TechSpot: ATI Radeon HD 5770 Review

Advertisement (Why?)

Last month AMD unleashed what went on to become the world's fastest single-GPU graphics card by a convincing margin, the Radeon HD 5870. This was followed shortly by a slightly watered-down version known as the Radeon HD 5850. The latter has proved to be very competitive, playing second only to its bigger brother and at just $260, it stands without a doubt as the best value high performance offering available at the moment.

Continuing with the successful rollout of its Radeon HD 5000 series, AMD is now moving to attack the sub-$200 market, and hopes to keep the momentum going with the Radeon HD 5770 and 5750. Codenamed Juniper XT and Juniper LE, respectively, the first is said to cost just $160, while the lower-end 5750 will cost between $110 and $130 depending on memory configuration.

We've been particularly interested in the ATI Radeon HD 5770, as last generation's Radeon HD 4770 was one of our all time favorite budget graphics cards. Although it came late in the game, its excellent performance and operating efficiency earned it an "Outstanding" mark, making it the top choice in the $100 range. We certainly expect to see these new series live up to those standards.

View: ATI Radeon HD 5770 Review

These articles are brought to you in partnership with TechSpot

(2 replies) #1 Anaron on 13 Oct 2009 - 05:10

It's slightly weaker than the HD 4870/GTX 260 in terms of performance. That's a good thing, considering the price - but only if you're looking at pre-HD 5000 series prices for both cards. I think ATI should lower the price of the HD 5770/5750 to compete better with their previous gen cards.

#1.1 GP007 on 13 Oct 2009 - 05:51

I think they will, but they still have those 4000 gen cards in the channel, you can't knock the new cards down lower till those are all dried up first imo.

I'll give it a few months and once the 4000 series are gone then we'll probably see even more aggressive pricing on these.

Still though, the HD5770 is looking like a nice upgrade for me, I have a 4650 atm.

#1.2 master2k27 on 13 Oct 2009 - 07:42

same it looks nice , i got a geforce 9600

(4 replies) #2 turk4n on 13 Oct 2009 - 09:17

Hopefully the prices will fall down.

#2.1 Roadrunna on 13 Oct 2009 - 10:19

Not too quickly. ATI/AMD needs to boost their bank balance a bit and let's face it, Nvidia has nothing worthwhile to compete with these cards.

Might even swop my GFX card over to ATI this time round having been with Nvida for the last 3 cards - GF4200/5700U/8800GTS

#2.2 DigitalManifestations on 13 Oct 2009 - 20:42

Roadrunna said,

They haven't released their DX11 cards yet so let's wait and see before making statements like that. I'm no fanboy, I'll buy whatever is better but I think it's too early to be saying Nvidia has nothing.

#2.3 DigitalManifestations on 13 Oct 2009 - 20:43

Oh...Unless you meant they won't lower the prices just yet because AT THIS TIME Nvidia has nothing to compete with it. I still wouldn't switch though until I see what Nvidia has up it's sleeve.

#2.4 Kaedrin on 14 Oct 2009 - 01:16

DigitalManifestations said,

Maybe... Nvidia's GT300 Fermi architecture sounds so ambitious they can't fabricate it. They've been having some production/quality problems for awhile now (with both new and old chips). It really has sounded like we won't actually see their new card in stores until early Q2 2010.

Even if Nvidia's next card is better than ATI's 5800 series, it still is giving ATI an almost 6 month head start as the only game in town for DirectX 11, and if I knew anyone who had to buy a new video card between now and then I'd only recommend ATI for this reason alone. The same will be true for a lot of other folk.

At this point, the only market that may be sitting on the edge of its seat for Nvidia's next card are ones involved with 3d production. The high end Quadro variant, based on the top level GT300 specs, is probably going to be one hell of a card for non-gaming 3d needs.

#3 Blackhearted on 13 Oct 2009 - 13:40

Eh, as disappoiting as i guessed the 5700 series would be, tbh. I mean, i knew from the early spec posts that it'd struggle to keep even with the 4870 on a regular basis(as well as be inferior to the 4890). But being priced significantly(nearly 30%) more then the cheapest 4870 with that aforementioned performance? That pretty much kills this card and any potential it could have had. Maybe if the msrp matched it's older brother, this card could be worth something.

#4 RPDL on 13 Oct 2009 - 15:21

Until they lower the prices, these cards have the same price/performance ratio as any other card in their price range.

(5 replies) #5 qdave on 13 Oct 2009 - 18:08

So really 4870 would be a more worthy purchase since it's cheaper and has same(sometiems better) performance?

#5.1 master2k27 on 13 Oct 2009 - 20:24

yea but there is no directX 11 and its not as effishant

#5.2 veegun on 13 Oct 2009 - 23:15

yeah, i would buy it over the 4870 just because the 5770 has dx11. why buy into yesterday/old tech when you can have new tech now?

#5.3 qdave on 14 Oct 2009 - 01:38

Good point, but will there be any visible difference?

#5.4 Digix on 14 Oct 2009 - 02:27

veegun said,

Because I don't think somehow it matters all that much when Directx 10 hardware is compatible with Directx 11.

the only difference is the natural evolution in GPU where R800 is a double up of specs and performance over R700.

Just for proof sake, I'm running a HD3870:

The only difference between the R700 and R800 is R800 is going to have better general performance in Directx 11 and Directx 10 then R700 will, the same as any test.

#5.5 Lord Ba'al on 14 Oct 2009 - 02:27

You should also see that the 5770 not only has the advantage of DX11, but also uses significantly less power in idle, and still less under load:
"The Radeon HD 5770 features a remarkably low 18 watt idle consumption level, making it one of the most efficient graphics cards available today.

#6 ViperAFK on 14 Oct 2009 - 03:36

Not all dx11 features are available on dx10 cards, such as one of the more important ones, hardware tessellation.

#7 PGHammer on 14 Oct 2009 - 13:15

The main reason why I recommend *all* the HD5xxx series over HD4xxx (same price point) is because of the energy efficiency, especially at idle. Any thing you may save in the short term, buying HD4870, or even HD4850, over HD5750, you will lose in spending on the electricity cost. Quite honestly, I had ben considering HD4850 prior to HD5850's launch, let alone HD5750's launch. However, because I have only 23" worth of display to drive, HD5750 makes perfect sense because I can drive darn near any game (except Crysis and games based on it) at desktop resolutions with at least 2xAA/4xAF and that is without upgrading anything else (which isn't the case with HD4850 OR HD4870, as their power requirements obviate my keeping my current power supply).

Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!

Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.

Neowin.net