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Introduction

Today we are going to be looking at Sapphire Technologies newest DirectX 11 video card the Radeon HD 5770, then when we are finished we will be combining it with the HIS HD 5770 that we reviewed earlier to see how via the system becomes when used in a Crossfire setup. Priced at about $175.00 this is the ideal card for those that are not wishing to break their bank and still want the ability to play most of the current popular content available and those games that will so be coming down the pike for the holidays.

We could have given you another review of how the Sapphire HD 4770 stacks up against the HIS 5770 we reviewed earlier, but instead we are going to due the CrossfireX review first and then the card to card test.

• Flight Sim and Racing Games:
  Create the ultimate flight or racing simulation platform by extending supported games across multiple displays for a panoramic view that gives you a true sense of height and speed.
  
  
• Role-playing Games (RPG):
  Get a bird’s-eye view and spread out game information across multiple screens and still stay in the center of the action.
  
  
• Real-time strategy (RTS):
  See more of the battlefield without having to zoom.
  
  
• First-Person Shooter (FPS):
  Get a better view of what’s going on around you, use your peripheral vision so you can see the enemy before they see you.

Help increase productivity by maximizing your visual workspace so you can see more Windows simultaneously

The perfect solution for your home or office, ATI Eyefinity technology makes multi-tasking a snap by eliminating the need to flip between windows. Surf the internet, do email, edit photos or videos, track your stocks and much more all at the same time.

ATI Eyefinity technology is ideal for multimedia applications; it allows you to keep several ‘palettes’ or ‘panels’ open while you edit images or videos.

Accelerate

Perform tasks on a PC faster with ATI Stream technology, speed up demanding everyday applications and get more done in less time.

Unleash the massive parallel processing power of your GPU to help you do more with your PC than ever before.

With multimedia software's that support ATI Stream, users can enjoy fast video encoding and transcoding so video playback, editing and transferring content to portable media players is quick and easy.

DirectCompute presents even more opportunities for you to take advantage of your ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 Series GPU for tasks other than just rendering

• DirectCompute, helps improve PC performance by taking on some or all of a DirectX 11-enabled application’s processing load, freeing up the computer’s main processor to take on additional tasks.
  

• DirectX 11-enabled applications are designed for fast performance on your PC running Windows 7. In addition, programs designed for Windows 7 can convert a digital media file to a different size or format can perform a faster conversion (i.e. transcode) under Windows 7 than under previous versions of Windows.
  

• Windows® 7 with built-in drag and drop transcoding is a great example how ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 Series GPUs provide an exceptional experience for the upcoming operating system.
  

• High performance anisotropic filtering and 24x custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA) smooth jagged edges and create true-to-life graphics, for everything from grass to facial features.

Dominate

With DirectX® 11 support you can play the latest HD games with unrivalled visual quality, astonishing realism and ultra-fast frame rates.

Get unrivalled visual quality and intense gaming performance and for today and tomorrow with support for Microsoft® DirectX® 11

• ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 Series graphics accelerators and software drivers are the first to offer full support for Microsoft DirectX® 11.
  

• Get striking 3D visual effects and dynamic interactivity with DirectX® 11 support, including features like HDR Texture Compression, DirectCompute and Tessellation.
  

• DirectX® 11 brings new levels of visual realism to gaming on the PC and you’ll get top-notch performance for these titles with ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 Series GPUs.
  
  
  

Get AMDs most advanced technology and massive compute power with ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 Series GPUs

• Experience the speed, responsiveness and performance of ultra-high bandwidth GDDR5memory.

• Get up to 1.8X of a graphics performance boost with ATI CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode.

• Unparalleled anti-aliasing (AA) and enhanced anisotropic filtering deliver slick graphics with remarkable realism.

ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series GPUs are designed to deliver all the benefits of Microsoft Windows® 7

Engineered to take advantage of all the graphical features within the new Windows 7 operating system, ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 Series GPUs deliver a visually compelling experience and a fast, responsive PC.

Valuable Game Bundles

Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 System Requirements

• PCI Express® based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard
  

• 450 Watt or greater power supply with 1x 75W 6-pin PCI Express® power connector recommended (600 Watt and two 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX™ Technology in dual mode)” 
  

• Certified power supplies are recommended. Refer to http://ati.amd.com/certifiedPSU for a list of Certified products
  

• Minimum 1GB of system memory
  

• Installation software requires CD-ROM drive
  

• DVD playback requires DVD drive
  

• Blu-ray™ / HD DVD playback requires Blu-ray / HD DVD drive
  

• For an ATI CrossFireX™ system, a second ATI Radeon™ HD 5770 graphics card, an ATI CrossFireX Ready motherboard and one ATI CrossFireX Bridge Interconnect cable per graphics card (optional) are required
  

• To support 3 displays, one of the monitors has to support DisplayPort.

Packaging

Looking at the front of the carton for Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 video card we have a picture of the ever beautiful Ruby which adorns the front panel along with a number of icons that tell a complete story with regard to the cards capabilities.

The is a large sticker that lets you know that as an owner of this card you are entitled to download and install Collin McRae's Dirt2 video game, this game will be the first or close to the first video game that makes use of DirectX 11 technology.  Next we have a sticker telling us that the video card has 1 GB of DDR5 memory, this memory is currently the fastest memory in use on video cards.

The icons along the bottom of the carton tell you that the HD 5770 support ATI Eyefinity which allows you get the most out of your new video card by hooking it up as many as three monitors which will allow you to go as far as to have peripheral vision in some racing games as well as spread your desktop across three monitors.

The next icon lets you know that this video card not only has DVI outputs, but also has HDMI and Displayport connection.  The next icon is letting you know this card is capable using CrossfireX™ Technology.  The final icon on the front of the carton is the ATI Stream, to learn more about what this means just go the "Accelerate" heading is the features and specifications.

Moving on to the rear of the carton we find a good bit of information,, beginning with product highlights on the left-half of the page.  Moving over to the right-hand side we have The first icon telling you about DirectX 11 which we mentioned earlier. Next we have Eyefinity and CrossfireX™ technology which we covered already.  Next icon is for the advanced memory which is GDDR5, the fastest memory currently used in video cards today. Next we have the HDMI and audio icon which most everyone is familiar with if they have an HD TV.

A Closer Look At The Sapphire HD 5770

The Sapphire HD 5770 is a double slot video card that has a fully enclosed heatsink and fan assembly.  The air from inside the case is drawn in to the inner chamber by the slots have been cut into the top of the cooler and from the end where a single 6-pin power connector resides. The overall length is not so long as to cause problem in most case other than perhaps a uATX style enclosure.

Looking at the Sapphire HD 5770 from this angle you can clearly see the openings that run along the top of the video card, as we mentioned these holes draw warm air from inside the enclosure and it is propelled out through the opening at the front of the card or the end with all of the connectors on it. During our testing with a matched set of 5770's running side by side the noise that they generated was not audible to the human ear inside a standard enclosure.

Looking at the end of the Sapphire card you can see the match openings that are outlined in red, the one on the right, though hard to see has a single 6-pin PCIe connector inside the opening.  The second opening would hold an 8-pin connectors which would be used on cards such as the 5780 or larger cards than this.  By putting the connector inside the shroud of the cooler the overall length of the card has been reduced.

Here we can see the business end of the card, we have a matching pair of DVI connectors which is great in this day and age for running multiple monitors.  Next we have the HDMI connector which is great for a direct connection to a HDTV set.  It also has a DisplayPort connector and if you are not sure what that is here is a brief explanation.

DisplayPort is the new digital display interface standard. It has been recently approved (5/2006) by VESA and will be hitting the markets in 2008. For most computer users, the fairly big and bulky VGA port is familiar. While the VGA port has been extremely reliable and has delivered competent performance, the new standard – the Display Port – is considered to be quite an upgrade from traditional VGA ports and is on par with HDMI.


The DisplayPort will be mainly manufactured by large computer makers to send video, as well as audio signals from the computer to a computer monitor or home theater system. The reason for the upgrade is to increase both video and audio performance and allow an easy connection from the computer directly to an entertainment center hookup

You can now see where the warm air exits from the rear of the card.

Looking at the rear of the card you can see the four memory modules attached to the circuit board. Also visible is the 'X-shaped' retaining bracket that holds the cooler in contact with the GPU. So with that out of the way lets go on to see how well this card works with a twin parked beside it.

Test Setup

Testing

800x600

1024x768

1280x1024

1650x1080

 

 

800x600

1024x768

1280x1024

1680x1050

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

After having ran the Sapphire HD 5770 CrossfireX setup for over a week I have to say that I am more than pleased with it's performance.  Being able to play some of the current range of games on the market today without lag is a real treat.  Also watching the Heaven Benchmark which uses DirectX 11 is also something to behold especially when the with the speed that the dual HD 5770's provide.

 

With the current price for a single Sapphire HD 5770 running $150.00 at Newegg you can buy two of them to run in CrossfireX configuration as we have done here and you will see a nice improvement of your scores.  We did not overclock the cards since we found that they worked well enough that there really was no need for that, and besides our goal was to show you how well they performed in real-life situation.

A special thanks to Sapphire who provided us with one of the cards.