Until recently, the ATI Radeon HD 5000 line of video cards had a gap in the segment of entry-level and mid-level products priced at $75-85. Located just below, the Radeon HD 5450 cannot be called suitable for modern games - 80 stream processors are not able to cope with any serious load. The more expensive Radeon HD 5670 is offered for $100, which is already the psychological limit for many buyers. Between them was located only the representative of the previous generation Radeon HD 4670, which did not shine among its contemporaries in performance. Finally, AMD quietly introduced the Radeon HD 5550 and 5570 with GDDR5 memory, designed to satisfy the entertainment needs of users on a budget. Today we will look at the older modification, and we will return to the younger one in the near future.
| HIS HD 5570 iCooler IV |
 |
| HIS HD 5570 Silence |
This video card was presented back in February, but its path from presentation to shelves was thorny: only now, with the advent of a modification with fast memory, has it reached us. So, the ATI Radeon HD 5570 is based on the same Redwood core as the Radeon HD 5670, although it bears the PRO suffix rather than XT. Functionally, it has not changed in any way compared to the older version and still contains 400 stream processors, 20 texture processing units and 8 rasterization devices. The bus width remained unchanged - 128 bits. At retail there will be modifications equipped with DDR3 and GDDR5 memory with capacities of 512 MB and 1 GB; the most balanced version seems to be the one with 512 MB GDDR5.
The main difference between the Radeon HD 5570 and the Radeon HD 5670 is the reduced frequencies: the GPU operates at 650 MHz, the memory at 900 MHz (3600 MHz QDR). However, if you have a more or less efficient cooler, this video card can be overclocked and reach, or even exceed, the performance level of the older version. Note that this will clearly lead to an increase in heat dissipation: if for the Radeon HD 5670 AMD declares a TDP of 64 W, then for the Radeon HD 5570 operating only 125 MHz slower - already 39 W!
Low power consumption allowed the company to do without an external power connector; the video card is content with what it receives from the PCI Express slot. The board itself is very compact, although it is made on a full-profile PCB. Cost-effectiveness also affected cooling systems: while it is quite difficult to find a Radeon HD 5670 with passive cooling, several vendors have already presented new products with a silent cooler, including HIS, whose devices we will consider today. Of the remaining characteristics, we note the presence of all modern digital interfaces for connecting monitors - Dual-Link DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort. Considering the specific video cards that were in our Test Laboratory, we note that the only difference between them is the cooling systems. The HIS HD 5570 iCooler IV version is equipped with an active cooler with a fan with frequent blades and an aluminum radiator.
The efficiency of the CO is quite high: under maximum load, the GPU temperature reached only 48 ° C, with 34 ° C at idle, while the fan rotation speed remained unchanged - 45%, and the noise from it was low. As for the passive modification - HIS HD 5570 Silence - despite the developed radiator, this video card is still recommended for additional airflow in the case. Under load, the graphics processor in it reached 103 ° C, although there were no stability problems.
To evaluate the performance of the new product, we compared it with a direct competitor from NVIDIA - the GeForce GT 240, as well as with the Radeon HD 5670. Note that even from the point of view of technical characteristics, we can state that the fight in this case is unequal: the GeForce GT 240 has a weaker GPU (fewer stream processors will not allow you to quickly process rich scenes, although 32 texture units can slightly smooth out this imbalance) and is equipped with slow (compared to GDDR5) GDDR3 memory.
The test results are quite expected: if under light load (for example, in the 3DMark Vantage test with Entry settings) the GeForce GT 240 is still capable of outperforming the Radeon HD 5570 due to greater performance in texture processing, then an increase in the complexity of the scene puts everything in its place: the new product is ahead of its rival by 10-17%. A similar situation is observed in games: in FarCry 2, despite the previously noted better optimization of the engine for NVIDIA architectures, the gap between AMD video cards is the same 16%, and in general they provide a more comfortable level of performance.
In more complex game engines S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat and DIRT 2, which use tessellation to process some objects, the GeForce GT 240 manages to come out ahead, but we emphasize: despite the same settings, in this case this video card, which only supports DirectX 10.1, simply ignores some scenes, thereby reducing the load and increasing productivity. Considering that there will be more and more games with tessellation and complex effects in the future, the Radeon HD 5570 looks more advantageous. However, to be fair, we note that after some time it will have to compete not with the representative of the previous generation NVIDIA, but with the GeForce GTS 450 based on the Fermi architecture.
To summarize, we note that AMD, through minimal modifications to an existing video card, managed to create a new product that makes a serious bid for dominance in the budget segment.
Radeon HD 5570 provides good level performance, consumes and releases very little energy and is offered at an affordable price. Moreover, the good overclocking potential calls into question the feasibility of the continued existence of the Radeon HD 5670 - the differences between this model and the new product are minimal. So, at $75, the Radeon HD 5570 with 512MB GDDR5 is a decent choice for an inexpensive PC.
Technical characteristics of video cards
| Model | NVIDIA GeForce GT 240 |
ATI Radeon HD 5570 |
ATI Radeon HD 5670 |
| GPU | GT215 | Redwood PRO | Redwood XT |
| Number of transistors, million | 727 | 627 | |
| Core area, mm 2 | 139 | 104 | |
| Technical process, nm | 40 | ||
| GPU Configuration (SP/TMU/ROP) | 96/32/8 | 400(80×5)/20/8 | |
| GPU clock speed | 550/1340 | 650 | 775 |
| Memory bus width, bits | 128 | ||
| Memory type, volume | DDR3/GDDR3/GDDR5 512-1024 MB |
DDR3/GDDR5 512-1024 MB |
GDDR5 512-1024 MB |
| Memory frequency, MHz | 1800 (512 MB) 2000 (1024 MB) 3400 (GDDR5) |
3600 (GDDR5) | 4000 (GDDR5) |
| Supported APIs | DirectX 10.1 OpenGL 3.3, CUDA 1.2 |
DirectX 11 OpenGL 4.0, OpenCL 1.1 |
|
| TDP, W | 69 | 39 | 64 |
| Approximate price, $ | 75 | 75 | 100 |
General characteristics
Video card type
Modern video adapters can be divided into three classes, which will determine the performance and cost of the video card: budget, business class and top models. Budget cards aren't too expensive, but they won't allow you to play modern, resource-demanding games. Business class models will allow you to play everything modern games, but with restrictions on image resolution, frame rate and other parameters. Top models give you the opportunity to play the most advanced games with maximum quality.
office GPU ATI Radeon HD 5570 Interface
The type of slot in which the video card is installed. Through the slot, data is exchanged between the video card and the motherboard. When choosing a video card, you must proceed from which slot is used in your motherboard. The most common two types of video card connections are AGP, PCI-E 16x and PCI-E 1x. Glossary of terms for the category Video cards
PCI-E 16x 2.1 GPU codename Redwood PRO Process technology 40 nm Number of monitors supported 3 Maximum resolution 2560x1600Specifications
GPU frequency
The frequency of the GPU largely determines the performance of the video system. However, as the processor frequency increases, its heat dissipation also increases. Therefore, for modern high-performance video systems it is necessary to install a powerful cooling system, which takes up additional space and often creates a lot of noise during operation. Glossary of terms for the category Video cards
650 MHz Video memory capacity 1024 MB Video memory type GDDR3 Video memory frequency 1800 MHz Video memory bus width 128 bit RAMDAC frequency 400 MHz SLI/CrossFire mode support
NVIDIA's SLI and ATI's CrossFire technologies allow you to combine the processing power of two video cards installed on one motherboard. The simultaneous use of two video cards can be interesting in cases where you need to get a super-efficient video system that is faster than all existing single video cards. Glossary of terms for the Video cards category
There is CrossFire X support There isConnection
Connectors support HDCP, HDMI, VGA HDMI version 1.3aMath block
Number of universal processors 400 Shader version
Shaders are microprograms that allow you to reproduce effects such as, for example, metallic shine, water surface, realistic volumetric fog, all kinds of object deformations, motion blur effect, etc. The higher the version of the shaders, the more the video card has possibilities for creating special effects. Glossary of terms for the category Video cards
5.0 Number of texture units 20 Number of rasterization blocks 8 Maximum degree of anisotropic filteringA budget representative of the computer segment, the Radeon HD 5570 video adapter from the manufacturer ATI has been on the domestic market for several years. The chip is popular among both mobile solutions. It seems that for several years the developers have failed to create something new and more productive in the inexpensive class. In this article, the reader will take a closer look at the popular graphics accelerator and recognize it specifications. Reviews, reviews and recommendations from IT professionals will help potential buyers make the right choice.
The Pursuit of Happyness
The ATI Radeon HD 5570 video card was intended to eliminate the competitor. Accordingly, the manufacturer released four modifications of the graphics accelerator to fight for primacy in the budget class. All of them differ not only in the amount of RAM, but also in bus production technology (GDDR3 and GDDR5). In order to somehow surpass the competitor, ATI technologists had to provide the video adapter with some modern developments, which are being implemented into devices in the gaming segment.
Many laptop manufacturers have become interested in decent performance. True, this interest was limited only to the production of compact mobile devices and ultrabooks. But first things first.
Stated characteristics
The four modifications of video cards have only two differences between them. On the market, a user can purchase a video adapter with a 128-bit bus, built using GDDR3 or GDDR5 technology. The second difference is 512 MB or 1024 MB on board. All other technical specifications for the ATI Radeon HD 5570 modifications are identical (except for performance, of course).
The graphics core is built using a 40-nanometer process and has an area of 104 mm 2 . At the same time, about 627 million transistors are placed on one chip. The clock frequency of the graphics core is 650 MHz. The most attractive indicator is the power consumption of the video adapter - only 35 watts. It was this parameter that attracted the attention of many mobile device manufacturers, because low power consumption of a laptop is the key to long-term performance in offline mode.
Modern technology through purple glasses
For many owners of a video adapter based on the ATI Radeon HD 5570 chip, performance characteristics are a higher priority than technologies implemented at the hardware level. There are quite a lot of reviews in the media that confirm this fact. However, it is the implemented technologies that are responsible not only for performance, but also for the quality of the transmitted image.
The ATI Radeon HD 5570 graphics accelerator supports DirectX 11 (its direct competitor uses the old DirectX 10 instruction set). OpenGL 4.0 is responsible for transmitting three-dimensional graphics in the HD 5570 chip (Nvidia supports only the third modification). Fans of GeForce products will certainly blame the manufacturer ATI for the lack of CUDA technology. However, do not forget that the video card is in the budget segment, where low cost is prioritized over performance.
Artificially created popularity
The Radeon HD 5570 chip, whose characteristics do not go beyond the cheapest class on the computer market, owes its worldwide popularity to Apple. The fact is that famous brand I have my eye on this economical graphics accelerator for my laptops and all-in-one PCs. True, many IT professionals do not quite understand the company’s policy when a budget video adapter is installed in high-performance systems based on Intel Core I7.
By the way, Apple technologists should be given their due - after minor modifications, the video card based on the Radeon HD 5570 chip received an increased amount of memory. The American manufacturer is presenting its products with two gigabytes of video memory, which can be increased by RAM up to 6 GB. This is a real breakthrough in the computer market. Many other manufacturers have followed Apple's example and provided their laptops with a budget graphics accelerator, but all reviews for such mobile devices There is a lot of negativity about the performance of the video card in gaming applications.
The right approach for manufacturers
It has long been known that factory-made budget video adapters are completely absent on the world market, and in retail sales Users are offered these products for purchase under completely different brands. A graphics accelerator based on the ATI Radeon HD 5570 can be purchased under the logo of ASUS, PowerColor, MSI, HIS, Gigabyte and many other companies.
All video adapters from different suppliers They have almost identical performance in the factory version, but differ in cost and ease of use, which means low noise levels and the presence of the necessary interfaces for connecting monitors. In fact, the buyer chooses a purchase not by the number of frames per second in dynamic games, but by the availability of the necessary ports (DVI, HDMI, VGA, DisplayPort) and the quality of the cooling system.
Silence is the key to health
Many consider the video adapter from HIS, based on the Radeon HD 5570, to be the lowest-performing product in the budget segment. Reviews from owners claim that the graphics accelerator is not designed to run many popular games. It is more interesting among home users who need a computer to work with multimedia and surf the Internet. The video card differs from other representatives of the market in the installed passive cooling system.
If there are no rotating components, then you can simply forget about noise. IT professionals, in their reviews, recommend that potential buyers pay more attention to the HIS product. The fact is that the huge aluminum alloy radiator grille is not only located almost along the entire perimeter of the motherboard, but also provides the opportunity to mount the cooler on top. Enough interesting solution for fans of upgrading computer devices.
World leader in sales
Club3D, which has few fans in the domestic market, has become the leader in sales of video adapters based on the Radeon HD 5570 chip. Overclocking the graphics core to increase performance and beautiful packaging seemed attractive to many buyers. It is quite difficult to understand foreigners, because Russian-speaking users in the budget class will be interested in an inexpensive device. Beautiful view packaging and an increase in chip performance by overclocking by 5% do not in any way explain the doubled cost of the video card.
Another thing is the ASUS brand. It is he who owns the entire computer market in Russia (judging by the annual sales reports of manufacturers). Classic appearance, proprietary cooling system, the presence of the necessary interfaces and good performance indicators. You simply cannot expect anything more from a representative of the inexpensive segment.
Experiment toy
The Gigabyte company acted quite interestingly, presenting to the market its solution based on the Radeon HD 5570 graphics accelerator. A review of the video card leads professionals to believe that the manufacturer has created some kind of toy for those who like to experiment. It's all about the cooling system - the technologists paid attention to it Special attention. The aluminum radiator covers not only the graphics core and memory modules, but also the batteries. A gigantic low-frequency fan is installed on top.
The manufacturer did not overclock the video adapter at the factory, but provided this opportunity to the owner. To do this, he equipped the device with a specialized software, which comes with the video card included. As practice shows, the result directly depends on the high-quality ventilation of the system unit. Fast heat dissipation and inflow prevent the video card fan from making too much noise, and the graphics accelerator demonstrates decent performance in games.
When it comes to gifts
We are no strangers to PowerColor products. This is one of the few brands on the market that provides the market with its solutions complete with popular computer games. A video card based on the Radeon HD 5570 chip is no exception - buyers are invited to test the performance of the graphics accelerator by playing one of the popular games (FarCry, Crysis or WarCraft).
It's interesting that on market value This kit is not reflected in any way by the video adapter. That is, it really is a gift, not a sale. There are no complaints about the operation of the graphics accelerator - it works quietly, can be overclocked, and supports popular video devices.
Fun device
XFX has always tried to stand out in the video card market by trying to provide the buyer with a unique device. The Radeon HD 5570 graphics accelerator also suffered the same fate. The manufacturer installed a proprietary cooling system with a turbofan located in a protective casing. But the dimensions of this casing are so miniature that they provide cooling only to the graphics core and memory modules, which are located in close proximity to the crystal.
The branded cooler, pre-overclocking at the factory and colorful design have led to the fact that the cost of the product is slightly higher than that of other representatives. Yes, the increase in performance is noticeable (when compared with video cards from other brands), but it is not directly proportional to the cost. Once again, the manufacturer offers the potential buyer to give preference appearance, not high performance at low cost. Do not forget that the owner sees the video card only once - before installing it in the system unit. And he constantly monitors performance.
Finally
The video adapter based on the ATI Radeon HD 5570 is presented in the budget class, which means that a potential buyer does not have the right to demand high gaming performance or overclocking potential from it. The maximum that can be achieved is launching a resource-intensive toy with minimal quality settings. Accordingly, you should not trust manufacturers who provide dynamic games as a gift with purchase.
When it comes to working with multimedia (watching videos, working with photos, processing 3D objects), the benefits of the video card in question increase. Especially if we are talking about a device with 1 GB of memory running on GDDR5 technology: support for the necessary functionality, work with DirectX 11 and Bly Ray, full compatibility with all HD video and graphics codecs.
It's no secret that when it comes to gaming-class 3D accelerators, many readers immediately associate them with top-end products that can produce playable results with maximum graphics settings in games, and even with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering.
AND average level Such accelerators are now demonstrating excellent results for their price niche. But what to do with those that are very cheap and therefore not so strong in 3D graphics?
If adults buy expensive and big cars, then small children want them too, and they have substitutes - toys. It’s just these “toy” video cards that we’ll talk about. They can do everything the same as their “real, adult” counterparts, but only very slowly. Therefore, high resolutions are no longer for them. And the settings in games will have to be reduced from maximum to medium, and sometimes even lower.
Most recently, we studied a new budget-class product from AMD (ATI) Radeon HD 5670, and today we will study an even weaker product in terms of 3D performance Radeon HD 5570, which differs from the 5670 in lower frequencies and a reduced number of texture modules and ROPs. Well, it comes with cheaper GDDR3 memory.
Of course, the lower the price, the lower the 3D performance, and therefore the lower the demand for such accelerators specifically for 3D games. Typically, cards at the level of 60-70 US dollars are bought simply to have a picture on the monitor, to play movies well, as well as various kinds of flash products for modern Internet content. And if they play 3D games, they are very weak and primitive. Of course, you can also play more modern games. challenging games, but there you will have to sharply reduce the quality settings and reduce the screen resolution.
Unfortunately, we do not yet have a full-fledged method for testing low-budget accelerators, so today we will use the method that is already familiar to all readers, based on tests at maximum quality in games (benchmarks) and in resolutions starting from 1280x1024.
Of course, we should be interested only in this resolution, because acceptable playability can only be obtained in it. The rest are provided simply for academic interest. And even sometimes at 1280x1024 we got extremely poor results. But first things first.
| HIS Radeon HD 5570 1024MB PCI-E | |
|---|---|
| |
We did the research temperature regime using the RivaTuner utility (author A. Nikolaychuk AKA Unwinder) and got the following results:
HIS Radeon HD 5570 1024MB PCI-E
As we can see, the heating is very small, so even such a simple cooler produces high efficiency. And once again you’ll think about why there is no passive CO.
Now about the configuration.
The basic package should include: a user manual, a disk with drivers and utilities. Since TV outputs are no longer installed, corresponding adapters are not needed, and these cards have all three output sockets, therefore, adapters are also not required. Below we will show what is offered additionally to the card.
Package.
Installation and drivers
Test bench configuration:
- Computer based on Intel Core I7 CPU 975 (Socket 1366)
- processor Intel Core I7 CPU 975 (3340 MHz);
- Asus P6T Deluxe motherboard based on Intel X58 chipset;
- RAM 6 GB DDR3 SDRAM Corsair 1600MHz;
- hard drive WD Caviar SE WD1600JD 160GB SATA;
- power supply Tagan TG900-BZ 900W.
- operating system Windows 7 32bit; DirectX 11;
- Dell 3007WFP monitor (30");
- ATI drivers version Catalyst 10.4; Nvidia version 197.41/197.45.
VSync is disabled.
Test results: performance comparison
We used the following tools:
- Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft) DirectX 10.0, shaders 4.0 (HDR), the utility included with the game (Middle level) was used for testing. All settings are set to maximum quality. We thank Nvidia for providing the licensed product.
- Unigine Tropics Benchmark 1.3 (Unigine) DirectX 10.0, . Test settings High.
Unigine company and personally Alexandra Zapryagaeva
- 3DMark Vantage 1.02 (FutureMark) DirectX 10.0, shaders 4.0, multi-texturing, testing settings Extreme
- CRYSIS 1.2 (Crytek/EA), DirectX 10.0, shaders 4.0, (batch file and demo for launch), testing settings Very High, RESCUE level is used). We thank Nvidia for providing the licensed product.
- CRYSIS Warhead (Crytek/EA), DirectX 10.0, shaders 4.0, (batch file and demo for launch), testing settings Very High, CARGO level is used). We thank Nvidia for providing the licensed product.
- Unigine Heaven Benchmark 2.0 (Unigine) DirectX 10.0, . Test settings High.
We would like to especially thank the team Unigine company and personally Alexandra Zapryagaeva for help in setting up the benchmark
- Unigine Heaven Benchmark 2.0 (Unigine) DirectX 11.0, . Test settings High.
We would like to especially thank the team Unigine company and personally Alexandra Zapryagaeva for help in setting up the benchmark
- Colin McRae: DiRT2 (Codemasters) DirectX 11.0, testing settings Ultra High (run dirt2.exe benchmark -benchmark example_benchmark.xml). We thank AMD for providing the licensed product.
- Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War 2 (Relic Entertainment/THQ) DirectX 10.0, testing settings Super High (run the benchmark in the game itself in the settings). We thank Nvidia for providing the licensed product.
- Just Cause 2 (Avalanche Studios/Eidos Interactive) DirectX 10.0, testing settings Super High (run the benchmark in the game itself in the settings). We thank Nvidia for providing the licensed product.
Attention! About the set of test tools!
In the updated and expanded material dedicated to the FRAPS testing tool, we clearly showed how inaccurate and unreliable the tests obtained using this utility are, and testers have no other tool other than the benchmarks built into games.
Therefore we believe that let the set test games will not be so large, but all tests will be transparent, accurate, and, most importantly, perfectly reflect the picture of the ratio of accelerators.
Video card performance
Important! Having come to a decision about independent choice three-dimensional accelerator, that is, a video card in his computer, the user must be aware that he is changing one of the main components of the operation of his system unit, which may require additional settings for better performance or to enable a number of quality features. This is not a final consumer product, but only one link among all computer components. And therefore, the user must understand that in order to get the most out of the new video card, he will have to learn some of the basics of 3D graphics. And graphics in general. If he doesn’t want to do this, then he shouldn’t start an independent upgrade in this regard. It is better to purchase ready-made system units with already configured software (and it will also be provided with technical support from the company that assembles such a system unit) or consoles for games where you do not need to configure anything - everything you need is already included in the game itself.
Readers who are well versed in 3D graphics will be able to figure it out by looking at the diagrams below and draw their own conclusions. And for beginners and those who have just taken up the issue of choosing a video card, we will make some explanations.
Firstly, it makes sense to familiarize yourself with our short guides to the families of modern video cards and the processors on which they are produced. It should be noted the frequency of operation, support modern technologies(shaders), as well as pipeline architecture.
ATI Radeon Reference
Nvidia Geforce Reference
Secondly, in this section our reader, who has just encountered the problem of choosing a video card and is confused, can familiarize himself with the basics of 3D graphics (they will still be needed, because when launching the game and entering its settings, the user will encounter such concepts as both textures, lighting, etc.) and with basic materials for new products. There are only two companies producing currently popular graphics processors: AMD (the graphics division of ATI is in charge) and Nvidia (there is also Matrox, S3, but their share in discrete graphics today is less than 1%, and therefore they can be ignored). Therefore, the bulk of the information is divided into two parts. It comes out monthly, where all the comparisons seem to be combined into one various cards for different price sectors.
Thirdly, let's look at the tests of the cards we are considering today.
- 1. Unigine Tropics Benchmark
- 2. Far Cry 2
- All permissions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x
- 3. Unigine Heaven Benchmark DirectX 11.0
- All permissions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x
- 4. CRYSIS, RESCUE
- All permissions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x
- 5. CRYSIS WARHEAD, CARGO
- All permissions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x
- 6. Unigine Heaven Benchmark DirectX 10.0
- All permissions on one page, No AA, No AF
- All resolutions on one page, AA 4x + AF 16x
- 7. 3DMark Vantage Graphics MARKS
Introduction
In September 2008 (almost a year and a half ago), AMD surprised budget gamers with the release of its Radeon HD 4670 video card. The stated price was $80, that is, the video card was aimed at direct competition with the GeForce 9500 GT model entry level, and the 4670's specifications were comparable to the previous generation flagship Radeon HD 3870.
The performance of the Radeon HD 4670 outperformed its competitor. Thanks to 320 streaming cores, the Radeon HD 4670 graphics card has changed the balance of power in this price segment. The release of the 4670 resulted in nVidia having to create the GeForce 9600 GSO based on high-end GPUs, which are more expensive to manufacture. Not to mention the fact that prices for the GeForce 9600 GT had to be reduced.
Since its announcement, the Radeon HD 4670 has remained one of the best "budget" graphics cards on the market (and we regularly include it in our recommendations). Moreover, she for a long time remained the fastest reference graphics card that did not require additional PCIe power until Nvidia introduced its GeForce GT 240, which then gave way ATI Radeon HD 5670 .
AMD really raised the bar for graphics performance for $80 graphics cards with the release of the Radeon HD 4670. It so happens that today AMD is introducing the successor to this famous graphics card in the form of , which should also retail for $80.
Video card Radeon HD 5450 too slow to provide decent gaming performance reasonable price, A Radeon HD 5670 costs more than $100 (), so let's hope that the new HD 5570 will be the “golden mean” for many gamers on a limited budget. Perhaps we'll get the game on three Eyefinity monitors even in the entry-level market?
Radeon HD 5570 architecture
At the conclusion of the article dedicated to the release Radeon HD 5670, we expressed hope that the Radeon 5500 line will receive a version of the Radeon HD 5670 with DDR3 memory. And so it happened!
| Radeon HD 5670 | ||
| Thread Cores | 400 | 400 |
| Texture blocks | 20 | 20 |
| 8 | 8 | |
| Core frequency | 650 MHz | 775 MHz |
| Memory frequency | 900 MHz (DDR3) | 1000 MHz (GDDR5) |
| Memory bus | 128 bit | 128 bit |
| Effective memory frequency | 1.8 GHz | 4 GHz |
| Number of transistors (millions). | 627 | 627 |
Yes, the new one is just that Radeon HD 5670 with DDR3 memory, as well as a GPU slowed down by 125 MHz. If you look at the effective memory clock, you will find that the Radeon HD 5570 provides less than half the bandwidth of the HD 5670. This is due to the fact that DDR3 memory theoretically provides half of the bandwidth GDDR5 at equal clock speeds and memory bus width. As a result, we can expect a significant difference in performance between the two graphics cards.
Let's take a look at the GPU circuit.
GPU, like Radeon HD 5670, contains five SIMD engines, each with four texture units and 16 stream processors. Of course, each stream processor supports five ALUs (AMD calls them stream cores). As a result, this GPU contains a total of 400 thread cores and 20 texture units. Note that there are two 64-bit memory controllers at the back of the rendering pipeline. There you can also see a couple of sections of four ROP blocks, which gives a total of eight raster operation blocks (ROP) and a 128-bit memory interface.
Let's compare the specifications of the video card with the Radeon HD 4670 model, which the 5570 is intended to replace.
| Radeon HD 4670 | ||
| Thread Cores | 400 | 320 |
| Texture blocks | 20 | 32 |
| Raster Operation Blocks (ROPs) | 8 | 8 |
| Technical process | 40 nm | 55 nm |
| Core frequency | 650 MHz | 750 MHz |
| Memory frequency | 900 MHz | 1000 MHz |
| Memory bus | 128 bit | 128 bit |
| Effective memory frequency | 1.8 GHz | 2 GHz |
| Number of transistors (millions). | 627 | 514 |
At first glance, the 5570 graphics card looks impressive due to the increase in the number of thread cores. But if you dig a little deeper, you can see some chinks in the armor of the new product. The old Radeon HD 4670 has a 100 MHz GPU clock advantage over the new one HD 5570, which practically cancels out the larger number of shader units of the HD 5570. The old HD 4670 also has more texture units and a higher memory clock speed. However, in our experience, many Radeon HD 4670 video cards came with memory clocked at 800 MHz (200 MHz below the reference value). But judging by the reference specifications, the Radeon HD 5570 can be called a sort of parallel port of the HD 4670.
So far, nothing surprises us. Radeon HD 5000 graphics cards under $100 are not designed to raise the bar for gaming performance. They simply should provide the same 3D performance for this segment, but with some bonuses related to the new line: support for DirectX 11, Eyefinity, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio audio transmission to an external receiver in encoded form (bitstream). Good news for gamers looking to upgrade from integrated graphics to a discrete graphics card. And not so good if you have already purchased a video card from the Radeon HD 4000 line.
Radeon HD 5570: features
It’s hard not to repeat myself when talking about the functionality of video cards of the 5000 line: this is already the eighth AMD video card new generation, reviewed on our pages over the past six months. And all video cards have the same functions. For an in-depth look at the new features of the Radeon HD 5000 line, we recommend returning to our article on Radeon HD 5870 output, since we will only look at them briefly here.
DirectX 11 support
Click on the picture to enlarge.
Until the release of GeForce GTX 470 and 480 video cards, which will be based on GF100, the ATI Radeon HD 5000 line remains the only one that provides support for DirectX 11.
Until now, the list of DirectX 11 games has been sparse. But with the gradual spread of this API, more and more developers will begin to introduce games based on it. So far, we can’t say that DirectX 11 games have impressed us all that much (most recently we tested DiRT 2). But we're looking at the upcoming Aliens Vs. Predator is a likely candidate to show gamers the joys of DirectX 11-class hardware. Our expectations are largely based on the tessellation examples we've seen so far.
Playing on three Eyefinity monitors
Having played on three monitors with Eyefinity support, we can confidently say that the experience was much stronger than we expected. Peripheral vision has a very noticeable effect. However, it should be admitted that the Radeon HD 5000 line still has problems supporting games on multiple monitors: video cards for the mass market do not handle high resolutions very well, the game must support an unusual frame format, and one monitor will have to be connected via an interface DisplayPort (or via an active DisplayPort adapter for older displays). These shortcomings complicate the adoption of Eyefinity, but we expect that most of the problems will be resolved over time. As usual, to the first "testers" new technology It won't be easy until AMD optimizes its drivers.