Introduction




The RADEON HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 video card from XFX comes bundled with one of the few games that support the newest DirectX11, Aliens vs Predator. The card also comes with enough documentation so anyone could install the video card in their computer and start playing right away. The board´s performance approaches that of last generation high end HD 4890 card and offers enough FPS in almost all older and recent games, even with higher quality settings.

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About XFX:

“XFX dares to go where the competition would like to, but can’t. That’s because, at XFX, we don’t just create great digital video components—we build all-out, mind-blowing, performance-crushing, competition-obliterating video cards and motherboards. And, not only are they amazing, you don’t have to live on dry noodles and peanut butter to afford them.

XFX is a division of PINE Technology Holdings Limited, a leading manufacturer and marketer of innovative solutions for the worldwide gaming technologies market. Founded in 1989, PINE designs, develops, manufactures and distributes high-performance video graphics technology and computer peripherals. The company’s dedicated research and development team are continually pushing the limits to meet the demands of the ever-growing and performance-driven community. Headquartered in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong SAR), PINE has more than 1,000 employees worldwide with 16 offices around the globe. PINE also maintains four state-of-the-art research and development facilities in the Asia Pacific region and two factories in Mainland China. To learn more about PINE, please visit www.pinegroup.com.”

Product Features

• 1GB GDDR5 memory
  
• ATI Eyefinity technology with support for up to three displays
  
• ATI Stream technology
  
• Designed for DirectCompute 11 and OpenCL
  
• Accelerated Video Transcoding (AVT)(2,5)
  
• Compliant with DirectX® 11 and earlier revisions
  
• Supports OpenGL 3.1
  
• Dual-mode ATI CrossFireX™ technology support for highly scalable performance
  
• ATI Avivo™ HD video and display technology
  
• Dynamic power management with ATI PowerPlay™ technology
  
• DL-DVI, DL-DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI
  
• PCI Express® 2.0 support

Product Specifications

The Radeon HD 5000 series launched last year and was the first to feature the DirectX 11 technology and Eyefinity. Announced products in this series were the 5850 and 5870, for the high-end segment and their code name is “Cypress”.

On October 13, 2009, the “Juniper“ GPUs were launched, aimed at the mainstream segment; they can support up to 6 display outputs. The 5770 does have 800 stream cores and its little brother, the 5750, has 720 stream cores. Compared with the 5800 series which have 256bit bus, both 5770 and 5750 do have a 128bit bus; this cuts the memory bandwidth in half, to 76.8GB/sec.

The RADEON HD 5770 has 10 SIMD cores clocked at 850MHz; each SIMD core does have 16 five-way superscalar shader processors, four texture units, a 32KB local data store and 8KB L1 texture cache.




AMD have now covered all the market segments, beginning with the low-end RADEON HD 5450 to the high end dual-chip RADEON HD 5970.

The latest GPUs from AMD fully support DirectX11 instructions which include GPGPU (DirectCompute 11), tessellation and improved multi-threading; they also come with Shader Model 5, better shadows and HDR texture compression.

Tesselation, as described on the Unigine website, is a “scalable technology aimed for automatic subdivision of polygons into smaller and finer pieces, so that developers can gain a more detailed look of their games almost free of charge in terms of performance. Thanks to this procedure, the elaboration of the rendered image finally approaches the boundary of veridical visual perception: the virtual reality is vivified at your fingertips delivering engaging gaming experience.”

Here is a modelled house inside the Unigine Heaven benchmark, without and with the tessellation feature enabled:

The multi-threaded rendering is similar to the techniques applied for the current CPUs. If a shader or an instruction has to be queued up, the process creates a delay. The current GPUs can now process data completely threaded, which bring a better overall performance.

The DirectCompute feature allows access to the GPU for stream computing; it shares a range of computational interfaces with its competitors: OpenCL and CUDA.

Eyefinity is an advanced multiple-display technology from AMD which enables a single GPU to support up to six independent display outputs simultaneously. The six high-resolution displays can be operated simultaneously and independently, configured in various combinations of landscape and portrait orientations.

We can group multiple monitors into a large integrated display surface, enabling windowed and full screen 3D applications, images and video to span across multiple displays as one desktop workspace. ATI Eyefinity supports Duplicated Mode operation (PC desktop cloned on multiple displays) and Extended Mode (PC desktop extended across multiple displays).

Packaging Part 1

The RADEON HD 5770 from XFX is packed in a very stylish external box; on the top part we can see the product name written with big letters, some of its specifications written with a smaller font and some icons that represent some of the product specifications:



Some of the top writing is embossed, like the RADEON logo:



Also on the frontal part, we can see a little sticker that attracts our attention: we get a reminder that this video card does come with a full game voucher for the Aliens vs Predator, which also supports DirectX11:



On one of the box sides, we can see some more information regarding the AvP game, but also a sticker that tells us the complete code name of the card and some serial numbers:



On the opposite side, we can find information regarding the ATI Avivo HD Video & Display Technology, the ATI Catalyst software suite, but also about the ATI CrossFireX Technology:



Another side of the package reveals the system requirements and what we can find inside the box:



On the back of the box, we can find the key product features, along with a small product description and information regarding the 5 Star Support that XFX offer for their products:



Inside the external box we can find, well…, another cardboard box, which is not plain, it holds the XFX logo along with their slogan and their website address:



On each of the box sides, we can find again the XFX logo:



In the box we can find plenty of documentation and bundle, so even inexperienced people would be able to install the card into their PCs and start playing:

Inside the box


Inside the box you can find:

a DVI to VGA adapter

a 6-pin to 4-pin power cable

XFX serial number door hanger

Driver CD which also holds electronic installation guides

a written installation guide

a quick installation guide

the AvP digital download coupon



The Driver Installation CD specifies what version of driver we have on the disk; here we can also find a multi-language user guide:



The Serial number door hanger has nice artwork and holds information that helps us register the card on the XFX website to receive drivers and support from the manufacturer:



The Quick Installation Guide tells us step by step how to prepare our computer and how to install the video card faster, to start gaming right away:



The Installation Guide is a more in-depth version of the Quick Installation Guide:



The AvP digital download coupon holds inside the serial number to be able to download the full version of the game:



If we remove the top part of the box, which held up the entire bundle, we can find inside the card, wrapped in an anti-static bag and held properly in a cardboard green frame:



When we remove the card from the box, we can see inside another XFX logo:

A Closer Look

The nice artwork can be also found on the top of the video card:



In the central part of the heatsink shroud, we can also see a thin red plastic line, which fits perfectly with the rest of the design:



The blower that gets inside the board cold air to cool the heatsinks is also colored red and has attached on it a black sticker with the XFX logo:



The top surface with the artwork is fully covered with a transparent plastic film, to avoid scratches:



On the boards’ lateral, we can see two orifices with red frames, a design preserved from the ATI RADEON OEM cards; these are the intake vents for the blower, which help cooling better the VRM. Here we can also see the 6-pin PCI-Express power connector:



On the other lateral, we can see some more ventilation orifices, which help exhaust hot air in excess along with the embossed ATI RADEON logo:



The back of the PCB has a black matte look; in the center we can see the aluminium heatsink plate which distributes the forces evenly on the printed circuit board, under the GPU:



The memory modules have the H5GQ1H24AFR code name and are made by Hynix. The chips are rated 1.25GHz (5GHz QDR) at 1.5V and we can find them set up in a 8x128MB pattern (4 on top and 4 on the bottom):



On the back of the PCB, we can see more clearly the CrossfireX header:



Also on the back of the PCB, a sticker can be found which tells us which are some of the boards’ interfaces , onboard memory quantity and GPU speed; here we can also see the serial number of the card:



The board backplate does have a pair of DVI connectors, along with a single HDMI and a DisplayPort connector:

Test Setup

Stefan's Test Setup
CPU	Core i7 920 @ 3.2Ghz
Cooling	Stock
Mainboard	Asrock X58 Extreme
Memory	G.Skill F3-12800CL8T-6GBPI PI Series
VGA	AXLE GeForce 210 512MB DDR2 Gainward Geforce GTS 250 Deep Green Gainward Geforce GT240 Inno3D Geforce GT240 Sparkle Geforce GTS 250 LP ATI Radeon HD 4550 ATI Radeon HD 4890
Other	Power Supply : Antec True Power New 750W HDD : Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200.10

With the help of the GPU-Z 0.4.2 utility, we can extract lots of information regarding the video card clocks,memory type, pixel and texture fill rate and so on:



I have used the Everest Ultimate Edition utility to find out the ATI PowerPlay pre-defined clocks and some more information regarding the GPU Code name, Part Number or BIOS Version:



With the same utility, we can find in-depth information regarding the GPGPU capabilities:



Temperature Test

To find out the IDLE and maximum temperatures, I have used the Furmark utility, with the Stability Test in “Xtreme Burning mode” and let it run for about 15 minutes. To record the temperatures, the GPU-Z utility was used, thanks to its Sensors monitoring tab. The recorded room temperature at the time of testing was 24.1 degrees Celsius:

IDLE



Full Load

Synthetic Benchmarks

3DMark 2001



In 3DMark 2001, the card produces good scores and it even outperforms the RADEON HD 4890.

3DMark 2003



In 3DMark 2003, 5770 manages to outperform the rest of the video cards, except the single-GPU flagship from the previous generation, the RADEON HD 4890.

3DMark 2005



In 3DMark 2005, the RADEON HD 5770 wins again over the GTS 250 and GT 240 model, but fails to win over the 4890.

3DMark 2006



In 3DMark 2006, we can see the 5770 close to the 4890 in the tests without AA, but with 4xAA, the difference gets bigger, because of the shrinked memory bus.

3DMark Vantage



3DMark Vantage is another benchmark where we can see the 5770 and 4890 very close, in both Performance and Extreme modes.

*The Vantage scores were calculated by summing up the GPU and CPU subscores

Here are the Vantage subscores separately:

Subscore



Unigine Heaven



In Unigine Heaven DirectX10, the 5770 is close to the 4890 in most of the tests, but it does not succeed to surpass it.

Games Benchmarks

World in Conflict



In World in Conflict, we can see playable FPS in all the performed tests, compared to the GTS250 and GT 240 cards, where we can barely say the term "playable" at 1920x1200.

Devil May Cry 4



In Devil May Cry 4, DirectX10 version, most of the cards succeeded to provide good FPS count and the least frames per second for the 5770 can be found at the Scene 4, with the 1600x1200 screen resolution.

Street Fighter 4



In Street Fighter 4, we can see the effect of the shrunk bus even better, when enabling 4xAA. The drop in FPS is very noticeable, but the game remains playable at all resolutions

Crysis



Crysis, a game which needs high FPS because it is an intense action game, seems more suitable to be ran with the 4890 rather than 5770. The card did not succeed to produce good FPS in the Very High tests.

Left 4 Dead 1



In Left 4 Dead, the first part, 5770 provided good FPS in all the tests, but is a noticeable difference between it and the RADEON HD 4890.

Unreal Tournament 3



Unreal Tournament 3 is another game where the RADEON HD 5770 performed flawlessly; this is another game where we can see a big difference in FPS between it and the RADEON HD 4890.

H.A.W.X.



In H.A.W.X., the 5770 performed very close to the 4890, but at low resolutions, it got beaten by the GTS250 Deep Green from Gainward.

Resident Evil 5



In Resident Evil 5, the 5770 went head to head with the 4890 and left in the dust the other Nvidia video cards.

Stalker: Call of Pripyat



Stalker: Call of Pripyat is a very graphic intensive game and seemed to produce a lot of problems to the cards when running the fourth test, at the maximum resolution, 1920x1200.

Call of Juarez



Call of Juarez, even if it is an older game, it still seems to make difficulties for the new released cards;at the highest resolution, with 4xAA, the 5770 succeeded to produce only 35.5FPS.

Far Cry 2



In Far Cry 2, the 5770 had about 40FPS at the highest resolution with 4xAA, a test where the GT240 cards failed to produce playable framerates.

DirectX11 Benchmarks

Since this the first DX11 capable VGA card tested on my test bench, no comparison cards here yet; but enough resolutions/quality settings to see where the sweet spot is for the HD 5770.

Unigine Heaven V1 DX11[tesselation]



In the Unigine Heaven V1, DirectX11 mode was enabled, along with the Tesselation. The FPS count is really low when AA is activated.

Unigine Heaven V2 DX11[normal tesselation]



The Unigine Heaven benchmark, version 2, features more 3D models and Tesselation compared to the older V1. When AA was enabled, we can see a quite high drop in FPS for the 5770 video card.

Stalker: Call of Pripyat DX11 Tesselation



In Stalker: Call of Pripyat, the Ultra Mode with DirectX11 was enabled, along with the Tesselation. Test 4, Sunshafts seemed to be the most stressing one this time too, for the 5770 card.

Colin McRae Dirt 2 DX11



Colin McRae Dirt 2, ran in DirectX11 mode with Tesselation enabled and all other details on high, seemed playable at all resolutions, with and without filtering on the RADEON HD 5770 video card.

Conclusive thoughts

From the outside package to the card itself, XFX did a good job by including only high quality materials; this gives most potential buyers a very good overall product image. Even without opening the box, we can find al lot of information from outside and the package is sealed on both sides, to ensure that no one messes with the inside contents, before it is being bought.



The bundle is rich and contains enough documentation so any user, regardless of their computer hardware experience, can install the card and drivers without problems in their system and start gaming right away. The version of the card I have received for testing is the AvP version, so it contains the serial # to be able to play the full version of Aliens vs Predator, one of the most recent DirectX11 games on the market.

The card preserves most of the external design from the ATI Radeon HD 5850,5870. The cooling is efficient enough as seen from the stress test performed with Furmark and at max load the fan was rotating at only 53%. In IDLE mode, the card is inaudible.

In most performed tests, the card passed without problems at all; compared to the RADEON HD 4890, when enabling Antialiasing, the card had a much bigger performance hit, because of the 128-bit memory bus.

With the tessellation effect that this video card supports successfully, we get lots of extra details in the newest games. I was disappointed, though, to see a very low number of games and benchmarks available till now on DirectX11.(most reviewers that have tested the Radeon 5*** video cards last year thought that beginning with 2010, we will have plenty of DirectX 11 games out to test on; seems they were wrong because the number of games is still very little and the amount of games that have in-game benchmark modules is even less).

The XFX Radeon 5770 is one of the most attractively priced video cards in the price range of €110-150. No other new video card matches its performance and feature set. If you can find a second hand Radeon HD 4870 or HD 4890 you can get equal or better performance with older titles; it’s an alternative, but you won’t get support for the latest DX11 games or fancy Eyefinity technology.

XFX Radeon HD 5770 recommended for



I would like to thank XFX Europe for making this review possible of the RADEON HD 5770.