Widescreen Gaming Forum

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 and Enthusiast segments. This review will cover the Performance segment. In my review of the Enthusiast segment, I found that both the 5850 and the 5830 were more than adequate for widescreen users and provided a solid Eyefinity experience (assuming you went in with appropriate expectations).

As we take a step down further into the Performance segment, we will determine if the 5700 series is truly a "performer" for widescreen and Eyefinity users. As before, we will bookend the benchmark data with the low end of the Enthusiast market, and the high end of the Mainstream market.

Architecture & Specs

The main differentiator within the Ultra Enthusiast segment is clock speed (per GPU). The 5870, Eyefinity6 and 5970 all carry the same number of shaders (per GPU). The Enthusiast segment has variances in clock speed, but also begins reducing the number of Unified Shaders on the GPU.

Below is a spec block with comparing outlining the 5830 through the 5670:




Based on the stat block you can see the variation within the 5700 family. The number of shaders steadily decrease, however there is a "saw tooth" stepping of the memory and clock speeds. The 5770 carries higher clocks than the 5830. On the other hand, the core clock speed of the 5750 is lower than both of the 5830 and the 5770, and the memory clock falls between the two.

Notes

The ATI Radeon HD 5670 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. All other cards in this review contained 1GB of RAM.