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The ATi Radeon HD 5770 (test) was the first mid-range graphics card with DirectX 11 support. With a price of 140 euros, a new GPU in the 40 nm process and one GByte of GDDR5 memory, it offered a lot, but couldn’t match the price-performance ratio of some other graphics cards.
RV840 with 40 nm and DirectX 11
For the ATi Radeon HD 5770, AMD used the RV840 GPU, which, like its bigger brother RV870, was manufactured at TSMC using the 40 nm process. However, with around 1.04 billion transistors, the chip was about half as powerful as the RV870 with 2.15 billion transistors. The architecture of the two GPUs was virtually identical, but the small model had a reduced number of shader units, ROPs, etc. Compared to the next larger model, the Radeon HD 5850, the GPU clock was slightly higher at 850 MHz instead of 725 MHz. However, the theoretical computing power was only 65 percent of that of the HD 5850. The memory bandwidth was also significantly lower at 76,800 MB/s instead of 128,000 MB/s due to the bus being reduced to 128 bits. Compared to the Radeon HD 4870 of the previous generation, the theoretical computing power increased slightly, but the memory bandwidth dropped massively.
The Radeon HD 5770 relied on a dual-slot cooler, which, apart from the slightly shorter length, was visually identical to that of the Radeon HD 5850 and 5870. A 65 mm radial fan led the waste heat out of the housing via the aluminum fins. In addition to the PCIe slot, a 6-pin PCIe connector provided the power supply to ensure a total output of 106 watts. With a price of around 140 euros, the Radeon HD 5770 was the same price as the Radeon HD 4890 and around 90 euros cheaper than the Radeon HD 5850. Nvidia’s direct competitor was the GeForce GTX 260 for 130 euros.
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PowerColor Radeon HD 5770
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Acceptable performance in midfield
In terms of performance, the Radeon HD 5770 placed in the middle of the field. On average, it was between three and nine percent behind the last generation Radeon HD 4870, which was also cheaper at 115 euros. The Radeon HD 5850 lacked around 31 to 35 percent performance.
AMD made a mistake when it came to the volume: When idle, the Radeon HD 5770 was not loud per se at 46.5 dB(A), but it was anything but quiet. However, the sound pressure level under load was good at 51.5 dB(A). The GPU temperature was very good both at idle and under load, theoretically leaving room for lower fan speeds. When it comes to power consumption, the Radeon HD 5770 showed itself at its best and left no room for criticism. Anyone who bought a Radeon HD 5770 hoping for additional performance through overclocking would be disappointed. The already relatively high clock speeds could only be increased slightly in the test, which ultimately resulted in around eight percent more performance.
Conclusion
Overall, the conclusion to the Radeon HD 5770 was a little more mixed than the larger Radeon HD 5850 and 5870 models. The performance wasn’t outstanding for the price; there were cheaper graphics cards with more performance from both the company and Nvidia. In addition, the volume was clearly too high when idling, especially considering the low temperatures. This left the main criterion for the Radeon HD 5770 as DirectX 11 support, which neither the cheaper and faster GeForce GTX 260 and Radeon HD 4870 offered.
In the “In the test 15 years ago” category, the editorial team has been taking a look at the test archive every Saturday since July 2017. We list the last 20 articles that appeared in this series below:
Even more content of this kind and many other reports and anecdotes can be found in the Retro corner in the ComputerBase forum.
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