PowerColor Radeon HD 5770 PCS+ Review

A little over a year after the initial introduction of the Radeon HD 5770, PowerColor is still tweaking their take on what was then a revolutionary card for the mid-range price segment. Benchmark Reviews has the PowerColor AX5770 1GBD5-PPGV2 and has tested it's performance against the mid-range offering from NVIDIA, the GeForce GTS 450. The PowerColor Radeon HD 5770 is a PCS+ video card. These are video cards that PowerColor has factory overclocked to improve performance. With a clock speed of 875MHz and memory overclocked to 1225MHz, the PowerColor Radeon HD 5770 PCS+ is ready to game, and the 2nd-edition version we've received comes packaged with a coupon for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Follow along as Benchmark Reviews disassembles and tests the PowerColor Radeon HD 5770 PCS+ video card.

The Radeon HD 5770 is a well known card by now. It is built around the "Juniper" GPU which is roughly half that of a "Cypress" GPU that the Radeon HD 5800 series is built on. The ATI Radeon HD 5000 series revolutionized the graphics world by becoming the first readily available GPUs with DirectX-11 functionality. While this put AMD one step ahead of NVIDIA in capability, not many DX11 titles were available when the Radeon HD 5000 series debuted. Now, however, DX11 is a standard name, and with the prices of the HD 5000 series falling due to competition from NVIDIA's Fermi GPUs, it's unlikely that users will be looking much at older DX10 video cards when considering an upgrade or the purchase of a new computer.

The PowerColor Radeon HD 5770 PCS+ video is the latest in a long line of PowerColor Radeon HD 5770 cards. In the PPGV2 edition, PowerColor has made some improvements by factory overclocking the GPU to 875MHz and the memory to 1225MHz. These overclocks are relatively light, and I am sure that we will be able to pull some more performance out of the HD 5770 PCS+ when we overclock it ourselves.

PowerColor also improved the on the standard Radeon HD 5770 by adapting it with a new cooling system. According to PowerColor, this brings down the operating temperature of the Radeon HD 5770 by 10 degrees Celsius. The "Juniper" based video cards run relatively cool as it is, even with a reference style fan and heatsink. But less heat is always better, and at the very least might help us to overclock the PowerColor Radeon HD 5770 even more.

The version 2 release of the PowerColor AX5770 1GBD5-PPGV2 comes with a new bios installed that is supposed to bring down fan noise without compromising cooling. At full load, the original PPG was apparently a little too loud. If you have an original AX5770 1GBD5-PPG you can download the new bios from PowerColor's website. The video memory, however, will still be different.

Now that we have learned a little about the PowerColor AX5770 1GBD5-PPGV2, let's dig in for a look at the features and specifications of this video card.

Manufacturer: PowerColor (A division of TUL Corporation)
Product Name: Radeon HD 5770 PCS+
Model Number: AX5770 1GBD5-PPGV2V2
Price As Tested: $134.99 at NewEgg

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by PowerColor.

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