HD 5750 & HD 5770 Review - PAGE 2

Impressions

On this page, we'll start with looking at these two cards with going over the surface stuff -- our impressions of them, our take on the cooling mechanisms, some of their general features. On the next page, we'll look over the specifications of each, and compare them to what is currently available on the market.

Keep in mind that these cards came direct from AMD -- they are the standard reference design for the new models, and likely, at first, all HD 5750s and HD 5770s sold will be just as these two are.

Let's start with the big brother, the HD 5770:

In many ways, it looks like someone took a shrink-ray to the HD 5870 to come up with the HD 5770. Coming in at about 8 inches, the video card looks like a top-end card from a two or three generations back. It has a double-width cooler on it, and is about the length of the HD 3870 or 8800 GT. 

Featuring generally the same cooler design as the HD 5870 and HD 5850, this is a 'blower' cooler, with air being pushed along the aluminium heat fins that span roughly half the length of the card. Compared to the HD 5870, the HD 5770 uses much less metal, and feels as about as heavy as a feather.

Unlike the HD 5870, there is a single PCIE power connector, and it is not located on the top of the card, but instead, at the end, in the top (of two) air vents. The top air vent is somewhat blocked by this power connector. Hopefully between the lower air vent, and then the venting running along the top of the card, there will be enough incoming air flow to keep the card cool when playing Borderlands in a few weeks.

Also unlike the HD 5870, there is no back plate on the HD 5770. Not that one is really needed on a card of this class -- we just wanted to point that out.

Both the HD 5770 and HD 5750 feature the full set of possible, modern display output ports: you have two dual-link DVI ports, a HDMI port, and a DisplayPort port. While there is four, keep in mind you can only use up to three at the same time. It was a bit surprising -- in a good way -- to see all four of these options on these video cards between the $100 and $200 price point. ATI isn't trying to justify an artificial price premium on the higher-end cards just for the ability to use Eyefinity, or use DisplayPort or HDMI, which is great to see.

Let's take a look now at that other card, the little brother of the HD 5700 series, the HD 5750.

From first appearance the HD 5750 looks somewhat like the HD 4770. It features a similar brief cooler. Keep in mind that the HD 5750 and HD 5770 share the same Juniper design chip -- just the chip in the HD 5750's case has been laser neutered. So, thermally speaking, the HD 5750 should be able to get by fine with this basic cooler that consists of a bit of metal over the GPU attached to high speed fan.

The HD 5750 just barely needs a PCIE power connecter. According to AMD, the board requires 86W at load, and only a incredibly low 18W at idle, thanks to PowerPlay technology (which scales GPU activity with power needs) and the 40nm scale of the GPU.

With the HD 5700 series, in addition to the new touches like DirectX 11 and Eyefinity, you also get the rest of the contemporary Radeon feature set, including CrossFireX (the HD 5700 cards can be connected to up to 3 more of any Radeon HD 3000 series or faster cards), the UVD video engine to handle HD content on your GPU, and  Shader Model 5.0.