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- Date:
- Monday , November 23, 2009
- Author:
- Matthew Krysiak
- Editor:
- Brent Justice
- Google +1
PowerColor HD5770 Video Card Review
Think your old GeForce GTX 260 or Radeon HD 4870 is getting a little long in the tooth? They’ve both had a great run, but now it might be time to upgrade. We see how these two video cards compare to the brand new PowerColor HD5770.
Introduction
PowerColor is a well-known manufacturer of AMD based video cards. Founded in 1997, they produce PC cases, motherboards, TV Tuners, and power supplies. PowerColor exclusively features AMD’s ATI Radeon brand of GPUs and AMD based motherboards.
Today we will be evaluating one of PowerColor’s brand new ATI Radeon HD 5770 series video cards; the PowerColor HD5770.
AMD’s ATI Radeon HD 5770
AMD and their add-in-board partners have been very busy the past few months launching no less than five new next generation video card models. The current single-GPU flagship, the ATI Radeon HD 5870 launched first on September 22nd and was later followed by its brother the ATI Radeon HD 5850 on September 30th. On October 12th their cousins the ATI Radeon HD 5770 and ATI Radeon 5750 launched.
Today we will be focusing on the ATI Radeon HD 5770, AMD's low-end midrange option. While it may be on the bottom half of this new generation, it retains all the same features such as the TeraScale 2 architecture, Eyefinity, as well as the impressive power management features. It is also currently competing with the ATI Radeon HD 4870, once a flagship model, both being around the $165 price range. The ATI Radeon HD 5770 is built on a 40nm process, has a GPU frequency of 850MHz, and is available with 1GB of GDDR5 at 4.8GHz. In comparison, the HD 4870 uses a 55nm process, has GPU frequency of 750MHz, and 1GB of GDDR5 at 3.6GHz. They both share the same number of Stream Processors (800), Texture Units (40), and ROPs (16). In addition, even though the HD 5770 has more transistors (1.04 billion vs. 956 million) the maximum power is just 108 Watts (vs. 160W) and at idle uses just 18 Watts.
PowerColor HD5770
The PowerColor HD5770 is based on a "reference" ATI Radeon HD 5770: the GPU is clocked at 850MHz, the 1GB of GDDR5 is at 4.8GHz, and it has the reference dual slot cooling solution. Without any extra overclocking features or an improved cooling solution, this is the perfect candidate for someone looking to get HD 5770 performance on a budget. If you are however interested in something more than the plain Jane reference cooling solution, PowerColor has a solution for you too.
The front of the box has a usual dark figure on it, this time it happens to be a knight. There is also one sticker that informs us that video card has 1GB of GDDR5 memory and Dual DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort outputs. On the back of the box, we see some of the standard features listed such as DirectX 11 / Shader Model 5.0 support and some Eyefinity marketing. On the left side of the box are the power and system requirements.
The PowerColor HD5770 use the reference fully covered double slotted cooling solution that is reminiscent of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 200 series. However, AMD has added a few curves and thrown in some red accents for good measure. The Radeon HD 5800 series also uses a similar design except for a few changes.
On the front bracket of the video card are two dual-link DVI ports, a HDMI port, and a DisplayPort. On the tail end are to vents that actually work, and tucked inside of one of those vents is the 6-pin auxiliary power connector. Being tucked inside the vent may make it more difficult for some to undo the auxiliary connecter. Along the top are a few more vents and the crossfire connectors.
Unlike the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series the back of the HD 5700 series is left uncovered. The video card comes with the just the bare essentials: a Driver CD, a manual CD, a DVI to D-sub adapter, and a crossfire bridge.