Final thoughts and rating
The final piece of the Radeon 5000-series mid-range architecture is now in place with the HD 5570. To be made available by a slew of partners for $75-$85 (£55-£65), the new GPU bridges the gap between the recently announced HD 5450 and HD 5670 models.Architecture-wise, the newest member looks much akin to the faster HD 5670 on first glance, because it's imbued with same 400 stream processors, 20 texture-units, 8 ROPs, and 128-bit-wide bandwidth. But the use of slower engine clocks and half-bandwidth GDDR3 memory means that it performs at just over 70 per cent of the gaming level exhibited by its bigger, more expensive stablemate.
General performance falls between the GeForce GT 240 and GT 220 parts, although it remains slower than the cheaper Radeon HD 4670: a GPU that remains a thorn in the 5000-series' side. Radeon HD 5K's multimedia features continue to be strong, and the HD 5570 has enough clout to drive three displays, via Eyefinity, and run a modicum of GPU-accelerated apps on each screen - something we can't say about the bottom-rung HD 5450.
We reckon that the Radeon HD 5570 is the cheapest 'proper' gaming card from the new stable and it's a decent-enough card in its own right. But as we have stated with the HD 5670 and HD 5450 reviews, pricing, given the performance, could be sharper. If AMD's partners knocked this down to £50, including VAT, it would be a real winner. The etail price of around £65 for this particular card brings too many rival options into play, right up to a Radeon HD 5670 512MB, for it to be awarded an outright recommendation.
The good
R5K heritage; excellent multimedia support and Eyefinity multi-monitor setup
Radeon HD 5570 represents a significant step-up from HD 5450 in 3D performance
Sample-specific overclocking performance is very good
The not so good
Value isn't as sharp as it could be, evinced by the HEXUS.bang4buck score
Cooler is noisier than expected when under load
HEXUS Rating
We consider any product score above '50/100' as a safe buy. The higher the score, the higher the recommendation from HEXUS to buy. Simple, straightforward buying advice.
The rating is given in relation to the category the component competes in; therefore the Radeon HD 5570 1,024MB is evaluated with respect to our 'low-end' criteria.
AMD Radeon HD 5570 1,024MB
HEXUS Where2Buy
The Radeon HD 5570 1,024MB graphics card can be ordered from the following retailers:
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