The ATI Radeon red storm are in full swing, if McCarthy cannot stop this stamped, can the green team with their new version core architecture the Fermi can beat with its calculations per second or its physics enabled GUGPU. Well, time will tell in the release of the GTX300 series from NVIDIA.
For gamers, the last month has been a dream come true as ATI has effectively opened the floodgates on its 40nm manufacturing process by bringing an entire range of well-priced DX11 cards onto the market. The release of the high-end HD 5870 was quickly followed by the launch of the HD 5850; a card many people are calling the new 8800 GT due to its amazing price / performance ratio. The fun continues today with the simultaneous launch of two performance-oriented mid-range cards: the HD 5770 1G and the HD 5750 which will be available in 1GB and 512MB forms. In this review we will be looking at the XFX HD 5770 1GB GDDR5.
Unlike the HD 5870 and HD 5850, the positioning of the HD 5770 is a bit less ambiguous since its price of around $160USD doesn’t particularly line up with much in NVIDIA’s current lineup. At this point, the GTS 250 512MB sits at around $125 while the less popular 1GB version comes in at $140 which means ATI is hoping their new card bridges the gap between the GTS 250 and the GTX 260 216. In essence, the gap we are referring to is presently filled in ATI’s lineup by the HD 4850 512MB whose $125 price point is a good 20% lower than that of the HD 5770. Depending on the HD 5770’s performance, this might mean that consumers will be forced to pick between a less expensive DX10 card or a costlier DX11 GPU.
But being a HD4770 in the mainstream market is a target in this graphics card. The previous dad of this beast, the HD4770 is considered one of the bets low cost graphics card against the bigger brother when considering as their prize comparison and in crossfire beat it in many ways. So the DX11 implementation of the card can have some potential to most gamers who like low cost in comparison to the HD5870 and enough memory for the graphics is able to make use of this card in many chores you do in any computer.
The HD 5850 on the other hand looks to be the purebred price / performance leader of the new ATI lineup. Barring slightly lower clock speeds for both the core and memory along with eight disabled texture units (totalling 160 stream processors), it is basically a clone of the HD 5870. This is the card ATI hopes will compete directly with the GTX 285 for the near future and then come into its own when DX11 games make their way into the market. We believe this card will appeal to the majority of early adopters since it allows them to buy class-leading DX9 and DX10 performance now without gambling $400 on unproven DX11 potential. The HD 5750 on the other hand is simply a cut down HD 5770 with lower clocks, less SPs and a cut down number of Texture Units. It is this card that ATI sees going head to head with the NVIDIA GTS 250 and 9800 GT. It uses GDDR5 memory but there will be both 512MB and 1GB versions released to cater to the $100 market along with those looking for a little jump in performance.