ATI Radeon 5670, 5550 & 5450 Review
ATI divides its products into segments based on price, power requirements and performance. The complete breakdown is as follows:
- Ultra Enthusiast: 5970, Eyefinity 6 and CrossFireX
- Enthusiast: 5870, 5850, 5830
- Performance: 5770, 5750
- Mainstream: 5670, 5550, 5450
To date we have benchmarked and reviewed the products in the Ultra Enthusiast, Enthusiast and Performance segments. This review will cover the Mainstream segment. In my review of the Performance segment, I found that the 5770 was a solid widescreen performer and offered users an opportunity to experience Eyefinity without a big investment in GPU or PSU.
As we take the last step into the Mainstream segment, we do not expect them to be capable Eyefinity solutions. Although ATI markets the Eyefinity capabilities, it simply isn't reasonable expectation considering the performance of the 5770 and the feature gap between the 5770 and these cards.
Architecture & Specs
The Mainstream segment has significantly smaller feature sets, Shaders, transistor counts and power draws. None of the cards in the Mainstream segment require additional power from the PSU.
Below is a spec block with comparing outlining the 5750 through the 5450.
| Card | GPUs | Transistors | Max Memory | Shaders | Clock (MHz) | TDP (Watts) | MSRP* | ||
| Core | Mem | Idle | Max | ||||||
| ATI Radeon HD 5750 | 1 | 1.04B | 1GB | 720 | 700 | 1150 | 16 | 86 | $134 |
| ATI Radeon HD 5670 | 1 | 627M | 1GB | 400 | 775 | 1000 | 14 | 61 | $109 |
| ATI Radeon HD 5550 | 1 | 627M | 1GB | 320 | 550 | 800 | 9 | 40 | $74 |
| ATI Radeon HD 5450 | 1 | 292M | 1GB | 80 | 650 | 800 | 6.4 | 19 | $54 |
| As these cards have been on the market some time, price is based on current average | |||||||||
Based on the stat block you can see the variation within the Mainstream family. Each step down reduces the number of Unified Shaders, and has a reduced clock speed.
Note
The ATI Radeon HD Mainstream cards I tested were only equipped with 512MB of RAM. Cards are available with 512MB or 1GB of RAM.
ATI Radeon 5670, 5550 & 5450 Review - Benchmarking
Setup & Installation
The HD 5670 contains the following connections - 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort and 1x DVI. The 5550 and 5450 each have 1x HDMI, 1xDVI and 1x VGA. As such, the lack of a DisplayPort connection prevented me from testing Eyefinity on the 5550 and 5450.
Configuration of the Eyefinity group within the Catalyst Control Center works as previously outlined. Bezel Compensation continues to work in the same manner. Both of these features are software based, and not dependent on the individual card.
I did find that the monitor hooked to the HMDI connection always scaled the image and wrapped it in a black border. This may be a function of the HDMI connection assumed to be an HDTV and dealing with overscan. Bottom line is that I wouldn't recommend HDMI as a connection for an Eyefinity setup.
System Specs
For all 16:10 benchmarks I used my existing three Dell U2410 monitors. For the 16:9 benchmarks, I used Dell P2210H monitors provided by ATI. The 10.3 preview driver was used on all cards.
My testing rig remains unchanged (except for driver updates and monitor configurations). It currently stands at:
- Windows 7
- EVGA X58 Tri-SLI Motherboard
- Intel i7 920 at 4x2.67GHz
- 12GB G.Skill DDR3 RAM
- 2x Samsung 320GB T-Series HDD (one for the OS and games; one for swap file and FRAPS)
- LG Super Multi Blu (HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Player)
- Onboard audio
- Corsair HX1000
- Antec Skeleton
- Logitch K340 Keyboard & Performance MX Mouse
- Ergotech Heavy Duty Triple Desk Stand
Note: The ATI Radeon Mainstream cards I tested was only equipped with 512MB of RAM. ATI sent this card out to reviewers so that they could show performance on a sub-$100 card. The cards are available with 1GB of RAM.
Resolutions Tested
I initially tested at 1920x1200 and 1680x1050, along with the respective 3x1-L iterations of 5760x1200 and 5040x1050. These are the most common resolutions for single screen and Eyefinity.
Setups based on 1920x1080 or 1600x900 panels are becoming popular as well. In my review of the HD 5870 Eyefinity6, I looked at any performance difference between 16:10 and 16:9 screens. The differences were minimal, if any.
Games Tested
I wanted to choose games that covered a variety of genres (action, FRP, RTS and racing), and a variety of technologies (DX9, 10 and 11). Some games are older and well known titles such as Half-Life 2 and Far Cry 2. Half-Life 2 chews through video cards at lower resolutions and even 3x1-L, but how does it scale to five and six monitors? Far Cry 2 is still tough on systems (at Ultra settings). Will it even be playable at these new configurations. I also wanted to test games that were new and demanding, so that we can begin "aging" them over time. I chose titles such as Battle Forge and the new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. demo for these reasons.
I chose games that had a built-in benchmark tool. This allows for repeatability and a relative "hands off" testing. Finally, all games must exhibit Hor+ behavior in widescreen and Eyefinity. The games I ended up testing were:
- Batman: Arkham Asylum
- Battle Forge
- DiRT 2
- Far Cry 2 (including full comparison of 1GB vs. 2GB)
- Grand Theft Auto IV
- H.A.W.X.
- Heaven Benchmark v1
- Half-Life 2: Episode 2 & Lost Coast
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat Benchmark Tool
Hitting 60
In each game, I attempted to find settings that would allow me to hit 60fps at 1920x1200. In some instances this was simply not achievable (as was the case in some games on the HD 5870 and Eyefinity6 cards), and I tried to find settings that would reach 30fps.
ATI Radeon 5670, 5550 & 5450 Review - Batman: Arkham Asylum
Batman: Arkham Asylum is the well received action title by Rocksteady. The game offers very detailed environments with a great visual style and high quality. There are known issues with AA using ATI cards. You cannot set the AA level from within the game, and have to force it with the Catalyst Control panel. All settings within the game were maxed out. I used 4xAA with Adaptive Multi-Sampling (the balance between Quality and Performance) from within the CCC.
The AA implementation produces a greater than expected impact on the performance. I know there are ways to tweak the game to use the AA from within the game itself. However, I believe finding the information and implementing it is beyond the average gamer. While an enthusiast (i.e., target market of both the WSGF and this card) might go through the trouble, many mainstream gamers will not. My testing actually ran all the way down through the Radeon HD 5450, and using the "native" options provided the most consistent platform for testing.
The HD 5670 almost cracks 30fps at 1680x1050. However, the game turns into a slideshow at Eyefinity. The 5670 and 5550 perform closely at normal widescreen. The difference between the 5670 and the 5750 is readily evident.
Batman:AA (pun actually not intended) is a unique title. It is made well, and plays well, but technical issues can really hamper performance. The impacts are so great that 5760x1200 is simply unplayable with any card.
Hitting 60fps
1920x1200: 2xAA - 37fps, 0xAA - 58fps
1680x1050: 2xAA - 46fps, 0xAA - 73fps
ATI Radeon 5670, 5550 & 5450 Review - Battle Forge
Battle Forge is the free-to-play RTS from Electronic Arts. It offers a steampunk/fantasy RTS experience, where armies are build based on "decks" of cards similar to the Magic: The Gathering card game.
Battle Forge is one of ATI's spotlight (my terminology) games for the HD 5000 series cards, as it offers both DX11 and proper Eyefinity support. The game offers a number of DX11 features, and a wealth of options for tuning performance. Specifically, Battle Forge uses DX11 and Shader Model 5.0 to compute HighDefinition Ambient Occlusion (HDAO). For our tests we maxed out all of the settings and forced DX11 through the config.xml file.
The test is actually quite strenuous with the number of objects, effects and particles on the screen at one time. There is a noticeable performance increase as you scale across the cards, and then trend actually continues all the way across a pair of Eyefinity6 cards in CrossFireX.
The 5670 and 5550 both offer fairly linear scaling in widescreen. The benchmark won't run on any of the Mainstream cards in Eyefinity. The 5450 only runs at 1680x1050, and then it's a slideshow.
Hitting 60fps
Turn everything down to Medium. Turn off SSAO. Turn off Cloud Shadows. Set 2xAA.
1920x1200 - 31fps
1680x1050 - 37fps
Turn everything down to Low, except Shadow Quality at Medium. Turn off SSAO. Turn off Cloud Shadows and Glow.
1920x1200 - 58fps
1680x1050 - 64fps
ATI Radeon 5670, 5550 & 5450 Review - DiRT 2
Dirt 2 is the latest iteration of the Dirt rally racing series from Codemasters. Like Battle Forge, Dirt 2 is a spotlight game for ATI with the HD 5000 series. Like Battle Forge it offers proper Hor+ gameplay in Eyefinity and DX11 support. Unless the user goes into the "hardware_settings_config.xml" file and forces DX9, Dirt 2 runs in DX11 mode. Unfortunately Dirt 2 does not offer a DX10 mode. This is unfortunate, as many games show improved performance when running in DX10 vs. DX9.
The true (noticeable) DX11 features come in to play based on the user settings in the in-game graphics options. Several key features are the "Hardware Tessellated Dynamic Water" (achieved through "Ultra" quality water), "Hardware Tessellated Dynamic Cloth" (achieved through "High" quality cloth), and DX11 Accelerated HDAO (through "High" quality HDAO).
The DX11 water and cloth offer more realistic geometry and movement. The DX11 water produces actual waves in deep puddles (as the player drives through), rather than simple "swirls" in the texture surface. The DX11 cloth offers more realistic ripples and waves in the cloth material over the DX9 version. On the other hand, the DX11 HD Ambient Occlusion (HDAO) offers an accelerated computation path.
DX11 doesn't necessarily provide earth-shaking changes to gameplay. But, it provides more realistic "movement" in the world's objects - cloth, water, grass, etc. While a DX9 or DX10 game is perfectly enjoyable, the DX11 technology offers better immersion by making the "little things" more lifelike. Additionally, it offers better computation paths through increased parallelism (and better computation paths for DX10), much like DX10 offered better performance (over DX9) in games such as Far Cry 2.
The 5750 provides a clear performance benefit over the Mainstream cards, with the 5450 barely able to run the benchmark. The 5550 does run the benchmark in Eyefinity, but it is painfully slow.
Hitting 60fps
Everything from Ultra to High, down to 2xAA. Post Process & Veh Reflections to Med
1920x1200 - 30fps
1680x1050 - 34fps
Everything to Low
1920x1200 - 57fps
1680x1050 - 61fps
ATI Radeon 5670, 5550 & 5450 Review - Far Cry 2
Far Cry 2 (and the whole Cry/Crysis series) has long been considered a system killer. If not a killer, then at least a good strong test. As always, we run our test at max settings with 4xAA. The benchmark tool within Far Cry 2 offers settings for High, Very High and Ultra. We chose Ultra with 4xAA.
While once a true system killer, Far Cry 2 shows that hardware catches up to software. Even a sub-$200 card provides an easily playable experience.
The 5670 hits 30fps at 1680x1050 and right under it at 1920x1200 - at max settings. The 5550 averages 20fps. The 5450 will run the benchmark, but barely. The 5670 will run the benchmark in Eyefinity, but at a very low framerate.
Hitting 60fps
Far Cry hits 30fps at max settings. A variety of quality and AA settings will give the user 60fps in widescreen.
ATI Radeon 5670, 5550 & 5450 Review - Grand Theft Auto IV
I initially chose GTA IV based on the fact that it had a built-in benchmark tool, and based on the fact that it was considered a system killer at max settings. Realistically, I don't believe the GTA IV benchmark tool offers a good representation of the actual gameplay experience. The benchmark is very much a "corridor" run on a dense city street, while the game itself is open world and many locations offer variety architecture and/or a distant horizon. Additionally, the benchmark is set during a nighttime setting. While this is potentially good for showing off the game's neon lighting effects, it offers no sun, clouds, atmospheric coloring, lens flare or texture variety in the sky.
Additionally, I found that the game hit a CPU limit of 45/46fps at 1680x1050 on a Radeon HD 5830 - not exactly cutting edge hardware. The one benefit of the game is that the graphics option screen offers a reading of your system VRAM and calculates how much is needed based on your selections. By default it won't let you go over the limit of your video card.
With a couple of command line switches, the game allows you to max everything out well and beyond what your system is "capable of." Down side it that overloading the video card seems to have little effect. I'm not certain if the non-existent limit is due to the horsepower of the Radeon 5000 series, or limitations of the benchmark tool.
The only time I found the limit to be an actual impediment is when I tried to max out the settings on a the Radeon 56/44/54xx series with 512MB of RAM. At that low of a framebuffer, the benchmark wouldn't load. Otherwise, I could overload the 1GB VRAM all I wanted, and the game performed reasonably well. Considering the issue of overloading the VRAM, the addition of the second GB of VRAM didn't effect performance.
Hitting 60fps
You can hit 30fps with everything set to medium. Performance never moves about that mark.
ATI Radeon 5670, 5550 & 5450 Review - H.A.W.X.
H.A.W.X. is one last title that ATI has been showing off with regards to its Radeon 5000 line. While the other titles are Hor+ and offer cutting-edge DX11 features, HAWX is quite the opposite. While it is a Hor+ title, it is only a DX10 title and runs quite well on a wide variety of hardware. While you can't hit 60fps on a 5700 or 5600 card with any great detail, 30fps is rather easily attainable.
The well running and scalable title makes it a natural fit when showcasing both lower-end hardware pushing three panels, and high-end hardware pushing six panels. It also comes as no surprise that the additional VRAM largely goes unused, considering the title runs capably on lower hardware.
One note in the HAWX benchmark. Above 1920x1200 the game simply would not allow 4xAA. While the scores provide that the title could handle it, the option simply is not available. Though it isn't our norm, we chose to accept 2xAA so that we could get consistent readings across the spectrum of hardware.
HAWX produces a clean stair step in widescreen. The 5670 breaks 30fps in widescreen at max settings. With a few adjustments the card will hit 60fps.
Hitting 60fps
Turn down DX10 items to Low. Leaves 2xAA and all "Advanced" items to High or On.
1920x1200 - 59
1680x1050 - 69
ATI Radeon 5670, 5550 & 5450 Review - Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2 is the classic first person shooter. It is a DX9 title. At this point DX9 doesn't really tax graphics hardware with any of its "features," and any benchmarking comes down to a pushing raw pixels. Half-Life 2 does not like the extra video RAM provided by 2GB cards, and does not like the Eyefinity6 in CFX.
The Source Engine is no match for even the Mainstream series. Widescreen resolutions produce results in excess of 60fps on the 5670, and average 30fps in Eyefinity. Again these were all at max settings. Even the 5550 averages 60fps between the widescreen tests.
Given the DX9 nature of the title, the Episode 2 iteration of the Source engine is not shader-dependant. If you are a fan of games based on the Source engine (HL2, Team Fortress 2, and the Left4Dead series), the 5670 and 5550 both provide excellent performance for a single widescreen.
Hitting 60fps
Widescreen - Both cards hit the 60fps goal in widescreen.
Eyefinity - The 5670 averages 30fps in Eyefinity across the two tests.
ATI Radeon 5670, 5550 & 5450 Review - Heaven Demo
The Unigine Heaven Demo is unique in that it is the only demo which allows for the following components in one package.
- Synthetic Demo (i.e., a demo designed to "test" a system)
- Comparable tests of DX9, DX10 and DX11
- Is Hor+ (rather than limited to a few predefined aspect ratios)
The ability to compare DX9, DX10 and DX11 in the same environment allows for the unique ability to see how the different cards perform across these different comparable environments.
The benchmark will not run near 30fps in widescreen at max settings. The tool barely runs in Eyefinity on the 5670.
Hitting 60fps
Even with significantly reduced settings, the benchmark will not reach 30fps. Only the DX9 variation comes close at low single-screen resolutions.
ATI Radeon 5670, 5550 & 5450 Review - Heaven Demo DX9
The Unigine Heaven Demo is unique in that it is the only demo which allows for the following components in one package.
- Synthetic Demo (i.e., a demo designed to "test" a system)
- Comparable tests of DX9, DX10 and DX11
- Is Hor+ (rather than limited to a few predefined aspect ratios)
The ability to compare DX9, DX10 and DX11 in the same environment allows for the unique ability to see how the different cards perform across these different comparable environments.
The benchmark will not run near 30fps in widescreen at max settings. The tool barely runs in Eyefinity on the 5670.
Hitting 60fps
Even with significantly reduced settings, the benchmark will not reach 30fps. Only the DX9 variation comes close at low single-screen resolutions.
ATI Radeon 5670, 5550 & 5450 Review - Heaven Demo DX10
The Unigine Heaven Demo is unique in that it is the only demo which allows for the following components in one package.
- Synthetic Demo (i.e., a demo designed to "test" a system)
- Comparable tests of DX9, DX10 and DX11
- Is Hor+ (rather than limited to a few predefined aspect ratios)
The ability to compare DX9, DX10 and DX11 in the same environment allows for the unique ability to see how the different cards perform across these different comparable environments.
The benchmark will not run near 30fps in widescreen at max settings. The tool barely runs in Eyefinity on the 5670.
Hitting 60fps
Even with significantly reduced settings, the benchmark will not reach 30fps. Only the DX9 variation comes close at low single-screen resolutions.
ATI Radeon 5670, 5550 & 5450 Review - Heaven Demo DX11
The Unigine Heaven Demo is unique in that it is the only demo which allows for the following components in one package.
- Synthetic Demo (i.e., a demo designed to "test" a system)
- Comparable tests of DX9, DX10 and DX11
- Is Hor+ (rather than limited to a few predefined aspect ratios)
The ability to compare DX9, DX10 and DX11 in the same environment allows for the unique ability to see how the different cards perform across these different comparable environments.
The benchmark will not run near 30fps in widescreen at max settings. The tool barely runs in Eyefinity on the 5670.
Hitting 60fps
Even with significantly reduced settings, the benchmark will not reach 30fps. Only the DX9 variation comes close at low single-screen resolutions.
ATI Radeon 5770 & 5750 Review - S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Call of Pripyat is the new Crysis.
Prior to the game's release, the developer put out a benchmarking tool to test your system configuration. It offers a number of different options for utilizing DX9, 10 or 11 code paths. It also offers options for varying levels of HDAO and Shadow Quality. The demo itself isn't very pretty to look at (lots of dirt and dirt-colors), but it does put a beating on your system.
Though the 5770 and 5750 perform admirably in widescreen resolutions, they cannot even run S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in Eyefinity. This should come as no surprise, as even the Eyefinity6 in CrossFireX never hit 30fps at 5760x1200. Like the Heaven demo, the CoP demo is intended to tax your system. Both of these are strong examples of how much more data is being pushed through an Eyefinity setup.
Hitting 60fps
It is not possible to hit 60fps with STALKER. I could hit 30fps with these settings: Medium, DX10, HDAO Low, Tessellation Off
1920x1200: 33, 33, 35, 22
1680x1050: 38, 39, 42, 26
ATI Radeon 5770 & 5750 Review - S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (Daylight)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Call of Pripyat is the new Crysis.
Prior to the game's release, the developer put out a benchmarking tool to test your system configuration. It offers a number of different options for utilizing DX9, 10 or 11 code paths. It also offers options for varying levels of HDAO and Shadow Quality. The demo itself isn't very pretty to look at (lots of dirt and dirt-colors), but it does put a beating on your system.
Though the 5770 and 5750 perform admirably in widescreen resolutions, they cannot even run S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in Eyefinity. This should come as no surprise, as even the Eyefinity6 in CrossFireX never hit 30fps at 5760x1200. Like the Heaven demo, the CoP demo is intended to tax your system. Both of these are strong examples of how much more data is being pushed through an Eyefinity setup.
Hitting 60fps
It is not possible to hit 60fps with STALKER. I could hit 30fps with these settings: Medium, DX10, HDAO Low, Tessellation Off
1920x1200: 33, 33, 35, 22
1680x1050: 38, 39, 42, 26
ATI Radeon 5770 & 5750 Review - S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (Night)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Call of Pripyat is the new Crysis.
Prior to the game's release, the developer put out a benchmarking tool to test your system configuration. It offers a number of different options for utilizing DX9, 10 or 11 code paths. It also offers options for varying levels of HDAO and Shadow Quality. The demo itself isn't very pretty to look at (lots of dirt and dirt-colors), but it does put a beating on your system.
Though the 5770 and 5750 perform admirably in widescreen resolutions, they cannot even run S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in Eyefinity. This should come as no surprise, as even the Eyefinity6 in CrossFireX never hit 30fps at 5760x1200. Like the Heaven demo, the CoP demo is intended to tax your system. Both of these are strong examples of how much more data is being pushed through an Eyefinity setup.
Hitting 60fps
It is not possible to hit 60fps with STALKER. I could hit 30fps with these settings: Medium, DX10, HDAO Low, Tessellation Off
1920x1200: 33, 33, 35, 22
1680x1050: 38, 39, 42, 26
ATI Radeon 5770 & 5750 Review - S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (Rain)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Call of Pripyat is the new Crysis.
Prior to the game's release, the developer put out a benchmarking tool to test your system configuration. It offers a number of different options for utilizing DX9, 10 or 11 code paths. It also offers options for varying levels of HDAO and Shadow Quality. The demo itself isn't very pretty to look at (lots of dirt and dirt-colors), but it does put a beating on your system.
Though the 5770 and 5750 perform admirably in widescreen resolutions, they cannot even run S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in Eyefinity. This should come as no surprise, as even the Eyefinity6 in CrossFireX never hit 30fps at 5760x1200. Like the Heaven demo, the CoP demo is intended to tax your system. Both of these are strong examples of how much more data is being pushed through an Eyefinity setup.
Hitting 60fps
It is not possible to hit 60fps with STALKER. I could hit 30fps with these settings: Medium, DX10, HDAO Low, Tessellation Off
1920x1200: 33, 33, 35, 22
1680x1050: 38, 39, 42, 26
ATI Radeon 5770 & 5750 Review - S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (Sun Shafts)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Call of Pripyat is the new Crysis.
Prior to the game's release, the developer put out a benchmarking tool to test your system configuration. It offers a number of different options for utilizing DX9, 10 or 11 code paths. It also offers options for varying levels of HDAO and Shadow Quality. The demo itself isn't very pretty to look at (lots of dirt and dirt-colors), but it does put a beating on your system.
Though the 5770 and 5750 perform admirably in widescreen resolutions, they cannot even run S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in Eyefinity. This should come as no surprise, as even the Eyefinity6 in CrossFireX never hit 30fps at 5760x1200. Like the Heaven demo, the CoP demo is intended to tax your system. Both of these are strong examples of how much more data is being pushed through an Eyefinity setup.
Hitting 60fps
It is not possible to hit 60fps with STALKER. I could hit 30fps with these settings: Medium, DX10, HDAO Low, Tessellation Off
1920x1200: 33, 33, 35, 22
1680x1050: 38, 39, 42, 26
ATI Radeon 5670, 5550 & 5450 Review - Hitting 60fps
While our testing is designed to stress the card as much as possible, we all realize that games have quality settings for a reason. So, beyond seeing where the breaking point is for any individual card, I wanted to provide some insight into what image quality you can expect and get 60fps on a single widescreen. These settings are for the HD 5670. Settings for the HD 5550 would need to be lower. The 5450 would only be able to achieve 30fps in a few select games.
Note, it is simply not possible to hit 60fps in some games at this resolution. In those instances we shot for 30fps.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
- 1920x1200: 2xAA - 37fps, 0xAA - 58fps
- 1680x1050: 2xAA - 46fps, 0xAA - 73fps
Battle Forge
Turn everything down to Medium. Turn off SSAO. Turn off Cloud Shadows. Set 2xAA.
- 1920x1200 - 31fps
- 1680x1050 - 37fps
Turn everything down to Low, except Shadow Quality at Medium. Turn off SSAO. Turn off Cloud Shadows and Glow.
- 1920x1200 - 58fps
- 1680x1050 - 64fps
Dirt 2
Everything from Ultra to High, down to 2xAA. Post Process & Veh Reflections to Med
- 1920x1200 - 30fps
- 1680x1050 - 34fps
Everything to Low
- 1920x1200 - 57fps
- 1680x1050 - 61fps
Far Cry 2 - Far Cry hits 30fps at max settings. A variety of quality and AA settings will give the user 60fps.
GTA IV - You can hit 30fps with everything set to Medium. Performance never moves about that mark.
HAWX - Turn down DX10 items to Low. Leaves 2xAA and all "Advanced" items to High or On.
- 1920x1200 - 59
- 1680x1050 - 69
Heaven Demo - Even with significantly reduced settings, the benchmark will not reach 30fps. Only the DX9 variation comes close at low single-screen resolutions.
Half-Life 2
Widescreen - Both cards hit the 60fps goal in widescreen.
Eyefinity - The 5670 averages 30fps in Eyefinity across the two tests.
STALKER - It is not possible to hit 60fps with STALKER. I could hit 30fps with these settings: Medium, DX10, HDAO Low, Tessellation Off
- 1920x1200 - 33, 33, 35, 22
- 1680x1050 - 38, 39, 42, 26
ATI Radeon 5670, 5550 & 5450 Review - Conclusions
The Mainstream segment quickly falls out of real gaming performance. The HD 5670 will handle many games on a single screen, assuming you mainly play older games (which rely less on Shader performance) or willing to make the quality sacrifices in newer games. The 5670 can handle older titles well on a single screen, but can only handle Eyefinity in a few rare instances. Additionally, I had issues with using the HDMI connection for Eyefinity. That screen always had a black border around the image when using Eyefinity. My guess is it's an issue with the image scaling and expected overscan on an HDTV. Whatever the reason, I can't recommend an HDMI connection for Eyefinity.
The 5670 is a hard sell in that for a few more dollars and a single power connection to your PSU, you open up much more performance from the 5700-series. But, if you're on a strict budget and have a lower resolution monitor, the 5670 might do you well. It would also provide superior performance in an HTPC with good ventilation (as long as you don't need a silent GPU).
The 5550 is a much more interesting card, as many vendors are now offering fanless options. The 5550 offers solid performance for a silent GPU. Pairing with an HTPC and a 720p HDTV would be close to perfect. It would even work well on a 1080p set assuming the viewing distance would minimize some of the quality reductions the card would necessitate.
What's Next?
I won't be doing any more testing on the Mainstream cards, but instead will continue to focus on the mid and high-end cards. These are more in line with our readers and their needs
As I wrap up testing on the 5850 and 5770 in CFX, I will be producing charts that compare performance to total price. This will be the backbone of our forthcoming Eyefinity Buyers Guide.
Final Thoughts
If you have any interest in Eyefinity, or game in anything more than a cursory fashion, I would recommend the upgrade to the 5700-series. The one downside of the 5700-series is that it does require a power connection from the PSU. It would be nice to get the 5700-series performance in low-power card. Maybe next generation
The 5550 could provide the backbone for a solid HTPC, considering the fanless options now available. I really can't recommend the 5450 for much of anything. It's gaming performance is poor, and s fanless 5550 provides an HTPC with considerably more power.
The 5670 is in a tough spot. It's not a fanless solution, so it won't fly for the hardcore HTPC crowd. A few more dollars and electrons gets you into the 5700-series. The narrow niche I can think of for the 5670 might me something along the lines of a 2nd PC, Small Form Factor PC, or something for your mother or girlfriend (who possibly plays WOW) that you might use from time-to-time.