The ATI Radeon HD 5770 is a contemporary graphics card, much favoured by avid gamers and gadget-freaks alike. However, it comes with a sole power connector, a six pin PCI Express power connection. Most other graphics cards are equipped with dual power ports and therefore can handle intense computing and gaming sessions. Despite a restriction in terms of power input, the card is rated highly among the bevy of new-age graphics cards.
Graphics Processing Unit
Facing stiff competition from Nvidia’s GTX 285 and a model from ATI’s 4000 series (4890), Radeon 5770 has held its stead solely because of a well-built GPU. Core clocked at a good 850 MHz, the GPU helps in building images faster than its alternatives. The computing speed is also far above the ground at 1360 GFLOPS. Radeon 5570 scores above GTX 285 or Radeon 4890 not only because it puts up a better show in terms of GPU but also for its low price.
Video Memory
ATI Radeon does not do a whole lot on the memory front. It has a modest 1 GB Ram with a GDDR5 memory clocking at 1200 MHz. Regardless of such standard memory specifications, the poor bus width and bandwidth fails the card. The model has near about half the bus width than that of a customary 256 bit memory found in typical cards. Radeon 5770 has a miserable bandwidth of 77 that is barely sufficient to compete with rival cards like GTX 285.
API supported by Radeon 5770
Surprisingly after the jolt with respect to memory setup, Raden 5770 delivers and delivers in style in terms of the interfaces that it supports. The must-haves for gamers like DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4 is supported by this card. Therefore one does not have to lose sleep over missing out on advanced gaming interfaces and applications as most of these will be structured around DX11 and GL4.
Some essential add-ons
At a 220 mm or 8.5” inches, the card is small and should comfortably fit inside most computer cases. The card is equipped with a double width cooler and thus can accommodate a dual DVI port, HMDI output and a Display port allowing greater choice to the gamer. However, only a three way output divided among these outlets are available at any given point of time.
The power consumption of this model is also pretty low. When Radeon 5770 sits idle it consumes only 18 W worth of power while at work, 108 W is the maximum consumption. The Radeon 5770 further scores on its ability to bit stream High Definition video from the PC to any attuned receiver using HDMI.
Summary
Promising a decent GPU output and a 160 dollar has made Radeon 5770 a coveted buy for many. It also offers additional features like DX 11 API, a gamers’ delight, without losing its mass appeal. A middle range Graphics card, it gives the thrills of a good graphics card albeit at a relatively slower speed than some of its contemporaries.
