HIS HD 5770 1GB

The HIS HD 5770 1GB card follows the reference design, but of course HIS have their own unique package and extras. This mid-range card aims for the 4870 performance area, but with less power and more features.

Specifications

As I mentioned in the introduction, the HD 5770's Juniper GPU is basically a halved Cypress, so while it supports the same of it's bigger Cypress sibling, it is reduced somewhat. We have a single shader partition with 800 Shaders. 16 ROPs (compared to 32 on the Cypress) and therefore a 128bit bus. We do however get GDDR5 memory, which helps when it comes to the lower 128bit bus, and this memory runs at the same speed as it's 5870 bigger brother. Eyefinity displays are not halved, but reduced from a possible 6 to a possible 5. When you look at it like this you can easily be forgiven for thinking that you are missing out on quite a lot, but to put it into perspective, this is a mid-range part aimed to be the match of the high end 4850-4870 of the previous generation. Also worth mentioning is that the power consumption only reaches 108W (minimal usage is only 18W!) compared to the HD4870's 160W of maximum power consumption and 90W minimal; that's quite a difference, and is going to appeal to those wanting to run in Crossfire.

Another big thing, especially if you're an HTPC user, is that the 5xxx series can do bitstreaming of audio or if you like, you can use the HD audio formats (Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD) found on Blu Ray films with your amp. That's pretty big; previously we had to do without or settle for compromises (lower bitrates) or buy a very expensive sound card capable of HDMI 1.3a audio, but the 5xxx series can do this onboard. As before, you will need the right software (Cyberlink's PowerDVD 9 Ultra is being patched to support it) and hopefully as time goes on, more software will also support this. We now have proper Blu Ray playback for the PC for the masses.

The box for the HIS HD5770, whilst following the usual black and blue theme with box art of the usual style, changes its aspect to that of a vertical design. I like it; the artwork itself is really nice and has the expected HIS information logos adorning the box on the front and all the pertinent information to the rear.

Included with the HIS 5770 card is a DVI-VGA Adapter, two 4 Pin Molex to one 6 pin PCIe adapter, a Crossfire Bridge connector, a DVI to VGA Adapter, a coupon for the DirectX 11 game Dirt 2 (via Steam, out Dec 11th 2009) and the Driver/Software CD and Manual in its own HIS branded pamphlet/folder. I really like the idea of HIS including games via digital distribution; it keeps costs/weight down in the packaging, and it means I'm not stuck with a game gathering dust if I don't want it. I've not looked into Dirt 2 as yet, but if the first game is anything to go by, I'll be making full use of the included coupon.

The HIS HD5770 card itself follows the reference design, with just the sticker on the fan indicating the manufacturer. We have the reference 60's 'Batmobile' styled Pheonix cooling arrangement which gives the card a very similar appearence to the 58xx cards. The 5770 is however a bit shorter at 21.5cm (8.5in). I want to point out that, when I first saw the cooling setup in pictures on the web, I thought it looked quite flimsy, but when you get one in person you can instantly feel and see how solid the shroud actually is. The card feels quite heavy too.

The cooling fan is the same 70mm as found the 58xx series cards, and the HIS HD 5770 1GB it isn't a particularly loud item. Assuming you have good airflow in your case, the noise levels don't change overly much between idle or load. No doubt there will be single slot solutions in the future.

I want to go to the rear of the card right now. If you've not seen this new cooler before on the 58xx series cards, then you should notice that here are 2 red rimmed vents which while not really feeding air to the fan, do help to cool the power components in this area somewhat. However, what I really want you to see is that this is also where the PCIe power connector is and because it's inside the vent, it can make removing the power cable quite tricky (but not impossible).

Along the side of the cooler is a red strip which also has breathing holes and helps to break up the black. Also along the side are the obligatory Crossfire headers. Turning the card over to see the back shows the bare GDDR5 and the cross brace which helps support the cooler. The memory chips are Hynix GDDR5, specified to run at 1250MHz (although this card is running at 1200MHz on the memory). You get a pretty big boost when upping GDDR5 clock frequencies, and it looks like we should at the very least be able to get another 50MHz out of the box.

The IO panel is quite different from previous generations. We have a Dual slot design but rather than using the top slot solely for air vents, we can see that there is one of the two DVI-I ports here. The bottom slot has the other DVI-I port, an HDMI port and also a Display Port ... er ... port. This is just one possible configuration you will see on 5xxx cards but is likely to be the most common for now. As mentioned before, this a fully HDMI 1.3a compliant card.

Testing

Testing the HIS HD 5770 1GB consists of putting it through it's paces in a few games and also seeing how far we can overclock it. For comparison, I'm using an HIS 4870 1GB card and in some tests an MSI 4850 512MB card. The comparison cards sit in the same area for performance, although at the moment of writing, a 4870 1GB can be had for cheaper than the $159 launch price. I would however expect that prices of the 5770 will drop in the near future.

Test Setup: Intel Core 2 Duo 6420 @ 3.00GHz, 4GB of OCZ PC2-6400 Ram @ 900MHz, Asus Blitz Formula, Maxtor Diamondmax 10 7200 250GB HDD, Asetek Waterchill Watercooling, Hyper Type M 730w PSU. All latest drivers as of October 2009 and the OS is Windows 7 RC1.

Software

Left 4 Dead – Recording a custom demo on the No Mercy – Sewers level (outside in the rain), we used FRAPS to record frame rates as we played back the demo on all cards at same settings.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars – ETQW gives us our OpenGL test results as we run through a recorded demo on the Slipgate level. Settings for all cards were the same.

Crysis Warhead – We used the Framebuffer benchmark tool to run through the Ambush demo and recorded the results with FRAPS. Settings for each card were set to highest possible for that card.

Racedriver: GRID – Grid has some very good looking visuals. We used FRAPS as we took a Skyline for a test drive around the Ring. Settings for each card were set to highest possible for that card.

Assassin's Creed – We headed for the nearest tower from the bureau roof in Acre and repeatedly climbed to the top. With 2 leaps of faith and a good look of the city from on high, we once again used FRAPS to record our framerates. Settings for each card were set to highest possible for that card.

Batman: Arkham Asylum - This is a new game to our testing, and we used FRAPS along with the games inbuilt benchmark to gather our scores.

Devil May Cry 4 (Benchmark) – DMC4's benchmark provides a nice way of testing that anyone can do. Results are all from the benchmark itself, and include average framerates as well as 4 graphs for each level tested. Settings for both cards were the same.

Left 4 Dead (DirectX 9)

We used the same settings of 1680x1050, 4xMSAA, 8xAF for both cards in this test, and as you can see they are virtually identicle. The 4870 technically holds a slight edge but this 'edge' isn't detectable in game, even with a frame counter during play. The HIS 5770 1GB is off to a good start it seems.

Enemy Territory Quake Wars (OpenGL)

All three cards were set to maximum settings via the menus in game (but no soft particles), with a resolution of 1680x1050. Once again, 4xMSAA and 8xAF was used. Once again, the numbers are virtually identical for all the cards, although again technically the 4870 has the upper hand.

Racedriver: GRID (DirectX 9)

Racedriver Grid looks great with a good graphics card driving it. All settings were maxed out to Ultra or High (as applicable) along with 8xMSAA and 16xAF at 1680x1050 for both the 4870 and the 5770. For the 4850, we had to drop down to 4xMSAA but to it's credit it still puts in high numbers. In this one game at least, the HIS 4770 has a pretty clear win, although during actual play, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between the 4870 and the 5770.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (DirectX 9)

Batman is a new game to me, and I've actually not got much further than the start, but I wanted to at least show some numbers for this UT3 engine based game. We don't have numbers for the 4850 card, but we do have for both the 4870 and of course the 5770. The benchmark is only around 90 seconds long, so the frames from about the 95 second mark onwards are looking at the results. There is little in the way of graphic control within the game so we set things up within the CCC instead, and got the above scores with 4xMSAA, 16xAF at 1680x1050. Again, the 5770 and 4870 are virtually identical in scores, with the 4870 winning by a nose (hair).

Assassin's Creed (DirectX 10)

All settings for all cards were at maximum with the exception being the 4850's Post FX being reduced from the highest of 3 to 2. The numbers give the 4870 a clearer win here, more so than the other games so far, however once again, the actual gameplay gives you a near identical experience with the HIS 4770. I'd be very happy to play through the game at 1680x1050, everything set to highest, on this 5770 card.

Crysis: Warhead (DirectX 10)

Now this is an interesting test, and it's also the first test that we've come across that I've had to significantly alter settings to match frame rates. The 4850 card had to be set to Gamer level settings. The 4870 happily runs at Enthusiast levels. The 5770 was for the most part at Enthusiast levels but to ensure similar framerates I had to lower the Post Processing to Gamer. The visual impact wasn't too big, but never-the-less it was a drop down from the 4870's levels. Crysis likes to use a lot of memory and a lot of memory bandwidth, so perhaps the 5770's 128bit bus is holding it back slightly (at least in this one game)?

Devil May Cry 4 Benchmark (DirectX 10)

HIS 5770 (above)

HIS 4870 (above)

MSI 4850 (above)

This test follows the general rule of all the testing we have done; the 5770 gives you a similar gaming experience to that of a 4870 card, but the 4870 card does provide slightly higher frame rates. Both the 5770 and the 4870 scored an 'A' while the 4850 fell just short and got a 'B'.

Overclocking

The overclocking went pretty well. Default clocks are 850MHz core and 1200MHz memory. Using the Catalyst Control Center's Overdrive section, we used a combination of Auto Tune (to get a ballpark overclock) and manual tuning (to see if we could get more) to raise the clock speeds. The Core went to a rather impressive 950MHz stable and the memory reached all the way to 1475MHz ... and then the machine locked up. After restarting we backed the memory down and till things stabalised at the 1425MHz point. We got an OK boost in games as well, although there was little difference in the Crysis scores. Left 4 Dead however increased enough that we had enough headroom to increase the graphic settings to maximum and up the AF to 16x.

Temperatures at defaults were very low (at idle the clock speeds are 157MHz/300MHz) with an idle temperature of just 45C. Load temperatures went up to 69C at defaults, 73C overclocked.

Final Words

Ok, I want to first of all make some conclusions without involving prices, as I want to judge the card on it's own merits without current pricing polluting it; we'll get to pricing in a little bit.

The is a good card. We've certainly got plenty of features and the performance is close to that of the HD 4870 series card, and since we are testing with beta drivers, things may improve in the near future. The 128bit bus, unlike the 2xxx series cards, doesn't hold the 5770 back noticeably for it's intended target market but when you consider that this card has the same engine clock as a 4890, and the same memory speed as a 5870, then things are a little muddied in that respect. However, this is GDDR5 memory we on the and it does compensate somewhat for the bus, and appears to have plenty of headroom too. Also in our testing, we've been able to raise the graphic quality a bit more than we expected which would suggest that memory bandwidth isn't much of an issue here. Tessellation (DX11) has been bandied about a lot with the 5xxx series cards, and this isn't tied to memory bandwidth but core engine speeds, so perhaps in the near future we will see even further evidence that the 128bit bus isn't as large a handicap these days. If you play Crysis (a game that does like plenty of memory bandwidth), then you'll notice that the 4870 offers higher performance, otherwise most other games the experience is similar.

This a mid-range part yet the gap between it and the 58xx series is pretty big. Perhaps AMD/ATI plan on another card to fill that gap later on? Obviously, there is a huge gap in performance between this card and the 4770, and let's not forget the extra features of the 5xxx series on top of this extra performance. DirectX 11 has yet to show us anything tangible in the way of games, but that will hopefully change in the near future as the already popular Windows 7 is released and one game I'm personally looking forward to is Aliens vs Predators which will support DX11. We have support for Eyefinity, although at this performance level one does have to wonder how well it will do (something we will hopefully take a look at later) but the support is there none the less and AMD insist that the 57xx series is a viable Eyefinity platform. The low temperatures and low power consumption are also big plus points. And for the HTPC users in the crowd, there is the 5xxx series improvements when it comes to HDMI audio; HDMI 1.3a with DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD bitstreaming. This a card for those gamers who have 20” - 24” Widescreen monitors; 1680x1050 to FullHD 1920x1080 resolutions and want to run everything at the max.

Okay, now let's add in the price to the mix. This is particularly relevant with the 5770 because of it's performance and the current pricing of the 4870 cards. We've seen 4870 1GB cards for as little as $140 lately, which makes the $160 of the 5770 1GB a little hard to swallow if you're only looking at a card for it's performance. No-one with half a brain is going to buy a card that costs more but gives you less frames without a compelling reason. It's still cheaper than the launch price of the 4850, and this is for a card that out performs the 4850, but price to performance the 4870 1GB is a wiser purchase right now. Still, prices for the 5770 will likely drop soon, and the 48xx is an endangered species. With NVIDIA not having anything new on show right now (mid-range NVIDIA cards are not due till next year) and it's own current line reaching end of life, it may be a case of you won't have much choice but to get a 5770 or 5750. That's not exactly a bad thing, as the 5770 is a pretty good card, but you have to wonder what more choice would do to the price when it comes to choosing this range of card with it's 'cheaper' 128bit bus.

So what am I saying? I'm saying that if DX11, Eyefinity, Display Port, lower power consumption and Bitstreaming HD audio formats are important to you right now (and I'm betting that only the last two will draw any real purchasing attention at the time of writing) then the 5770 is your (only) card of choice at this price point. If you're more interested in performance, then your choice gets slightly cheaper by including the 4870 1GB cards into your purchasing decision, and that's only if you stick to the red camp. There are cards in the green camp at this price and performance point as well (GTX 260 is pretty close in price, slightly higher performing for slightly more money but less features), but like their 4xxx series rivals, they too will soon disappear from shelves leaving us with just the 5770 and the 5750. And if you can deal with a drop in performance, the 5750 is worth a look too.

If you already have a 48xx series card, or a GTX 260 and don't need the new features, and all your after is performance in existing games, then there is little compelling you to upgrade to a 5770 card. But if you're on the look out for a new $160 area high performing card and you want to take advantage of some of the new features afforded you by the 5xxx series, then the at $160 is certainly a good choice. Also keep in mind here that this is the retail card, and there is included a coupon for Dirt 2 via Steam (a DX11 game) with the package, so perhaps this will appeal to you and your wallet as well. Now if the price dropped to say the $130-$140 area, then this card would be very good value for money indeed.

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