AMD is doing exceptionally well with its ATI graphics division, releasing seven new DirectX 11 products in just 4 months, with no direct competition to speak of. Still, AMD is pressing forward and today marks the release of their most affordable DX11 gaming graphics card yet, the Radeon HD 5570. This means it is now possible to purchase a new Radeon HD 5000 series graphics card for anywhere between $60 - $650 US.

The Radeon HD 5570 features an MSRP of $80 US and that price range places it in direct competition with GeForce GT 240 and GeForce 9600 GT graphics cards, as well as AMD’s own Radeon HD 4670. Therefore in terms of pricing, the Radeon HD 5570 will be stepping in to replace the Radeon HD 4670.

This is interesting as the technical specifications of the new Radeon HD 5570 and the 18 month old Radeon HD 4670 are very similar. If anything it could be said that the Radeon HD 5570 is just a more modern version of the Radeon HD 4670 with its 40nm design and DirectX 11 support.

Both feature similar core configurations and share the same memory bandwidth of 28.8GB/s when loaded with GDDR3 memory using a 128-bit wide memory bus. Therefore we expect that the Radeon HD 5570 will perform very much like the Radeon HD 4670 and this could be somewhat of a concern. After all, the Radeon HD 4670 is starting to show its age, and at $70 - $80 US, it is slower than the Nvidia competition.

A big plus about the Radeon HD 5570 consuming so little power is that it doesn't require an external power source. The PCI Express bus alone is capable of delivering enough current to this card.

The Radeon HD 5570 also generates very little heat and as such AMD has been able to get away with using a small single slot cooler. The sample we received from AMD used a tiny 45mm fan that cools a small 95mm x 55mm copper heatsink. It is worth noting that the use of a copper heatsink makes this graphics card surprisingly heavy.

Compared to the Radeon HD 5670, which measures 17cm, the Radeon HD 5570 is actually the same length. This is also the same as the GeForce GT 240 and should fit in any case that can support a mATX motherboard. The Radeon HD 5570 uses a low-profile design measuring just 5.5cm tall, whereas a typical graphics card is 9.5cm tall.

The core configuration of the Radeon HD 5570 includes 400 SPUs, 16 TAUs (Texture Address Units) and 8 ROPs (Rasterization Operator Units). That's considerably less than other cards in the series, though it is similar to that of the older Radeon HD 4670.

AMD has stuck with a 128-bit memory bus for the Radeon HD 5570, which allows for a relatively low bandwidth of just 28.8GB/s. Most variants of the Radeon HD 4670 support a memory bandwidth of at least 28.8GB/s, while the Radeon HD 4770 features a much more impressive bandwidth of 51.2GB/s.

Core clock speed is set at 650 MHz, which should be good for 520 gigaflops of raw computing power, while GDDR3 memory operates at 900MHz. The Radeon HD 5570 can come configured with either 512MB or 1GB of memory -- the sample we are reviewing today features 1GB. As with all low-end graphics cards we highly recommend you purchase the lowest memory capacity model possible. This is because they are cheaper and do not sacrifice much if any performance.

There are no bridge connectors on the Radeon HD 5570, but it's still possible to link two of these graphics cards through internal CrossFireX.

The Radeon HD 5570 retains Eyefinity support, so if this is the feature you are looking for on a budget card then it makes the Radeon HD 5570 an ideal choice. Like its higher-end variants in the 5000 series, you can hook up to three high resolution monitors up to 2560x1600. However our sample version was limited to 1920x1200 as the maximum resolution across three monitors due to its inclusion of a VGA port.

Hardware - Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition (Overclocked @ 3.70GHz) - x3 2GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 (CAS 9-9-9-24) - Seagate 500GB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA300) - ATI Radeon HD 5570 (1GB) - Gigabyte Radeon HD 4350 (512MB) - ATI Radeon HD 5450 (1GB) - Gigabyte Radeon HD 4830 (1GB) - Inno3D GeForce GT 220 (1GB) - Gigabyte Radeon HD 4670 (512MB) - Asus Radeon HD 3850 (512MB) - ATI Radeon HD 5670 (512MB) - Inno3D GeForce GT 240 (512MB) - Asus GeForce 9600 GT (512MB) - HIS Radeon HD 4770 (512MB) - Asus GeForce 9800 GT (1GB) - ASUS P6T Deluxe (Intel X58) Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) - Nvidia Forceware 195.62 - ATI Catalyst 10.1 - ATI 8.69 RC3 Win7 Vista (Jan14)

3Dmark Vantage saw the Radeon HD 5570 outperform the Radeon HD 4670 by a small margin at both tested resolutions. However what we also noticed is that the GeForce 9600 GT and GeForce GT 240 graphics cards were around 19 – 24% faster than the Radeon HD 5570. This is concerning, particularly when looking at the GeForce 9600 GT data, as this product is available at the same price point.

Although the Radeon HD 5570 was considerably slower than the GeForce 9600 GT when testing with 3Dmark Vantage, we see that when testing with Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts things are quite different. Here the Radeon HD 5570 matched the performance of the GeForce 9600 GT, which also made it a fraction faster than the Radeon HD 4670.

However, as we move onto the Crysis Warhead results, it became apparent that what we just saw when testing with Company of Heroes may have been a best case scenario for the Radeon HD 5570. The GeForce 9600 GT is a whopping 68% faster than the Radeon HD 5570 at 1680x1050 using the medium quality presets in Crysis Warhead. Furthermore the Radeon HD 5570 was again only able to match the performance of the older Radeon HD 4670.

The Far Cry 2 results were highly disappointing, as the Radeon HD 4670 lead the Radeon HD 5570 by a 15% performance margin at 1680x1050. Making matters worse was the GeForce 9600 GT displaying a 26% performance advantage over the Radeon HD 5570.

The Radeon HD 5570 regained some composure in Unreal Tournament 3, though it has to be said that if this new Radeon was going to perform well in any game this would be it. The Radeon HD 5570 beat the Radeon HD 4670 by a 5% margin, while the GeForce 9600 GT took the lead by a convincing 57% margin!

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat is the first game we have tested with where the Radeon HD 5570 really dominates the Radeon HD 4670, beating it by a 44% margin. However despite this impressive victory, the GeForce 9600 GT still outclassed the Radeon HD 5570 by a 34% margin and that is disappointing to see. Keep in mind the Radeon HD 5570 is rendering in the DX11 mode while the GeForce 9600 GT is using DX10. Still, this just demonstrates how useless DX11 support is on a low-end graphics card for gaming purposes.

When testing with Street Fighter IV the Radeon HD 5570 matched the Radeon HD 4670. This did however mean that the old GeForce 9600 GT was 47% faster and again that is a very disappointing fact.

The Radeon HD 4670 actually beat the new Radeon HD 5570 when testing with World in Conflict, as it was found to be 12% faster at 1680x1050. This was bad news for the Radeon HD 5570 as it meant that the GeForce 9600 GT was 29% faster!

Once again the Radeon HD 4670 beat the new Radeon HD 5570, this time when testing with Wolfenstein by a 12% margin. Again this meant the GeForce 9600 GT was much faster, beating the Radeon HD 5570 by a 31% margin.

The power consumption figures are not surprising given what we have already seen from the Radeon HD 5450 and 5670 graphics cards. That said, it is interesting to note that the Radeon HD 5570 uses just 11% less power than the GeForce 9600 GT when under load and 15% less at idle.

While this is a note worthy power saving, you have to take into account the fact that the Radeon HD 5570 was more often than not more than 20% slower than the GeForce 9600 GT in the games that we tested. Therefore, although the Radeon HD 5570 was found to consume less power than the GeForce 9600 GT, it was actually less efficient.

The operating temperatures were nothing out of the ordinary. Although the Radeon HD 5570 consumes considerably less power than the Radeon HD 5750, we found that under load with the reference cooler it actually ran a degree warmer. The Radeon HD 5750 produced similar load and idle temperatures to that of the Radeon HD 4770, while it ran hotter than the GeForce 9600 GT.

Even today the GeForce GTX 285 costs $400 US, while the Radeon HD 5870 can be had for the same price. Any sane person would purchase the Radeon HD 5870 in a heartbeat over the GeForce GTX 285. It was the same story when the Radeon HD 5850 was released, for roughly the same money it trounced the GeForce GTX 275 and was in fact still faster than the GeForce GTX 285.

This is terrific news, however even the Radeon HD 5850 at $300 US is a little pricey for most gamers, and it’s the sub $200 US solutions that end up in the hands of the masses. The Radeon HD 5570 with an MSRP of $80 US is the kind of product most gamers can afford and for that reason it is a very important graphics card, not only for gamers but also for AMD.

However the Radeon HD 5570 is nothing like the Radeon HD 5870/5850 graphics cards, and we are not talking about performance here. As I just said, these flagship models are so impressive because they set a new benchmark for $300 - $400 US graphics cards. The Radeon HD 5570 changes almost nothing, and in fact at $80 US it could be considered a little backwards.

As an example of what we are talking about, the GeForce 9600 GT which is now a 24 month old product, can be purchased new for $80. The GeForce 9600 GT delivered the same level of performance as the Radeon HD 5570 in just a single game, that game being Company of Heroes, while it was considerably faster in the rest.

When testing with Crysis Warhead the GeForce 9600 GT was 59% faster, 21% faster in Far Cry 2, 39% faster in Unreal Tournament 3, 29% faster in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, 26% faster in Street Fighter IV, 19% faster in World in Conflict Soviet Assault and 13% faster in Wolfenstein.

Although the GeForce 9600 GT may be an end of life product, we feel this makes the issue even more troubling. For some time now it has been possible to purchase a GeForce 9600 GT graphics card for $80 US. Not only is the GeForce 9600 GT considerably faster than the Radeon HD 5570, but we believe it is also a more efficient product in terms of power consumption.

The only advantage the Radeon HD 5570 has over the much older GeForce 9600 GT is just that, it’s newer and therefore sports a few new technologies. However when it comes down to it, these features do nothing to separate the Radeon HD 5570 from the GeForce 9600 GT when gaming.

That said, the Radeon HD 5570 does replace the Radeon HD 4670 fairly well, as it comes in at the same price while providing slightly better power consumption levels and a more compact design. The Radeon HD 5570 also supports DirectX 11, though we feel this is not a feature we should make a big deal out of on these low-end graphics cards as it cannot be utilized in games.

There is not a great deal more for us to say really, the results along with the MSRP speak for themselves. After the disappointing release of the Nvidia GeForce GT 220 and 240 graphics cards, we honestly thought AMD would come out guns blazing and put away the competition. Sadly, without much competition, they clearly saw no need to do so.

Reviewed By Steven Walton