ATI managed to launch its 5 series with a bang. The timing was right and nVidia had left the door wide open. When the 5870 came out practically every one was amazed with what the card could do. It brought new things to the scene that made other cards simply pack up and retire. Key features being the DirectX 11 support and the ATI eyefinity and so forth. Then ATI started launching other cards some what decending order.
And along came the ATI HD5760. Now this card is targeted towards the budget end of the gaming market. A place where the buyers are dollar cautious and the product better prove itself to find a home. Well as far as proving itself goes this card seems to have the right elements with it to do just that. Lets begin with the exterior:
As expected from XFX, the build is as good as it gets. The card has a very good quality feel to it. The heatsink is slim enough to make sure the card does not take up two slot space yet when we tested it did not heat up as much as its predecessors tended to. The fan is designed to push the air through the solid casing that houses the metal radiators. Apparently the mechanism manages to stay quiet like a rabbit. Certainly one of advantages of the 40nm manufacturing process.
The connections are Display Port, HDMI and DVI port. All three of these ports are usable at the same time. Newer games will not fail to take advantage of this and certainly the Eyefinity technology has given games something new to play with. Plus using the old SPDIF cable for digital audio is obsolete, that is done via software making installation a little easier and the case having to deal with one less cable in it.
Performance
First thing first. Lets play.
Thus - Grid.
We were expecting some compromise in performance, perhaps lower frame rates and so forth. No, non of that, the game loaded with full details at 1650x1050 resolution and we pretty much never saw frames drop below 30, EVER. Over all it managed an average of decent 40 fps, but the amazing thing was the it played so smooth that we got carried away and started driving sideways. Given this card had just 512MB memory, or the fact that it is a budget card, it did not behave like one. We thought it was better than a 9800GT 1GB version.
So it was time for 3DMark06 to tell us what the score was. The card scored a very respectable 12237 points on a system that reflects a normal budget gaming system (with an AMD Phenom II 720BE CPU). It was the same system on which the 9800GT had scored 10500 points. The difference is too much for the 9800GT to call for a rematch, this bout is settled. With all the features kept in mind the HD5670 may even take on a GTS250 and win.
So are the dollar smart buyers getting their money's worth with HD5670. By the looks of things, they are. Better gaming, better future prospects, better features. Its compact and quiet so this might even be an ideal choice for a HTPC. No one product can do everything, but this little fella did as many things as we had seen any one card do.
Seems like ATI has paved the way for nVidia to follow. Someday!
XFX ATI HD5670 512MB
