Radeon HD 5550 And 5570: Pumped Up With GDDR5

[cleeve]

AMD quietly introduced its new Radeon HD 5550 and prepped the Radeon HD 5570 GDDR5 to follow. We examine the performance of these two stealth-launched models to see if they have what it takes to replace a couple of power contenders in the sub-$100 market.

Radeon HD 5550 And 5570: Pumped Up With GDDR5 : Read more

 

[amk09]

Very interesting but strange article.

 

[welshmousepk]

crysis 2 'on the horizon'?

either you have not heard the terrible news, or you are a far more patient man than I.

 

[gkay09]

No surprises IMO as it was the same with the HD 4650/ 4670...the 1GB DDR2 was slower than the 512MB DDR3...

 

[Guest]

You've mixed up the HIS5550 and HIS5570 end-on port pictures I think. You state the 5550 GDDR5 has no VGA and one is shown and vice-versa for the 5570 GDDR5. In fact it looks like quite few of the pictures are misplaced.

 

[edlight]

When you do the HQV tests, could you investigate drivers? They have a desktop color and a video (movies) section. With my 4670, it's not always clear which videos the video section works on. It varies between Win 7 and XP. Basically it works on movies in the overlay, and/or players with hardware acceleration turned on. In Win 7 it works on the flash videos, in XP it doesn't. In XP in video you can adjust Gamma, in Win 7 you can't. In XP the brightness etc. adjustment in video is independent from the desktop. In Win 7 desktop adjustments to brightness etc. affect the videos, even in the overlay. In XP the Dynamic Contrast button is there, but does nothing.

After driver 10.4, in XP, video brightness and other adjustments just don't work. If you want to adjust the video you have to go back to 10.4.

Contrast this with nvidia. As far as I know, their drivers work properly, with Gamma adjustment for video, and video brightness etc. separated from desktop brightness etc.

But, in the last nvidia drivers I tried, there are problems with profiles. While you're in video, you can't save the settings as a profile. You have to go to desktop. Then you can save them. You used to be able to right-click on the tray icon and select your profiles. In the last nvidia driver I checked, you couldn't do that. At least you can do that in the ATI drivers. You can't sort the darn things, though.

So, to select a profile in nvidea you'd always have to open the control panel. In ATI, if you've come upon a dark video and you have several profiles to try on it, it's fast and easy by right-clicking in the tray.

I don't think the programmers actually use the control panels themselves. Such awful logic!

One last thing I'd like to know from the coming article is if the nvidia video section works on flash videos (with the 10.1 flash) in XP. It must in Win 7.

 

[dconnors]

[citation][nom]welshmousepk[/nom]crysis 2 'on the horizon'? either you have not heard the terrible news, or you are a far more patient man than I.[/citation]

I would say anything under a year is "on the horizon" so a March 2011 street date lines up pretty well with that statement.

-Devin

 

[LordConrad]

Wrong connector picture for the HIS 5570?

 

[LordConrad]

Or maybe the caption is wrong...

 

[Onus]

I would like to have seen the HD4670 in the benchmarks; I think that is more likely competition than the HD4650, which was beaten pretty badly.

 

[belardo]

Yeah, the 4670 does belong on this benchmark article, but for the most part - the 5570 OC is on par with a standard 4670. Give or take.

But what really belongs here is the 5450!

That would show how much MORE powerful the 5550/70 cards are... Yeah I know, about 4x... but still it should be there. Maybe the 5470 will come out

Current pricing of the lower 5000 & 4000 series (Order of performance)
5450 = $40~70 ($55+ = 1GB useless versions)
4650 = $50~80
5550 = $65~90 (DDR2 or DDR3 ver)
5570 = $70~90 (DDR3)
4670 = $70~90
5670 = $85~105
5750 = $125~150 (Ouch - considering they cost less to make that 4670s)

First, when it comes to DX11 games, they are too much for the 5550 and below - but under DX10 - they do pretty good. So for your $70~75, you might as WELL buy the 4670 over the 5550s and 5570-DDR3. Now if the the 5550-DDR5 sells for the same price or less of a 4670, then it maybe worth it.

Considering the age of these cards, the 5670 should be $80~90... as it doesn't touch the $100 4850! But the 4850 & 57xx requires more power/bigger PSUs.

A non-eyeinfinity version of a 5750 for $100 would be a sweat card to get that would hammer the nail into the 4800 series.

 

[Reynod]

Thanks Don.

 

[elbert]

I would have liked to have seen a 5570 dd3 1gb overclock.

Unlike the HIS Radeon HD 5550 GDDR5 sample we have, the HIS Radeon HD 5570 GDDR5 card is not equipped with a DisplayPort output, and therefore triple-monitor Eyefinity is not a possibility. The card has a DVI, an HDMI, and a VGA output instead.

The image above this statement has no VGA but does have a DisplayPort. I'm kind of at a loss here as either the statement or the image is incorrect. Also Unlike should be like if the statement is correct having them both without Displayport.

I really dont like the graphs. They are very hard to read. I would like the see best to worst in order graphs.

 

[JeanLuc]

What's up with the noise chart? I was shocked when I saw the Sapphire 4650 noise levels then I realised it was only 6dcb higher then the HD5550. It's very misleading can you please fix it as that Sapphire looks as it it's 6 times louder then anything else.

 

[forsayken]

The 4850 is still very much available for $90 and blows every card in this benchmark out of the water and usually beats the 9800GT. I'd still get this board over all others if I had only $100 to spend on a card and you want to game. I do have a 5670 and will admit that I am very impressed with heat/noise so that is a wise choice as well for a lower-power system. It runs SC2 on "high" and BC2 on good enough settings to be visually appealing.

 

[cknobman]

Would like to have seen the 4670 on here for comparison. I picked up my 4670 last October on an egg special for $39.99 after rebate (and yes I finally got my rebate after 4 months).

My suggestion to anyone wanting to buy a $50 - 100 card is wait for specials and rebates because you can often get one well below market rates if you shop around.

 

[kresso]

[citation][nom]cknobman[/nom]Would like to have seen the 4670 on here for comparison. I picked up my 4670 last October on an egg special for $39.99 after rebate (and yes I finally got my rebate after 4 months). My suggestion to anyone wanting to buy a $50 - 100 card is wait for specials and rebates because you can often get one well below market rates if you shop around.[/citation]
I got that same deal and couldn't be happier (ok I could but, for that price the 4670 was a steal)

 

[wolfram23]

Interesting low end GPU. ATI is really pushing to get DX11 cards out there, for people of all budgets.

 

[rohitbaran]

Since they have launched these 2 cards now, it looks like either the refresh isn't around the corner or it is probably only for the top end models.

 

[COLGeek]

I have used several 4550/4650 GPUs and have been very pleased with all of them. It comes as no surprise that their HD5XXX cousins perform equally as well in terms of cost and processing. Not all users are power users, nor are all users OCing their rigs. This class of GPUs really does meet the needs of most users and at a pretty decent price point. It is hard to not respect ATI for producing capable GPUs for the masses.

 

[WarraWarra]

Interesting.
I can see a price point for this hardware but why upgrade from a NV9800gtx to anything less than a Ati5770.

NV9800gtx newegg $135
5670 newegg $110
5770 newegg $135

I can not see anyone not willing to sacrifice 2 hamburgers or a few beers and rather get a 5770 instead of a 5670 or even a 9800gtx. No one can be this poor or stupid.

IE: what the ??? is the use of these low end mobile phone video cards ?

If AMD stops wasting money on these low end junk and rather have fewer models, spend more time producing useful video card then they can have decent prices for the server headless video card like the 5850 that should be "$150" video card instead of this stupid list of prices and models of uselessness.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]jtt283[/nom]I would like to have seen the HD4670 in the benchmarks; I think that is more likely competition than the HD4650, which was beaten pretty badly.[/citation]

The 4670 tends to perform right on par with the 5570 DDR3. Adding it might have been a little redundant.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]alexmack[/nom]You've mixed up the HIS5550 and HIS5570 end-on port pictures I think. [/citation]

Doh! Mixed up the descriptions of the outputs, actually.

Thanks. Fixed!

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]edlight[/nom]When you do the HQV tests, could you investigate drivers?[/citation]

This was really a quick overview of HQV results for the new 5550 card. We tend to be more thorough in our HTPC card comparison reviews.

 

[dertechie]

[citation][nom]WarraWarra[/nom]Interesting.I can see a price point for this hardware but why upgrade from a NV9800gtx to anything less than a Ati5770.NV9800gtx newegg $1355670 newegg $1105770 newegg $135I can not see anyone not willing to sacrifice 2 hamburgers or a few beers and rather get a 5770 instead of a 5670 or even a 9800gtx. No one can be this poor or stupid.IE: what the ??? is the use of these low end mobile phone video cards ?If AMD stops wasting money on these low end junk and rather have fewer models, spend more time producing useful video card then they can have decent prices for the server headless video card like the 5850 that should be "$150" video card instead of this stupid list of prices and models of uselessness.[/citation]

Power. Heat. There's a lot of people who just need a GPU to play X, where X doesn't really need much muscle. Strategy games, last generation engines, etc. They buy $70 GPUs. As do people with 1280x1024 or 720p monitors (720p resolution computer monitors have got to be the biggest scam glassmakers ever pushed, at least 1080p is a nice resolution at 22").

Also OEMs, who like to advertise their uber-powerful HD graphics 3D-gaming whizbang GeForce G210 that will KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF!

Those of us who read Tom's over lunch and buy and use $150+ GPUs are rather in the minority. Fortunately, we get the good stuff first (I expect to see the HD6770 by year's end). Unfortunately, it takes forever for stuff at the $200-300ish CPU and GPU price/performance sweet spot (the point just before each model up tacks on $150+ for another 133 MHz) to get cheaper.