ATI Radeon HD5570 Video Card Review

With this latest release, ATI is doubling back to fill some gaps in its wildly successful Radeon HD5xxx series of video cards. The previous release, the HD5450, was the logical terminus of their GPU bisecting act. In fact, they got a little carried away, and lopped off almost all the Stream Processors, in order to reduce the power requirements down to the lowest possible level. This time, the goal was to create the best performing low-profile HTPC card they could. The HD5570 is the first in a series of HD55xx video cards, and for now, it will probably be the top card in the group. Loaded up with the Redwood GPU from the HD5670, 1 GB of GDDR3 memory, and an all copper active GPU cooler, the HD5570 looks to be the King of the low-profile world, without the attendant King's ransom. Follow along with Benchmark Reviews as we see how it stacks up against its siblings.

Like all the HD5xxx video cards, since the original HD5870 based on the Cypress GPU, the ATI HD5570 has all the modern features that the larger and more expensive models bring to the table. Sporting only 627 million transistors, and 400 Stream Processors, the new card idles along at less than 10 watts and pulls less than 45 watts under load. They've managed to do this without the energy-saving benefits of GDDR5 this time, as the card will only be equipped with GDDR3. The top model reviewed here has 1GB of memory, but I suspect variants with 512MB will come out soon.

The flagship ATI video cards made a huge splash in September, but according to Mercury Research, cards costing over $200 only make up 7% of the market, and the 57xx series landed in the $100-$200 range, which makes up 27% of the market. That leaves a huge opening in the sub-$100 market, and ATI is filling in the gaps with all new, DirectX 11 capable cards in this segment. The specs of the HD5570 indicate a performance level that will have a good chance of adequate performance with gaming, at moderate resolutions and settings, and will have no problem supporting all the latest application in the home theater environment.

About the company: ATI

Over the course of AMD's four decades in business, silicon and software have become the steel and plastic of the worldwide digital economy. Technology companies have become global pacesetters, making technical advances at a prodigious rate - always driving the industry to deliver more and more, faster and faster.

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