| PowerColor Radeon HD 5770 PCS+ Video Card |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Video Cards | |
| Written by Hank Tolman - Edited by Olin Coles | |
| Thursday, 04 November 2010 | |
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Page 18 of 18
AX5770 1GBD5-PPGV2 ConclusionWhile the PowerColor AX5770 1GBD5-PPGV2 performed well enough to play in almost all of our game titles (you might need to lower the settings a little on the DX11 titles), it only just kept up with its competition, the GTS450. We have seen the AX5770 PCS+V2 outperform its previous competition, the GTS250, but times are different now. To remain competitive, the Radeon HD 5770 series cards need compete against the other DX11 cards, not just the DX10 cards. When considering the performance value of the AX5770 PCS+, we have to keep in mind that it is a mid-range card and only packs half the punch (GPU-wise) of a "Cypress"-based card. Considering the playability of games with the AX5770 PCS+, the card has to receive decent marks. Besides just gaming performance, the PowerColor Radeon HD 5770 AX5770 PCS+ also offers the incredible ATI EyeFinity experience support as well. With the latest drivers from AMD, it also has 3D capabilities, though we have yet to really see how they compare to NVIDIA's offering in 3D. Also lumped into performance, we have to consider the extra 5% overclock we were able to pull out of the AX5770 PCS+, bringing its gaming power up slightly.
The PowerColor AX5770 PCS+ is a good looking card. The shorter PCB and redesigned fan and heatsink make it look nice and the red PCB is pretty appealing. While the partial fan shroud doesn't leave as much room for fancy graphics designs on the card, it also makes the AX5770 PCS+ look more like the mid-range offering that it is. The full shroud is something that you come to expect on the higher range cards. As we were able to see in the close-up pictures of parts of the AX5770 PCS+, the video card is exceptionally well-constructed. This type of engineering is to be expected from all would-be top-end video card manufacturers and PowerColor isn't any different. All the parts on the AX5770 PCS+ are high quality and the PCB was well laid out, especially considering the lost space from the shorter board. While the AX5770 PCS+ may not offer PhysX or CUDA support, ATI Radeon HD 5000 series cards offer their own capabilities like Stream Technology Support and ATI EyeFinity. Additionally, the AX5770 PCS+ provides support for DirectCompute 11, OpenCL, and HDMI 1.3 with Dolby True HD and DTS Master Audio. Also, the AX5770 PCS+ v2 provides a coupon for the download of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The overclocking ability of the AX5770 PCS+ was pretty good. The memory, rated at 1250 MHz, was easily able to perform at that level. That's only a 2% increase over the already overclocked AX5770 PCS+, but 4% over a stock Radeon HD 5770. The memory may have been able to get close to about 1300 MHz without any extra voltage, but I was more interested in GPU clock. The GPU clock made it up to 920 MHz. That's about a 5% increase over the 875 MHz that the AX5770 PCS+ comes clocked at. While that's not a bad overclock, we have had better success here at Benchmark Reviews with other Radeon HD 5770 video cards. As of November 3, 2010, the PowerColor AX5770 PCS+ was selling at Newegg.com for $134.99. This is a significant drop from the nearly $170 dollars that the card started at about a year ago. Also, as we have discussed, there are mail-in-rebates and promotional codes available to bring the price down somewhat. Still, for the purposes of rating here, I have to focus on the price before shipping or any of those discounts. At $145, the AX5770 PCS+ is an ok deal, but the performance of the GTS450 for $5 less shows that it's not a great deal. $110 would be a pretty great deal. Pros:
+ Lots of great features Cons:
- No voltage control in ATI Overdrive, no PowerColor tool available Ratings:
Final Score: 8.3 out of 10.Questions? Comments? Benchmark Reviews really wants your feedback. We invite you to leave your remarks in our Discussion Forum.
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