Radeon HD 5670 Performance Review: DX11 Goes Mainstream

Posted 01/19/2010 at 4:00pm | by Loyd Case

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AMD delivers the Redwood, aka the Radeon HD 5670. Versions priced at under $100 make AMD’s DX11 line more affordable than ever. But will it perform?

As Nvidia struggles to get its first Fermi based graphics card, code-named GF100, AMD just keeps rolling out new versions. With the Radeon HD 5670, AMD pushes into $100 territory.

Classically, cards in this price range offered capable 2D graphics, high quality video and very limited 3D gaming performance. Let’s compare the feature sets of the various AMD DX11 cards, which should give us some idea as to capabilities.

All in all, the 5670 looks like half of an HD 5770. Note that Redwood, as the chip is code-named, is a separate chip, not a 5770 GPU with some units turned off. AMD is expecting pricing for the 1GB Radeon HD 5670 to be around $120, with the 512MB version hitting the sub-$100 price point. So far, we’ve seen the HIS Radeon HD 5670 sold for $130, so the pricing isn’t too far off at launch.

The card will also support AMD’s Eyefinity multiple monitor technology. The first cards will support up to three displays out of the box (one will need to be equipped with a DisplayPort connector or you’ll need an active DisplayPort adapter for the third display.) AMD suggests that different combinations of connector offerings may be available. The reference card we tested had one DVI-I port, one DisplayPort and one HDMI connection. We’ve seen boards that drop the DisplayPort connector in favor of a legacy VGA port.

As with other products in the 5000 line, the GPU supports dual HD video decode for full Blu-ray profile 2.0 support, provided you use a compatible player.

Small and Power Sipping

Previous cards in the Radeon HD 5000 line have been double wide cards. The HD 5670 is just a single wide card, and a scant seven inches long. It’s also pretty quiet, despite the relatively small fan. At its rated power draw of 61W, the chip doesn’t need substantial cooling. Because the peak power usage is just 61W, cards based on the Redwood GPU don’t require a PCI Express Power connector. This makes it an ideal card for small form factor or home theater PC systems, where you’d like to run with a lean, quiet PSU. Idle power is a low 14W.

But Can It Perform?

It’s true that $100 is a kind of magical price point. AMD noted in our briefing that cards priced at under $100 sell vastly more volume than cards costing even tens of dollars more. On the other hand, no $100 card will be able to match the performance of the higher cost spread; you’ll need to sacrifice something in order to get adequate frame rate for playing current generation games. The question then becomes: just how much will you have to sacrifice?

We ran our gaming benchmark suite at two resolutions and settings: 1680x1050, with the graphics detail maxed out. Then we ran at 1280x720 (or 1280x768, if the game didn’t support 720p) at medium detail. Both resolutions were run with AA on and off. We also ran 3DMark Vantage, using the Performance and High settings.

 Our current test system consists of an Asus Rampage II Extreme with 6GB of DDR3 running at 1333MHz and a Core i7 975 CPU weighing in at 3.33GHz.

If we take a look at the 3DMark Vantage numbers, it’s clear that the “performance” setting is starting to become CPU limited. The differences between the three cards – the 5750, 5770 and 5670 – see greater spread in the 3DMark High setting, which runs at a higher resolution and turns on 2x anti-aliasing.

When we move to the game tests, it’s easy to see that the 5670 really isn’t well suited for running at higher resolutions, particularly if you max out the detail levels. On the other hand, when we lowered the resolution to 1280x720 (1280x768 in the case of Battleforge), and turn the detail level down a little, frame rates seem much more acceptable. Even at lower resolutions and detail levels, we wouldn’t recommend turning on anti-aliasing, however.

It’s About the Bottom Line

At a target price of $120, the Radeon HD 5670 is still just a bit more expensive than it needs to be at these performance levels. The die size is likely to be quite small (various web sites have reported die sizes ranging from 104mm2 to 127mm2. At that size, there’s probably room to drop the price quite a bit over time.

Since the card really is best suited for resolutions of 1440x900 and below, without AA enabled, the 512MB card does become a viable option. Those cards will likely drop under $100 as availability improves. Given that price point, AMD and its board partners are likely to sell a boatload of product.