ATI Radeon HD5670
Introduction
Published: 14th January 2010 | Source: ATI | Price: $99 / £60 rrp |
There are many inexorable truths about graphics cards. The first is that they are the upgrade most people desire, and the main bulk of the purchase price when considering a new system.
Secondly, whilst most of us who are technophiles desire the absolute latest and greatest, generally we've got a slightly older card either because we were early adopters and can't justify the expense twice, or because we wait until something that is still a great card comes down to a more reasonable level.
Finally, and this is the important part, for every person who has Crossfire 5870s, there are at least a dozen people who've got a lesser card, and quite a few who haven't got a clue what card they have. Anyone who's spent even a small amount of time on the forums of a recently released title will know how many "can my £300 PC run this" questions there are.
ATI are only too aware that the majority of users are in the mainstream segment and haven't necessarily got the thick end of £500 to spend of graphics and it's to these users who require a performance boost without having to sell their grandmother than today's review card is aimed at.
Thankfully gamers aren't the only people who desire graphics cards. One of the most popular uses for PCs is as part of a home theatre system and once you look at graphics solutions and pricing from that angle it very swiftly makes a lot more sense to go budget.
After all, most modern cards can cope with HD output and so rather than consider something as a poor gaming card, consider it as an HTPC card and that any gaming abilities are cherries on a very nice cake.
As a HTPC solution a card needs to be good value, powerful enough to cope with high bit rate media, and most of all quieter than a church mouse in slippers.
Does the ATI Radeon HD5670 fit these criteria? Let's have a look at the specifications.
Most Recent Comments
I can get 4850 for $120USD or the 5750 for $160USD, but the 5670 seems like a good deal for $99USD.Quote
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It's performed very much as expected although I can't help but feel that the frame rate drop with Anti Aliasing is slightly abnormal, even for a graphics card of it's calibre. We'll see what future driver releases bring to the table.
A RRP is not bargain of the centure but is sensible when compared against the £105-130 pricetag for the HD 5750/5770. Aside being used as a graphics card for a machine for games, it's low power consumption/noise could make it an ideal HTPC or Workstation graphics card. Like it's bigger brothers it still seems to support up to three monitors and so it wins from a productivity perspective as well.
Edit - Retailers have posted their HD 5670's from around £70 upwards
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18102060
Froogle indicates similar pricing from smaller retailers. Disappointing.
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