January 14, 2010 | Computer | No Comments
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January 14, 2010 | Computer | No Comments
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January 14, 2010 | Computer | No Comments
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January 14, 2010 | Computer | No Comments
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January 14, 2010 | Computer | No Comments
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January 14, 2010 | Computer | No Comments
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January 14, 2010 | Computer | No Comments
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Posted on | January 14, 2010 | No Comments
Up until this point, ATI’s Radeon HD 5000-series GPUs have really raised the bar on what we expected from the next generation of video cards. The Radeon HD 5870 offers roughly the same performance seen on the previous flagship dual-GPU Radeon HD 4870 X2. The Radeon HD 5770 serves up about the same performance as the aging (but still powerful) Radeon HD 4870. The Radeon HD 5750 delivers similar performance as the mainstream-friendly Radeon HD 4850.
Given such a promising lead-up, it’s hard not to have high expectations for ATI’s emerging Radeon HD 5670. Dare we hope that it give us performance on par with the Radeon HD 4770, a card that tantalized us with 40nm under $100, and then broke the hearts of amped-up gamers after suffering poor availability?
With a suggested retail price of $99, the Radeon HD 5670 being evaluated today needs to be powerful if it’s going to offer value in the most competitive price segment known to the world of discrete GPUs. After all, ATI’s Radeon HD 5670 will be doing battle against the less-expensive GeForce 9600 GT, the somewhat more modern GeForce GT 240, and Nvidia’s aging GeForce 9800 GT. Not only that, but the card will also have to stave off old favorites, like the existing Radeon HD 4770, GeForce GTS 250, and Radeon HD 4850 models, all of which can be found as low as $110 online (sometimes less, if you’re lucky).
Clearly, the Radeon HD 5670 has more worthy opponents than its high-end 5800- and 5700-series predecessors had to fight off when they launched. Of course, this story is about more than just raw benchmark results. AMD is also coming to the table with DirectX 11 support and a handful of value-adds, like Eyefinity multi-display output connectivity.
Saddled with the successes of the Radeon HD 5800- and 5700-series cards, our sample Radeon HD 5670 has some big shoes to fill. Let’s take a peek under the hood to see what sort of hardware with which we’re working.
Thus far, AMD’s Radeon HD 5000-series has demonstrated a predictable relationship between the high-performance models ending in the suffix ’70,’ each successively-lower model offering half of the stream processors of its more powerful cousin. The Radeon HD 5670 continues this trend:
| Radeon HD 5970 | Radeon HD 5870 | Radeon HD 5770 | Radeon HD 5670 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shader Processors: | 3,200 | 1,600 | 800 | 400 |
| Texture Units: | 160 | 80 | 40 | 20 |
| Color ROPs: | 64 | 32 | 16 | 8 |
| Core Clock: | 725 MHz | 850 MHz | 850 MHz | 775 MHz |
| GDDR5 Memory Clock: | 1000 MHz | 1200 MHz | 1200 MHz | 1000 MHz |
| Memory Bus: | 256-bit | 256-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| Data Rate: | 8 Gb/s | 9.6 Gb/s | 4.8 Gb/s | 4 Gb/s |
| Compute Power (TFLOPs): | 4.64 | 2.72 | 1.36 | 0.62 |
| Transistors (Billions): | 4.3 | 2.15 | 1.04 | 0.627 |
| Maximum Power: | 294W | 188W | 108W | 61W |
| Idle Power: | 42W | 27W | 18W | 14W |
What’s interesting here is that the new Radeon HD 5670 offers similar memory bandwidth compared to the higher-end Radeon HD 5770. Both cards offer a 128-bit bus with GDDR5 memory on-board, resulting in memory performance that isn’t all that different.
Let’s look at the Radeon HD 5670 block diagram for a better idea of how it compares to its siblings:
We went through the Radeon HD 5000-series architecture in detail in our Radeon HD 5870 launch article, so I won’t rehash the minutia. We will look at the differences in the Radeon HD 5670 though. In short, the 5670 is one quarter of a 5870. It contains five SIMD engines, each with four texture units and 16 stream processors, and each stream processor with its five ALUs (which ATI calls Stream Cores). As a result, this GPU boasts 400 stream cores and 20 texture units. Note that there are two 64-bit memory controllers sharing two render back-ends. Each render back-end contains four color ROP units resulting in a total of eight ROPs and a 128-bit memory interface.
Lets compare this to the Radeon HD 4770 we’re hoping the new Radeon HD 5670 will be able to compete with:
| Radeon HD 5670 | Radeon HD 4770 | |
|---|---|---|
| Shader Processors: | 400 |
640 |
| Texture Units: | 20 |
32 |
| Color ROPs: | 8 |
16 |
| Core Clock: | 775 MHz |
750 MHz |
| GDDR5 Memory Clock: | 1,000 MHz |
800 MHz |
| Memory Bus: | 128-bit |
128-bit |
| Data Rate: | 4 Gb/s |
3.2 Gb/s |
| Transistors (Billions): | .627 |
0.826 |
Our hopes that the Radeon HD 5670 will meet Radeon HD 4770 performance are somewhat dashed to some extent. The Radeon HD 4770 has more than a 50% increase in ALUs and texture units compared to the new 5670, not to mention two times the ROPs. The only real advantage the 5670 can boast compared to its previous-generation predecessor is a bit more bandwidth, due to a higher memory speed. Based on this, we’re going to predict that the Radeon HD 5670 will fall well short of the 4770 when it comes to 3D gaming, and will instead have to pick up the slack with its value-added features.
The Radeon HD 4850 and 4770 are on the verge of extinction, which will open up some breathing room for the new $100 card in ATI’s own lineup. The demise of the respectable GeForce 9800 GT and GTS 250 is less certain with GF100 (Nvidia’s next-gen graphics architecture) delayed.
Of course there are quite a few capabilities that the Radeon HD 5000-series cards are able to boast currently not offered by its competition. For example, this card doesn’t require a dedicated power connector. Moreover, you get some of the extras covered in previous Radeon HD 5000-series introductions: DirectX 11, Eyefinity, and bitstreaming Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio formats. Let’s talk about how these features work on the Radeon HD 5670.
There’s not too much to say critically about DirectX 11: it’s the inevitable future of PC gaming. ATI knows it, and Nvidia knows it. Both companies like it due to some of the ways it makes programmability more accessible. The difference is that ATI supports it, while Nvidia is still working to get there.
The question is, how important is the API right now, and can the Radeon HD 5670 actually handle advanced DX11 capabilities while maintaining playable performance? The relevance of DirectX 11 at this moment in time is debatable, since so few games support it right now. The ones that do offer relatively little in the way of DirectX 11-related enhancement, as seen in our performance-based evaluation of DiRT 2. We’re still waiting for the DirectX 11 “killer app” that will make a card with support for the API a must-have for gamers.
Zoom
From what we’ve seen, Rebellion’s upcoming Aliens Vs. Predator might fit the bill. Then again, it might not. It’s still too early to tell.
How about Eyefinity? This feature offers tangible benefits to multi-monitor users right out of the gate. While the GPU powering ATI’s Radeon HD 5670 is technically capable of handling four displays, the company let us know that its launch cards will be limited to three due to the real estate issues of fitting the outputs on a single-slot I/O bracket. Manufacturers have the option of offering a 5670 able to exploit four displays at once, though we have to imagine such functionality would typically be reserved for the high-end.
The biggest potential drawback here ironically applies to gamers. Is the Radeon HD 5670 powerful enough to handle the ludicrous resolutions that Eyefinity requires? Probably not, considering aggressive Eyefinity resolutions can bring even the Radeon HD 5870 to a crawl. But AMD suggests that 4800×900 (three monitors running 1600×900 each) is a playable arrangement on this new board. Unfortunately, we don’t have a DisplayPort adapter to test a third monitor in our Canadian lab, but we did run tests at 4800×900 to demonstrate the performance at that resolution using two monitors.
What about bitstreaming Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio over a protected audio path? Good to go there. The Radeon HD 5670 surely makes an attractive option for HTPC enthusiasts, with very low power requirements and the ultimate Blu-ray audio quality available. Not to mention the Radeon’s ability to accelerate, in hardware, Blu-ray video playback. Perhaps it’d even be able to handle 1080p gaming. Once again, we’ll answer that in the benchmarks.
Finally, we have the ATI Stream and DirectCompute features to consider. Yes, the Radeon HD 5670 can accelerate Flash 10.1 video to minimize CPU usage and improve playback quality, it can offer accelerated video transcoding with Cyberlink’s Espresso and PowerDirector 8, and it can enhance upscaled standard definition video to ‘near-HD quality’ using ArcSoft’s TotalMedia Theatre 3 (Ed.: I’m still on the fence, personally, about the value in that one). Of course, the relevance of these features hinges on whether or not you use these particular software products. Our focus during this launch review has been on gaming performance, as we didn’t have enough time to break into a separate discussion of the ATI Stream enhancements. However, we are planning to have a thorough look at ATI Stream (and CUDA) in the future.
It might be worth a retrospective to consider the Radeon HD 4770. It was April 2009 and the GeForce 8800 GT and Radeon HD 4830 were true champions of the ~$100 price point. Then, AMD introduced the Radeon HD 4770, a potential game-changer built on TSMC’s efficient 40nm process. The card boasted similar hardware specifications compared to the Radeon HD 4830, yet with a 175 MHz higher core clock and performance that often approached its powerful Radeon HD 4850 predecessor. Originally intended to compete at the same $100 level, the Radeon HD 4770 had incredible potential.
Ultimately, this seemingly unbeatable card never lived up to its potential as the budget gamer’s savior. This is due to three main factors: supply issues, rising prices, and falling Radeon HD 4850 prices. The problem with supply is often blamed on the early days of TSMC’s 40nm process, rumored to have produced lower yields than expected (and affecting the 5000-series until only recently). Poor supply, of course, leads to higher prices, with the Radeon HD 4770 commonly being sold between $110 to $140 online, instead of its $100 target. But the real nail in the card’s coffin was the Radeon HD 4850 falling to near-comparable prices. Soon after the 4770′s introduction, the Radeon HD 4850 could be found cheaper–as low as $100–effectively making the Radeon HD 4770 redundant.
Why the history lesson? Well, if you can’t learn from history, you’re doomed to repeat it. No matter how good a graphics card is, it needs to be priced appropriately in order to provide desirable value.
In fact, we’ve learned a little from recent history. The GeForce GT 240 was released in November of last year and built on TSMC’s same 40nm process. We saw it as an opportunity for Nvidia to compete with ATI’s Radeon HD 4670, employing a cheaper-to-manufacture, low-power GPU. As it turns out, GeForce GT 240 pricing didn’t drop to where it needed to go relative to the other cards out there. At more than $85 for the slower DDR3 version, cost remains far too high for a card competing with its faster GeForce 9800 GT relative.
It is this cutthroat ~$100 environment where the Radeon HD 5670 will be forced to sink or swim at $99. Here it will have to compete against the similarly-performing $80 GeForce 9600 GT, the slightly-faster $95 GeForce 9800 GT, the clearly-superior $110 Radeon HD 4770, and the vastly more attractive $110 Radeon HD 4850 / GeForce GTS 250. Purely from a performance standpoint, it would be madness to buy the Radeon HD 5670 instead of spending a couple dollars more for the Radeon HD 4850 or GeForce GTS 250. DirectX 11 isn’t much of an issue here. From what we’ve seen so far in our DiRT 2 results, the performance hit is too large to bear for the new Radeon HD 5670. Granted this is only one DirectX 11 title, but it certainly sets the stage.
Aside from gaming, yes, there is value to be found in ATI’s design. For the home theater PC enthusiasts, and for those craving Eyefinity for non-gaming (productivity) applications, the Radeon HD 5670 is a great deal. For folks who don’t want to upgrade their power supply, the Radeon HD 4670 does offer the fastest reference card performance you’ll find without connecting a dedicated power cable.
There are some other nagging issues about this situation, though. Why isn’t there a Radeon HD 5650 that utilizes DDR3 and enables a lower price? AMD told us to wait for the upcoming Radeon HD 5400/5500 instead, but if the company is continuing its “cut in half” strategy and we get a 200 (or 240) stream processor card, it’s not even going to be able to stand against the older Radeon HD 4650. We can hope the Radeon HD 5500 will be a DDR3 version of the 5670, but based on how the Radeon product lineup has been structured in the past, with cut-down lower-end models, that’s probably not likely.
Are we saying the Radeon HD 5670 is a bad card? Certainly not, it’s a respectable mainstream offering. It just costs too much. At $80, this product would offer performance more in-line with its price tag. But at $100, that spread introduces too many strong competitors into the equation. We’ve seen products change to adapt to the market many times before. Maybe, if we’re lucky, prices will quickly drop and allow the Radeon HD 5670 to be the game-changer it can be. At the $100 launch MSRP, however, a gamer is much better off investing a couple more dollars into a Radeon HD 4850 or GeForce GTS 250.
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