Comments on: AMD ATi Radeon HD 5700 Series Preview

By: Mlong128ir

Mlong128ir — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:17:31 +0000

The 58xx were never as good as the 57xx’s even at launch in price/performance when the pricing was less. The 5870 launched at $400, the 5700 at $160. More than double the price, significantly less than double the performance.

By: patheticcockroach

patheticcockroach — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:10:26 +0000

What I meant is, the 58XX got a worse perf/price ratio than the 5700 notably because of the shortage. AFAIK the prices of the 58XXs raised some time after their release. Otherwise it seems that ATI tried to keep a rather constant perf/price ratio on this series, since the 5970 was released @ just twice the price of the 5850, and it’s performing just like 2 CrossFired 5850.

By: Mlong128ir

Mlong128ir — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:55:49 +0000

I don’t think the shortages helped out at all, people who could afford, wanted, and were willing to go for a 58xx card waited for them. People in that bracket know the performance advantages of the 58xx’s and wouldn’t settle for less since their overclocks and benchmarks would depend on it.

By: patheticcockroach

patheticcockroach — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 11:38:18 +0000

Mlong128ir;11340 wrote: I really think the 5770 is the sweet spot this last ATI generation as far as price and performance go.

Yeah that’s the point of the series where perf/price seems best. The shortage on 5850 and 5870 helped that a bit though. Also, the 5870 will give you slightly better perf/watt.

By: Mlong128ir

Mlong128ir — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 11:25:59 +0000

MTA99;11268 wrote: The 5770 is amazing value. About to upgrade/refresh my hardware with a 5770 and Phenom II

I really think the 5770 is the sweet spot this last ATI generation as far as price and performance go. And if it’s not enough, somewhere down the line you can get another one for much less and use them in crossfire to make up the difference for not going with a 5850 or 5870.

By: MTA99

MTA99 — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:50:03 +0000

The 5770 is amazing value. About to upgrade/refresh my hardware with a 5770 and Phenom II

By: patheticcockroach

patheticcockroach — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:28:29 +0000

Burdokva;10580 wrote: Maybe 10.1 has big improvements for the 5xxx series?

Nah, just +3% as per the release note. But if they do that every time this will end up being significant

By: Burdokva

Burdokva — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:24:21 +0000

Even if it’s slightly below the 4870, that’s still very impressive for a firmly mid-level card. I could max out pretty much any game with max AA/AF at my monitor’s native resolution (1280×1024) with that card.

10.1 didn’t bring any improvement for my 4770, but I remember a few months back when I bought it, it shipped with the beta driver (9.5). I can’t remember 9.6, but 9.7 brought a huge improvement in performance. With the beta the card felt sluggish and barely faster then the x1650 I used before, with 9.7 it ripped it apart… Maybe 10.1 has big improvements for the 5xxx series?

By: Mlong128ir

Mlong128ir — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:10:58 +0000

In real world applications though (S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Skies, Crysis (under some settings), Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead) the 4870 beats the 5770 in FPSs based on benchmarks that I’ve seen. Although Catalyst 10.1 may have changed that, I haven’t seen any updated benchmarks since it’s release to see how they now compare. If you take into account power consumption though, the 5770 is better, especially when you consider DX11 on top of that.

By: patheticcockroach

patheticcockroach — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:11:51 +0000

Burdokva;10415 wrote: Otherwise, based in TFlops only, the 5770 is a monster. Better than the 4870

Well, as far as I remember from the benchmarks, the 5770 stands somewhere between the 4870 and the 4890 so yeah, your TFlops approach looks like pretty accurate on this one

By: Burdokva

Burdokva — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 13:45:07 +0000

Well, if you can afford 3 decent LCD monitors for playing games, you should be able to afford a powerful GPU as well. Two 5870s Cross-Fired, for example. A lot of fellow simmers and virtual pilots use such setups and I’m pretty sure Eyefinity boosted ATI sales in that niche, but I don’t like it much (even if I could afford it) – the frame of the monitors look like awful black “bars”, especially in dim lighting condition, like if you’re playing in the evening. It can be very distracting and unpleasant.

A friend has two small, peripheral monitors, but he’s an nVidia fan boy and can only use two at once – even though he would benefit from more working space with Eyefinity – he blatantly refuses to go ATI. Sigh… :p

Sorry for the off-topic. Otherwise, based in TFlops only, the 5770 is a monster. Better than the 4870 and with about one third more bandwidth than my current 4770 (it should be around 960GFlops) – which was the link between the two generations. Impressive, really!

By: patheticcockroach

patheticcockroach — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:01:00 +0000

Skessu;10361 wrote: I got 2 displays so i think Eyefinity would be good for that.

Eyefinity is a GPU killer. If not for playing it will be okay, if for playing a resolution such as 4000×1200 will be harsh on the 5770.

By: Skessu

Skessu — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:02:34 +0000

Good review, much info about that card. I think i would buy 5770 in near future. I got 2 displays so i think Eyefinity would be good for that.

By: sushrukh

sushrukh — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:07:40 +0000

Nice review Andy.

By: navi1995

navi1995 — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:38:39 +0000

You might think that but my parents dont XD