ATI Radeon HD 5670: DirectX 11 For Under $99

[cleeve]

We were impressed with ATI's Radeon HD 5800- and 5700-series launches. But it's a new day, and the 400-shader Radeon HD 5670 doesn't get a free pass because of its predecessors. Today we test the card's ability to hang with an old guard of solid buys.

ATI Radeon HD 5670: DirectX 11 For Under $99 : Read more

 

[amdfangirl]

4800x900? Are you serious?

Otherwise, great review. Just curious, are you going to make Flash 10.1 playback a benchmark? I'm just interested.

 

[amdfangirl]

Oh yes, could you add the hierarchy chart and show where the HD 5670 fits in?

 

[stridervm]

I wish there was a Radeon 4850 in the comparison chart for.... Comparison....

 

[noob2222]

If it weren't for the 4770, this would be priced decently, at the same price it kills the 240. If they were to lower the price to $80 for the 5670, the 240 would get the dumb buy of the year award. IMO $90 would be about right, $80 is definatly too cheap.

Here it will have to compete against the similarly-performing $80 GeForce 9600 GT

... wrong. it won crysis, was close in far cry2 and Hawx. It was slaughtered in the rest of the games by the 5670.

 

[notty22]

..................Radeon HD 5670 Radeon HD 4770
Shader Processors 400 640
Texture Units: 20 32

Color ROPs: 8 16

Those numbers against the 4770 show, a crippled card. Is this to leave something in the cupboard for the next generation ?
Just meh, no reason for this card to exist at all.

 

[belial2k]

I think the points made here about the pricing could be made about the entire 5xxx series. At no point in the entire line is there a GOOD value. Everything can be beaten in price/ performance by previous generation cards or combination of cards...even the 5870 loses badly to two 4890s for less money. The only thing they have going for them is DX11 and eyefinity, which for most gamers are rather questionable "value" adds because of the huge hit DX11 gives framerates and the 3 monitors needed for eyefinity. All these cards need to come down in price before they become smart price/performance buys.

 

[duckmanx88]

[citation][nom]notty22[/nom]Just meh, no reason for this card to exist at all.[/citation]

low price point, low power consumption, and extremely close to the 9800GT in performance. Plenty of reasons to like this card. especially for a casual Sims or Torchlight gamer.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]noob2222[/nom]It was slaughtered in the rest of the games by the 5670.[/citation]

"Slaughtered". +1 for hyperbole!

 

[noob2222]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]"Slaughtered". +1 for hyperbole![/citation]
What would you call 12-20% faster across the board?
oh, right, "similar" noting like the pot calling the kettle black huh.

 

[Otus]

4850 and 4770 will be out soon and prices for what units are left will probably rise in price. There's probably room for price cuts for 5670 at a

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]noob2222[/nom]What would you call 12-20% faster across the board? [/citation]

I'd call it "similar". Because the user experience is "similar".

An actual human being would probably not be able to experience most of the differences that you're suggesting are monumental.

 

[cleeve]

Oh yes, could you add the hierarchy chart and show where the HD 5670 fits in?

I'll be adding it to the existing hierarchy chart soon!

 

[cleeve]

I wish there was a Radeon 4850 in the comparison chart for.... Comparison....

Didn't have time to include both the 4850 and GTS 250, but they'll perform close to the 5750 and certainly better than the 4770.

 

[noob2222]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]I'd call it "similar". Because the user experience is "similar".An actual human being would probably not be able to experience most of the differences that you're suggesting are monumental.[/citation]
then why bother saying the 9800 is slightly faster, it would be just as similar in comparison.

 

[amdfangirl]

I'll be adding it to the existing hierarchy chart soon!

I reckon adding the chart to the end of GPU reviews would greatly help.

 

[WINTERLORD]

would love to see the 4670 in crossfire. any idea what it will beat

 

[anamaniac]

Yay, a 40nm 4670 with GDDR5...
Is that really all it is?
I just picked up some guys used 5770 for $150 (I'm Canadian, they cost $200 locally).
Other than not needing any external power cables, useless.

Go pick up a used 5750 from Craigslist instead people...

 

[cleeve]

then why bother saying the 9800 is slightly faster, it would be just as similar in comparison.

Wow. Bickering over the minutia is what you're all about, isn't it?

 

[mitch074]

And here, I'm happy I decided 18 months ago that the 4850 was a good deal, if it's still powerful enough to be considered 'upper mainstream' in a world where cards twice as powerful as what came before come out every 9-12 months.

My only regret is that those early models were soon forgotten by their makers, and they need heavy tweaking to get the juice out of them.

The huge cooler I put on it made it much cooler (the original cooler failed), and virtually silent. The VBIOS hack I applied, reducing frequencies to 160/500 MHz, 0.92V at idle may have helped in the power draw department (it sure helped before the cooler change, by lowering temps from 80°C to 65°C), but probably not as much as these more recent cards.

I'd love a similarly tweaked 4850 (more recent models actually offer most of these out of the box: dual slot cooler and tweaked freqs/voltages) being fully benched against these.

 

[Guest]

Pretty good review, actually Cleeve this is the best review I've seen you do yet.

And yes, at $99 this card is too expensive. At $79 it would kill Nvidia off, maybe ATI don't want that.

If you can, would be great to see 2 of these in crossfire soon.

 

[Guest]

I think the points made here about the pricing could be made about the entire 5xxx series. At no point in the entire line is there a GOOD value. Everything can be beaten in price/ performance by previous generation cards or combination of cards...

I just bought two 5770's and they are performing better than 4870x2. The big issue with the 5xxx series was they were all benched on beta/release drivers. If they were to be rebenched now you'd see a good increase in performance already I feel.

 

[renz496]

for me one main reason to get ATI 5000 series cards are DX 11. if this card can't play well in DX11 then it will be a waste to get the card. however Dirt 2 is the only DX11 games for now so we will see how this new card perform when other DX11 titles comes out

 

[kettu]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]Wow. Bickering over the minutia is what you're all about, isn't it?[/citation]

Noob2222 is right. It is the logical conclusion of your own argument. Besides it looks like 5670 is a little closer to 9800 than 9600. Correcting your erroneous interpretation of the data or faulty logic is not the same as "bickering over the minutia".

 

[scrumworks]

Tom, sometimes people like me may be willing to pay little extra to get better features, lower power consumption and heat dissipation than just a few more fps. But it's a tough call to choose if HD4850 and HD5670 are at the same price.