AMD’s Radeon HD 5770 & 5750: DirectX 11 for the Mainstream Crowd
by Ryan Smith on October 13, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Meet The 5750
Below the 5770, we have the 5750, the other card being launched today. This is a 700MHz card with 1 SIMD disabled, and the memory clock at 1.15GHz(4.6GHz effective). This represents an 18% decrease in core clock and the performance of all units tied to that clock, and a 10% further reduction in computational and texturing power due to the loss of a SIMD, for a total theoretical performance reduction of 26%. The ROP count remains unchanged at 16.
The 5750 will come with either 512MB or 1GB of RAM, depending on the target price, with no change in memory clocks. As is the case with 5770, we find the choice of memory speeds interesting since vendors still have to use the same speed RAM on the 5750 as they do the 5870 (boy this stuff must be cheap). No one makes 1.15GHz GDDR5, so vendors have no choice but to equip it with something faster. Our samples are using Hynix 1.25GHz modules, which means the 5750 and the 5770 should be capable of some easy memory overclocking (bus capabilities withstanding). At the moment no one makes 1.2GHz modules, so this may persist for some time.
Compared to the 5770, gone is the expensive Phoenix shroud, replaced with what we’re calling the “egg”. The egg is a simple circular heatsink with a 2-pin fan embedded in it, which sucks in air and pushes it out along the fins. The egg shape is brought about by the plastic cover at the top of the heatsink – we’re not sure if it’s just for looks or if it’s accomplishing some specific function. The card length is 7.15 inches, with no shroud to extend that.
Once again we’ll see the same Eyefinity port configuration here; 1 DisplayPort, 1 HDMI, and 2 DVI. There’s still a half-slot vent here, but since the design of the cooler means that the card is blowing hot air in to the case instead of out the rear, it serves more as a window to look at the card. As a card with this performance level isn’t a good choice for gaming with Eyefinity, AMD is shooting at professional users with the Eyefinity capabilities of this card. We expect that this will be a bit harder of a sale, since Single Large Surface capabilities aren’t as critical with windowed programs, and the high price of DisplayPort->DVI dongles means that the dongle is as much as the card.
We should also note that it’s the desire to keep the Eyefinity port configuration that lead to the use of the egg cooler. For the second generation of cards, vendors are likely to drop the egg cooler for a single-slot cooler. Certainly the 5750 is cool enough at 86W TDP that it doesn’t need a dual-slot cooler.
For pricing, AMD is putting the 1GB version of this card at $129, and the 512MB version at $109. This puts it in competition with NVIDIA’s GTS 250 cards, and AMD’s 4850 cards. Unlike the 5770, the price here is certainly right, as we’ll see later.
As is the case with the 5770, the 5750 is expected to have “tens of thousands” of units available at launch, with any supply constraints likely to be the same between the two. The 1GB cards will come with DIRT 2 vouchers if the vender participates, the 512MB cards will not.
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flipmode - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - link
What in the world is going on with this game? 8800 GT beats the 4850? No, sorry, I don't buy that. Something is wrong here. The 5770 beats everything? If that is the case, then this game should immediately be removed from the bench suite - games in the bench suite should help us understand the general performance characteristics of the hardware and a game that returns such erratic results actually distorts that understanding.Griswold - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - link
On page 13 you say:"The 3870 beats it by 14W at the cost of a significant degree of performance, while the 8800GT is neck-and-neck with the 4770, again with a decent-sized performance gap."
You certainly meant 5770 there. But this brings me to a question: Why isnt the 4770 included here? As an owner of that card, I'm very much interested in the performance/power/noise difference - just ditch one of the relatively irrelevant SLI or CF combos. I dont think too many care about comparing high-end multi-GPU with performance parts such as the 5770 and 5750, even if its 57xx in CF.
flipmode - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - link
Ryan - thanks so much for the review. Nice job. It does seem like a 5750 Crossfire would be an interesting value - moreso than the 5770 since the latter is overpriced.And, Anand, I love your site, and don't take this personally, but, PLEASE GET A COMMENT SYSTEM THAT DOES NOT TOTALLY SUCK!
Check out TechReport for an example of the awesomest comment system in the universe.
PLEASE!
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - link
AMD only sent out 1 5750, so I don't have a second one to Crossfire at this time.Roland00 - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - link
It makes no sense (beside bad drivers) for the 5770 to lose to the 4850. The 5770 has more memory bandwidth (76.8) compared to the 4850 (63.55 gb/s), due to the 4850 sticking with ddr3, even with the 128 bit bus. The 5770 is also clocked 36% faster than the 4850 (850 vs 625).Yet the 5770 underpeforms the 4850 being almost tied?
Zool - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - link
Maybe the 4*64bit memmory controlers on the perimeter of the chip keep up the data better than 2*64bit controlers with higher bandwith.I think that they could make it at least 192 bit (3*64bit).
Zool - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - link
Actualy where the hell are the Cypress and Juniper die shots ?I cant find a single one on net.
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - link
AMD is not releasing die shots.dgz - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - link
Looks to me like AMD is trying to lure people into buying the remaining 48** cards. Once the old chips are cleared, the price of 57** will no doubt drop.GrizzlyAdams - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - link
What really has me concerned is how the 5870 is scaling in these tests.The 5870 core is essentially two 5770s strapped together, and you would hope scaling would be near linear. When two 5770s in crossfire match or even beat a 5870 I'm left scratching my head.
Somewhere there is a significant bottleneck in the 5870's design, and I'm wondering where that is. Anyone have any clue?
Hopefully a driver update will fix these issues, because if not there is a lot of wasted silicon on each of these chips...