Conclusions
After seeing the Futuremark scores, the gaming tests were at least as successful as I expected, probably moreso. The Sapphire Radeon HD 5670 running Crysis using AA showed a 64% increase in FPS, without AA showed a 12% increase. PT boats had a 50% increase. The games were very playable with little very little choppiness, and graphics were excellent.
The difference in increase between the two Crysis tests show one significant point…that the newer card has an even greater AA capability than the earlier one. The HD 4670 was the first mainstream video card that one could consider running AA. The new HD 5670 greatly improves the AA capability.
No, this isn’t an HD 5870, a GTX 260, or any other high-end video card. It isn’t supposed to be.
AMD/ATI has another winner with the Radeon HD 5670, and Sapphire has done a great job with their take on it. Sapphire does their best work with non-reference cards, and they prove that with their 1GB version of the HD 5670. The cooler that Arctic Cooling created for Sapphire does an excellent job at cooling this card in silence, the GPU never got over 50C.
Performance is much more than expected with a newly released video card in the $100 range. The HD 5670, as did the earlier HD 4670, gives a gaming capability to someone using this card to replace integrated graphics or in an HTPC.
Yes, you can find earlier midrange gaming cards for around $100. But you won’t have the latest technologies that AMD/ATI gave this card, such as DX11, Eyefinity, or ATI Stream. Mainstream cards are not intended to replace those power-hungry cards, and most gaming cards won’t fit into your average Dell, Gateway, or HP. I wouldn’t really want an 8800 or 9800 GTX in a rig intended for HTPC either.
The Sapphire Radeon HD 5670 1GB sells for $114 at my favorite online retailer. That’s a little over the traditional $100 mainstream card price, but never has a mainstream card sported a full gig of memory. Sapphire also has two 512MB models of the HD 5670, at $99 and $94.
ThinkComputers.org gives the Sapphire Radeon HD 5670 1GB video card a 10 out of 10 score.
Pros:
– Has a full gig of memory
– Capable of running three monitors in Eyefinity
– Significantly more powerful than any other mainstream video card
– Ideal for replacing integrated graphics or in an HTPC
Cons:
– None