Devil May Cry 4 Benchmark – DirectX 10

HIS HD 5770 Turbo 1GB Above

Standard clocked HIS 5770 1GB Above

Settings: 1920x1080, 2xMSAA, 0xAF, Super High, DX10

The DMC4 benchmark does have random elements, so we run the benchmark multiple times for each card and take the graph that seems the most average. What that amounts to above is that the HIS Turbo card provides an 'S' (Smokin slick style) grade more often than the standard clock card. Infact, of the 6 times we ran the benchmark for the standard card, it only received an 'S' grade once. The Turbo card on the other hand, even with it's only slight increase in clock speeds scored an 'S' 4 out of 6 times. The problem for the standard card was the second test scene, while the Turbo card's extra speed afforded it much better frame rates.

Overclocking

Since the card has got an uprated cooler, and since it had been running quite cool temperatures during testing, I was hoping for quite a high overclock. I was especially hoping for this since the HIS defaults hadn't made much impact in games. Thankfully I wasn't disappointed.

Using the Catalyst Control Center's Overdrive, I used the auto-tune to get a ballpark figure and then manually tweaked from there. In actual fact the auto-tune did come out spot on, as my tweaking just ended up with the system locking up and showing a striped brown/green screen. After rebooting, I did as I was told and put the clocks back to the CCC's auto-tuned settings and played for hours (over 3 days) without any issue.

We almost hit the CCC's limit and got a nice 950MHz on the GPU. The memory went all the way to 1435 (or 5740 if you prefer) and this got us a much better boost in games than the HIS clocks of 875/1250 (5000). A standard 5770 is clocked at 850/1200 so while the HIS Turbo clocks are better at 875/1250, it doesn't make much difference in games, unlike our overclock which proved quite easy.

L4D2 Overclock Difference

In Left 4 Dead 2, this took our average frame rates up from 42 to nearly 47, which could be quite crucial when you're getting rushed by the horde.

Final Words

The is a really nice card. It has a great cooling setup on it that not only keeps things cool and quiet, it also looks good, especially if you have UV lights in your system. You even get a boost (hence the Turbo in the name) of higher than standard clocks out of the box. And all under your standard warranty.

In many games, the actual game experience isn't much better than a standard card but the only costs about $20 more than a standard card so you're not paying too much more for the extra (if slight) boost. This is still par the course for all overclocked 5770's though; the difference in game play is minimal but the average frame rates go up along with the price.

So what do you get extra for your money if the performance increase isn't all that different? Well, you do get a better than standard cooling setup, and this does mean you're more likely to reach a higher clock speed with your own overclocking endeavors. And if you can get the card over 900MHz (which you probably will) then you do start to see a better performance increase.

The cooling setup is also quite attractive, so if you're the sort who likes to have a good looking PC, then the certainly checks the right boxes there. It's especially good looking under a UV light, but even if not, the transparent blue and the copper pipes do make it pleasing to the eye.

You get a copy of DiRT2 (some versions are sold without, check the box/details before you purchase to be sure) and unlike crappy included games of old, DiRT2 is actually a very good game, and it runs well on the card.

So the bottom line is, don't buy the card just because it's clocked faster (unless of course it's at the right price, in which case, why not?), buy it because it looks better than standard, and will probably overclock better than a standard card too. You will (at time of writing) pay about $20 extra for the card over a standard card, so as with all cards of this type, make sure the features are what you want. If they are, you'll be happy with this card.

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