HIS Radeon HD 5570 1GB GDDR3 Video Card in CrossFire

We throw another HD 5570 in the testbed to see how this budget CrossFire setup goes in our games.

Published
Updated
Manufacturer: HIS Digital
10 minutes & 14 seconds read time

Introduction




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The HD 5570 was an interesting model for me. Due to the fact it came out after the HD 5450, I didn't know exactly where the model would fit. Ok, yes I understand, it was going to sit in-between the HD 5450 and HD 5670, but was it going to lean more towards the HD 5670 which can do a bit of gaming, or was it going to lean more towards the office orientated HD 5450?

It was surprising to see the model leant more towards the HD 5670. Sure, you're not going to run Eyefinity on the setup; but since the model followed the same low profile nature of the HD 5450, it clearly has a market for people with low profile systems or people who just want to game on a real budget at lower resolutions.

Since the card did pack a little bit of a punch, when we got our second card in it was going to be interesting to see what happens when we ran two cards together. Again we're not going to be able to game at 5760 x 1200, but it will be interesting to see how the little setup compares to the HD 5670. First, though, let's check out the package before we move onto the card itself and its performance.

The Package




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HIS Radeon HD 5570 1GB GDDR3 Video Card in CrossFire 04


HIS Radeon HD 5570 1GB GDDR3 Video Card in CrossFire 05


It's a low end card with a low end bundle. Apart from the two low profile brackets being included in the package, there's not much else to look at.

Video Card




Really, looking at the card there's not a whole lot to see. If you hadn't guessed already from the bundle, our card is of course low profile. Unlike the HD 5450 the HD 5570 uses active cooling which does of course add some noise to the system.

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If you want to go low profile you can remove the VGA connector. Of course, if you need it, all you have to do is add it to the second bracket that's included in the bundle.

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As far as connectivity goes, we've got a single Dual-Link DVI connector, HDMI port and a VGA port; nothing too exciting and no real surprises.


Specifications

When it comes to the specifications of the HIS HD 5570, we again don't see any surprises. We've got the default 650MHz core and the 1GB of GDDR carries with it a 1800MHz DDR clock.

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The only stand out point here should be the fact that we've got CrossFire enabled which can be seen towards the bottom of the screen shot.

Test System Setup and 3DMark Vantage


Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.8GHz (190MHz x 20)
Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P (Supplied by Noctua)
Motherboard(s): GIGABYTE EX58-UD5 (Supplied by GIGABYTE)
Memory: 3 X 2GB Kingston Hyper X PC3-16000 2000MHz DDR CL9 (Supplied by Kingston)
Hard Disk(s): Western Digital 640GB SATA 2.0 HDD (Supplied by Western Digital)
Operating System: Windows 7
Drivers: ATI Catalyst Redwood Beta, ATI Catalyst Cedar Beta


Since we decided to Crossfire the HIS HD 5570 with another HD 5570, we thought we would see how the setup compares against the single card as well as seeing how it goes against the HD 5670 which is the next model up.

Let's get started!


3DMark Vantage

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.1
Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com
Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmarkvantage/
Buy It Here




3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware.

3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.

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Straight away we can see the Crossfire performance is great with it really smashing the single HD 5670.

Unigine Heaven Benchmark (DX10 & DX11)


Unigine Heaven Benchmark

Version and / or Patch Used: 1
Developer Homepage: http://www.unigine.com
Product Homepage: http://unigine.com/products/unigine



New benchmark grants the power to unleash the DirectX 11 potential in the gift wrapping of impressively towering graphics capabilities. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is ensured within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.

Note: If a card doesn't support DirectX 11 the benchmark will be left out. If it does it will be included along with the DirectX 10 results.

Direct X 10

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Direct X 11

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Checking out Unigine, we can again see that the CrossFire performance from the HD 5570 is very strong with it performing well and truly past the HD 5670.

Benchmarks - CINEBENCH R10


CINEBENCH R10

Version and / or Patch Used: Release 10
Developer Homepage: http://www.maxon.net/
Product Homepage: http://www.maxon.net




CINEBENCH is a real-world test suite that assesses your computer's performace capabilities. MAXON CINEBENCH is based on MAXON's award-winning animation software, CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

MAXON CINEBENCH runs several tests on your computer to measure the performance of the main processor and the graphics card under real world circumstances. The benchmark application makes use of up to 16 CPUs or CPU cores and is available for Windows (32-bit and 64-Bit) and Macintosh (PPC and Intel-based).

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CINEBENCH doesn't make use of CrossFire so it comes as no surprise that all three cards line up very similar to each other.

Benchmarks - Resident Evil 5


Resident Evil 5

Version and / or Patch Used: Demo Benchmark
Developer Homepage: http://www.capcom.com
Product Homepage: http://www.residentevil.com




Resident Evil 5 is a survival horror video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil survival horror series, and was released on September 18. Resident Evil 5 revolves around Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as they investigate a terrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional town in Africa.

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Getting into RE5 and our first real world game, we want to see an average of around 60 FPS. As you can see, the single HD 5670 falls a little below it, while the HD 5570 in CrossFire just smashes it with an average of almost 75 FPS.

Benchmarks - Far Cry 2


Far Cry 2

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.03
Timedemo or Level Used: Ranch Long
Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com
Product Homepage: http://www.farcry2.com
Buy It Here




The Dunia Engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2 by the award-winning Ubisoft Montreal development team. It delivers the most realistic destructible environments, amazing special effects such as dynamic fire propagation and storm effects, real-time night-and-day cycle, dynamic music system, non-scripted enemy A.I. and so much more.

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HIS Radeon HD 5570 1GB GDDR3 Video Card in CrossFire 26


Here just shows you how good CrossFire has become as a technology. A single HD 5570 gives us a minimum of almost 17 FPS. The HD 5670 gives us 24 FPS while the HD 5570 in CrossFire breezes past it giving us a minimum of 32 FPS.

Benchmarks - World in Conflict


World in Conflict

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.0.10
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.massive.se
Product Homepage: http://www.worldinconflict.com





World in Conflict is a real-time strategy video game by Massive Entertainment and to be published by Sierra Entertainment for Windows (DX9 and DX10).

The game is set in 1989 where economic troubles cripple the Soviet Union and threaten to dissolve it. However, the title pursues a "what if" scenario where, in this case, the Soviet Union does not collapse and instead pursues a course of war to remain in power. It is an intensive new game that is sure to put plenty of stress on even the latest graphics cards. We use the built-in benchmarking for our testing.

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While we don't break the 30 FPS minimum barrier, we're extremely close to it. A small detail drop will get the numbers we need.

Benchmarks - Batman Arkham Asylum


Batman Arkham Asylum

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.1
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.rocksteadyltd.com
Product Homepage: http://www.batmanarkhamasylum.com





Batman: Arkham Asylum exposes players to a unique, dark and atmospheric adventure that takes them to the depths of Arkham Asylum - Gotham's psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. Gamers will move in the shadows, instigate fear amongst their enemies and confront The Joker and Gotham City's most notorious villains who have taken over the asylum.

Using a wide range of Batman's gadgets and abilities, players will become the invisible predator and attempt to foil The Joker's demented scheme.
Batman: Arkham Asylum features an original story penned exclusively for the game by famous Batman author and five-time Emmy award winner Paul Dini, whose credits include Lost season one and Batman: The Animated Series.

Note: With support for PhysX NVIDIA based cards will be tested with the technology on and off, while ATI cards will be tested with the technology off due to it not being supported on their cards.

Without PhysX

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HIS Radeon HD 5570 1GB GDDR3 Video Card in CrossFire 30


We already broke the 30 FPS minimum here with just a single HD 5570. The HD 5570 CF setup just improves upon those numbers. Compared to the HD 5670, there's little difference in the minimums with the CF setup being a little slower. When we look at the averages, though, the numbers blow out.

Benchmarks - BattleForge


BattleForge

Version and / or Patch Used: Auto Patched at Load
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.ea.com
Product Homepage: http://www.battleforge.com





The Gods have disappeared and the old sun has died, letting a vile twilight engulf the world of Nyn. In exchange for all treasures the mortals possessed, the evil giants agreed to forge a new sun and hurl it into the sky.

But the deal was betrayed, the treasure stolen and now the mortals flee the wrath of the giants. Under the light of a new sun the mortals stumble into a world changed and twisted by an age of twilight. The long journey home has become a conquest of survival.

Note: Supporting DirectX 11, we have separated the graphs for NVIDIA and ATI cards. While the numbers between the two brands can be compared, you have to make note that ATI based HD 5000 series cards are running DirectX 11.

DirectX 11 (ATI HD 5000 Series Only)

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BattleForge is an extremely taxing game and we're still a fair distance away from the 60 FPS average we want to see. In saying that, though, the HD 5570 CF setup from HIS is putting out some serious numbers.

Temperature and Sound Tests


Temperature Tests



With the TES 1326 Infrared Thermometer literally in hand we found ourselves getting real-world temperatures from the products we test at load (3D clock speeds).

There are two places we pull temperature from - the back of the card directly behind the core and if the card is dual slot and has an exhaust point we also pull a temperate from there, as seen in the picture.

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the HD 5570 seems to run a little cooler than the Sapphire one which is a fair bit cooler than the HD 5670.


Sound Tests



Pulling out the TES 1350A Sound Level Meter we find ourselves quickly yelling into the top of it to see how loud we can be.

After five minutes of that we get a bit more serious and place the device two CM away from the fan on the card to find the maximum noise level of the card when idle (2D mode) and in load (3D mode).

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As far as noise levels go, it's a little louder than Sapphire's one which means the fan is probably working harder and in turn giving us the better cooling numbers.

Power Consumption Tests






Using our new PROVA Power Analyzer WM-01 or "Power Thingy" as it has become quickly known as to our readers, we are now able to find out what kind of power is being used by our test system and the associated graphics cards installed. Keep in mind; it tests the complete system (minus LCD monitor, which is plugged directly into AC wall socket).

There are a few important notes to remember though; while our maximum power is taken in 3DMark06 at the same exact point, we have seen in particular tests the power being drawn as much as 10% more. We test at the exact same stage every time; therefore tests should be very consistent and accurate.

The other thing to remember is that our test system is bare minimum - only a 7,200RPM SATA-II single hard drive is used without CD ROM or many cooling fans.

So while the system might draw 400 watts in our test system, placing it into your own PC with a number of other items, the draw is going to be higher.

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Power draw is a little higher on the HD 5570 CF setup as you would expect, but the numbers are hardly anything you would worry about.

Final Thoughts




I find myself extremely shocked by the performance the HD 5570 CrossFire setup gives us today with the HIS card. Let's talk about the price of the setup. At about 85 bucks the HD 5570 CF setup is going to set you back about $170 which is singular HD 5770 money.

In saying that, a HD 5770 or anything below a HD 5570 is going to fit in a low profile case. To look at these numbers we've got today and think you could get a nice little mATX board with two PCI-E 16x slots and a low profile case and get the numbers we're getting is amazing. Gaming at 1680 x 1050 with this little setup is an absolute breeze. Yes value does begin to go out the window when you CrossFire, but if low profile is what you're after, this is a fantastic little setup.

Moving away from the CrossFire topic and talking more about the card itself, the HIS model doesn't hold any real surprises. It's everything you would expect out of this budget orientated model. Compared to the Sapphire card it runs a little cooler, but in saying that the fan runs a little louder.

The bundle's light and the price is low. You've got a very typical HD 5570 here. Since it followed the reference clocks, we know how the model performs when it's alone. 1680 x 1050 isn't an option in single card form as you can see when we compared the CF setup to the single card. In saying that, however, gaming at 1280 x 1024 is a good option, especially if you're interested in older games.

Like we said in the intro, the HD 5570 has its market. Yes, we understand that it's not for everyone; it's probably not for most of our readers, but if you're looking at doing a bit of light gaming at lower resolutions or want to add something to that low profile pre-built system, it's a fantastic choice.

HIS haven't done anything that stands out from what we've seen already, but you can only do so much with a model like this and they're ultimately sitting at the same level as the Sapphire one. Neither one is really better or worse than the other. The HIS one does seem to run a little cooler, though; this at the cost of an extra few dBs.

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Shawn takes care of all of our video card reviews. From 2009, Shawn is also taking care of our memory reviews, and from May 2011, Shawn also takes care of our CPU, chipset and motherboard reviews. As of December 2011, Shawn is based out of Taipei, Taiwan.

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