity for Nvidia to compete with ATI's Radeon HD 4670, employing a cheaper-to-manufacture, low-power GPU. As it turns out, GeForce GT 240 pricing didn't drop to where it needed to go relative to the other cards out there. At more than $85 for the slower DDR3 version, cost remains far too high for a card competing with its faster GeForce 9800 GT relative.
It is this cutthroat ~$100 environment where the Radeon HD 5670 will be forced to sink or swim at $99. Here it will have to compete against the similarly-performing $80 GeForce 9600 GT, the slightly-faster $95 GeForce 9800 GT, the clearly-superior $110 Radeon HD 4770, and the vastly more attractive $110 Radeon HD 4850 / GeForce GTS 250. Purely from a performance standpoint, it would be madness to buy the Radeon HD 5670 instead of spending a couple dollars more for the Radeon HD 4850 or GeForce GTS 250. DirectX 11 isn't much of an issue here. From what we've seen so far in our DiRT 2 results, the performance hit is too large to bear for the new Radeon HD 5670. Granted this is only one DirectX 11 title, but it certainly sets the stage.
Aside from gaming, yes, there is value to be found in ATI's design. For the home theater PC enthusiasts, and for those craving Eyefinity for non-gaming (productivity) applications, the Radeon HD 5670 is a great deal. For folks who don't want to upgrade their power supply, the Radeon HD 4670 does offer the fastest reference card performance you'll find without connecting a dedicated power cable.
There are some other nagging issues about this situation, though. Why isn't there a Radeon HD 5650 that utilizes DDR3 and enables a lower price? AMD told us to wait for the upcoming Radeon HD 5400/5500 instead, but if the company is continuing its "cut in half" strategy and we get a 200 (or 240) stream processor card, it's not even going to be able to stand against the older Radeon HD 4650. We can hope the Radeon HD 5500 will be a DDR3 version of the 5670, but based on how the Radeon product lineup has been structured in the past, with cut-down lower-end models, that's probably not likely.
Are we saying the Radeon HD 5670 is a bad card? Certainly not, it's a respectable mainstream offering. It just costs too much. At $80, this product would offer performance more in-line with its price tag. But at $100, that spread introduces too many strong competitors into the equation. We've seen products change to adapt to the market many times before. Maybe, if we're lucky, prices will quickly drop and allow the Radeon HD 5670 to be the game-changer it can be. At the $100 launch MSRP, however, a gamer is much better off investing a couple more dollars into a Radeon HD 4850 or GeForce GTS 250.
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Around $100, bit streaming audio, single slot, and no PCIe power connector? This looks like an HTPC dream!
I'll be interested to see what prices the 5400/5500 cards come in.
If AMD have any sense at all there will be half height versions of these cards (and if they know what's good for them, All-in-Wonders!)
I think you guys may have lost the plot a little bit here!
Anyone who buys a Core i7 920 is not going to buy a HD5670, wouldn't it be more realistic if you tested this card on an Athlon II x4 or a E6300 system?
I think you guys may have lost the plot a little bit here! Anyone who buys a Core i7 920 is not going to buy a HD5670, wouldn't it be more realistic if you tested this card on an Athlon II x4 or a E6300 system?
They test on a figh-end system to ensure that they do not form a bottleneck...they test the GPU, and not the systems
*high
All of you simple minded folk dont get it do you lol... AMD has the crown... it doesnt need to prove anything for the moment... what it is doing it providing choises to consumers at the same time it gives retailers a chance to get rid of older cards... imagine if the 5670 beat down the 4770 or the 4670? Why would you in your right mind buy one of those? leaving retailers with a probably huge amount of cards that they couldnt get rid of. AMD gave us the choise to get a 5670 for its innovations, or an older 4670 for gaming (which as you said at Dx11 isnt that important yet). You can see what i mean looking at power consuption... its REALLY low... this card is perfect... as are the others to be a certain 4890 of this generation... once stocks of 4670 have ended or be close at an end, just overclock its ass of, release it as a new card, a little more price to begin with to end stocks of 5670 and in 2-3 months you have nothing that nvidia can compete with nor performance nor price...
You people just look at performance levels and always expect more...
if you dont belive me have a look at the 5770, its slower then a 4870, but it was around the same price... now stocks of 4870 have depleted, and more 5770 hit the street amd has a powerfullcard with (for me) not much of a competition, not even for its own family.
Its pure biology... its survival of the fittest. AMD has given the 4670 a fiting chance for the time being, once the card dies anyways 5670 will grow wings and fly... for me AMD has a genious team there...
They test on a figh-end system to ensure that they do not form a bottleneck...they test the GPU, and not the systems
+1. Exactly! There is no point to seeing the limitation of a CPU-bottlenecked system, we're concentarting on the graphics card's potential.
All though the 5670 completely sucks at eyefinity because its not powerfull enough, it dose have added value in that it can support up to 4 monitors (when the OEMs/non-refrence get to it) that should be greatly usefull for people that need a low powered card to view their 2D apps.
Whats so special about this card allowing it to support 4 monitors? Did ATI somehow improve the eyefinity tech between now and when the 5800s where released? because in this article it says OEMs could potintially make eyefinity run off of 3 DVI/HDMI + 1 Displayport for 4 monitors... if only the 5700/5800s had that instead of 2 DVI/HDMI + 1 Displayport. Point beeing that many got screwed over with having that 3rd monitor being Displayport.
"Point beeing that many got screwed over with having that 3rd monitor being Displayport."
You can buy a converter cable to DVI for around £10.
So not the end of the world
"You can buy a converter cable to DVI for around £10."
no that is a passive converter, you need an active $100 converter in order to get eyefinity to work.
AMD did it again!
What if amd launce a card similr to hd5770 with 256bit memory interface low price card
good card. its just perfect for everything and its cheap
Mosfet429546: Methinks you're talking about the upcoming HD5830
And DisplayPrat? IMHO a stupid move there. Again. Until you hit HD5850 wacky-land its cheaper to buy a second card and CF them than buy a flippin' DismayPort adaptor! Why make this mistake again AMD, the savings from the license-free standard is outweighed by the anger and frustration it causes!
The "HD5670 good enough to run a game (Peggle methinks!) at 4800*900" was pretty funny though. At least its good to see AMD are as overoptimitic about their GPU's rendering power as they are pessimistic about their power draw. The HD5670 has a TDP rating higher than a real-life HD5770 under a heavy 3D load not to mention a HD5750 can't hit that figure even under torture!
Oh... those power measurements look utterly WARPED. How the hell did you get those weird-ass measurements?!
Why do you need a $100 card for an HTPC? Does the 4670 or 785g not have UVD 2 and HDMI audio?
If they had made it a low profile card or at least a passive cooled, it would be a winner. But as a full height card with a fan it has little going for it unless the chop $20 of the price.
You guys made a mistake by placing the new GT 240 in front of 9600 GT witch is a little faster. besides that i like the article.
i bought the XFX HD5670 around 18 months ago and was impressed with its gaming performance,especially for such as inexpensive card..... however i replaced it with the HD5750 a few months ago and the improvement was obvious..
the additional 320 stream processors and superior memory clock (4ghz>4.6ghz) were apparent when running games....especially crysis 2 and battlefeild bc2 .... however the biggest improvement was metro 2033 which ran smoothly at high detail and 1920x1080 resolution... other specs were pentium dual core E5700 and 4gb of corsair XMS ram (pc2-6400) ...
however anyone requiring a cheap but capable graphics card with direct x 11 support should look no further than the HD5670..... its a triumph for budget gamers and you can even strap two of these babys together in crossfire... however please note you can only crossfire the 1gb versions of the HD5670,s ....
amazing card though,especially the XFX version