Takes Two to Tango - ATI Radeon HD 5770 in CrossFire Action
The Radeon HD 5770 falls short of fantastic, but how would two of them in CrossFire configuration perform? Would it surpass the dual-GPU Radeon HD 4870 X2? Check out the results to find out.
Fruitful Partnership
The good thing about graphics cards of today, apart from being faster of course, is the scalability they offer. ATI has CrossFireX, while NVIDIA has SLI. These technologies allow you to increase your graphics processing oomph by simply purchasing another companion card. Sure, the technology is not perfect (think driver issues and card compatibility), but it's better than being stuck with a single card or forking out much more for an all new solution, right?
With that in mind, we turn our attention back to the . In our review of ATI's latest offering, we concluded that it is essentially an updated Radeon HD 4870 (or close to it) with better power and thermal efficiency, support for DirectX 11, and Eyefinity. Today, we are going to see how two of them in CrossFireX will perform.
Will it outperform a Radeon HD 4870 X2? How will it fare against the Radeon HD 5870? How hot will it run? All these and more will be answered. Read on.
Before we head on to the benchmarks, here's a quick look at our test setup.
Test Setup
The tests will be conducted on our Windows Vista, Intel X38 based system:
- Windows Vista SP1 Test System:
- Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 (3.00GHz)
- Gigabyte X38T-DQ6 motherboard
- 2 x 1GB DDR3-1333 Aeneon memory in dual channel mode
- Seagate 7200.10 200GB SATA hard drive
- Windows Vista Ultimate with SP1
Considering that a Radeon HD 5770 is just about as quick as a Radeon HD 4870, we expect two HD 5770 cards in CrossFire to perform as well as a Radeon HD 4870 X2 and HD 5870. We have also plugged in results from our Radeon HD 5870 review, as well as all of NVIDIA's high-end GT200 class cards.
Here's the complete list of cards tested and the driver versions used:
- ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 in CrossFire (Beta 8.66 RC9)
- ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB GDDR5 (Catalyst 9.8)
- ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5 (Beta 8.66)
- ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 (Beta 8.66 RC9)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 1792MB GDDR3 (ForceWare 190.62)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1GB GDDR3 (ForceWare 190.62)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 896MB GDDR3 (ForceWare 190.62)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB GDDr3 (ForceWare 190.62)
And the cards were tested using the following benchmarks:
- Futuremark 3DMark06
- Futuremark 3DMark Vantage
- Crysis Warhead
- Far Cry 2
- Dawn of War 2
Results
Results Continued...
Final Words
The results revealed a few interesting observations. Where outright performance is concerned, two Radeon HD 5770 cards in CrossFireX could certainly stand up to a single Radeon HD 4870 X2 and even the mighty Radeon HD 5870. This gives us consumers something to think about because a single HD 5770 costs only US$159, whereas the flagship HD 5870 costs a whopping US$379.
What's more, in terms of power consumption, the two Radeon HD5770 cards were only a tad more power hungry than a single Radeon HD 5870. And although the system internals certainly felt hot, it was not extreme to the point that it would cause the system to abruptly hang and such. The low operating temperatures of the Juniper XT chip certainly played a part here, as did the compactness of the card, which allowed for better air flow within the casing. Having said that, a casing with adequate ventilation is still highly recommended. Take note that the temperature measurement for the Radeon HD 5770 in CrossFire reported above is based on per card; so that means both cards are roughly giving out heat at 69 degrees Celsius each.
In light of these observations, if you are undecided about the costly but powerful Radeon HD 5870 and the more affordable Radeon HD 5770, you can opt for 5770 first and decide later whether or not to upgrade in the future with an additional 5770 graphics card. Two Radeon HD 5770 cards would cost less, yet still give roughly the same performance as the HD 5870. This is certainly a very good value for money proposition, but it's on the assumption that you have a CrossFireX compatible motherboard in the first place.
On the other hand, hardcore gamers would want to stick with the Radeon HD 5870 or maybe even wait out for the upcoming Radeon HD 5890 and Radeon HD 5870 X2, since all three SKUs provide the absolute best in gaming performance and efficiency at this point of time.
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