GIGABYTE Radeon HD 5770 Super Overclock 1GB Video Card

The Super Overclock series from GIGABYTE gets a new mid range model. Let's see how the HD 5770 SOC fairs.

Published
Updated
Manufacturer: GIGABYTE
14 minutes & 6 seconds read time

Introduction and The Package


Introduction

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Occasionally I'll have a sample that slips through the cracks; the HD 5770 SOC from GIGABYTE is one of those cards. When I first heard about the model I was looking forward to testing it. Combine the SOC series from GIGABYTE which we love, along with the HD 5770 which carries with it some excellent value, and we thought surely we're onto a winner.

Unfortunately the model just seemed to arrive at the wrong time, though. It then kind of got pushed back behind some other products and forgotten about. During a bit of a cleanup it managed to rear its face again and it was time to get it straight into the testbed to see what the model was capable of.

The first thing we'll do is have a look at the bundle GIGABYTE has put together. Once we've done that we'll have a closer look at the card itself, the cooler GIGABYTE has opted for and the clocks GIGABYTE decided on. We'll then figure out if those clocks make the model worthy of the Super Overclock name.

Once all that's out the way, we'll get into the benchmarking side of things and see just how the model performs before we wrap everything up. But firstly, as we said before, let's check out the package that GIGABYTE has put together.


The Package

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The box design is very similar to other SOC cards we've seen in the past from GIGABYTE. It's good as it really lets us identify the model immediately. Inside we haven't got a whole lot going on; we've got a manual and driver CD along with a dual Molex to 6-Pin connector, DVI to VGA connector and CrossFire bridge.

The Card and Specifications


The Card

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Looking at the card itself, we can see the cooler GIGABYTE has opted for looks pretty mean. We've got a number of copper heat pipes coming out the top and the fan itself is quite large. As for the rest of the card, there are no real surprises here. We've got a single 6-Pin PCI-E power connector at the back and a CrossFire connector at the top. Connectivity is the standard Eyefinity setup which means two Dual-Link DVI connectors, HDMI and DisplayPort.


Specifications

The card we're looking at today is part of the Super Overclock series which of course means it's overclocked out of the box.

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At default the HD 5770 carries with it an 850MHz core and the 1GB of GDDR5 comes with a 4800MHz QDR clock. While the SOC hasn't moved the memory clock, GIGABYTE has bumped the core up 50MHz to 900MHz.

We're not sure if we would call this a "super" overclock, but 50MHz core on a mid range model is impressive. Hopefully when it comes to benchmarking it manages to give us some nice numbers.

Test System Setup and 3DMark Vantage


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We would like to thank the following companies for supplying and supporting us with our test system hardware and equipment: Intel, ASRock, Kingston, Western Digital, Noctua and Thermaltake.

We haven't tested a whole lot of mid range cards lately, so we haven't got a huge database of them at the moment, for that reason we'll be comparing the HD 5770 SOC against the GIGABYTE HD 5750 Silent Cell we looked at recently and the HD 5670 from Axle 3D.

Being a mid range card, we are only testing at 1680 x 1050 and 1920 x 1200. We'll also not be including any AA or AF tests. Hopefully the GIGABYTE HD 5770 SOC is able to give us some playable numbers at these resolutions.

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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Compared to the HD 5750 we can see the SOC version of the HD 5770 carries with it quite a nice performance boost in both our 3DMark Vantage presets.

Unigine Heaven Benchmark




Version and / or Patch Used: 1 and 2
Developer Homepage: http://www.unigine.com
Product Homepage: http://unigine.com/press-releases/091022-heaven_benchmark//



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 DirectX10 results.

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We again see quite a nice boost in performance compared to the HD 5750.

Benchmarks - CINEBENCH


CINEBENCH

Version and / or Patch Used: Release 10 and Release 11.5
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 performance across the board is very similar for the three ATI based cards.

Benchmarks - Resident Evil 5


Resident Evil 5

Version and / or Patch Used: Demo Benchmark
Developer Homepage: www.residentevil.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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Without a minimum we're looking for an average of around 60 FPS. You can see at both resolutions the HD 5770 SOC doesn't have any problem achieving those results.

Benchmarks - BattleForge


BattleForge

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

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While we fall below the 60 FPS average at both resolutions, we're not far behind it at both. A bit of a detail drop and we should be able to get the FPS we need. We're a lot closer to that average we need as well when compared to the HD 5750.

Benchmarks - Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.


Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/UK/default.aspx
Product Homepage: http://www.hawxgame.com/





Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X is an arcade-style flight simulator video game developed by Ubisoft Romania and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and iPhone OS.

The fundamental gameplay mechanics are similar to those of other console-based flight series. Players take on enemies with over 50 aircraft available. Each mission is at real world locations in environments created with commercial satellite data. A cockpit, first person, and third person view are selectable. The third person view gives the player an external view of both their plane and the target.

Set above the skies of a near-future world, increasingly dependent on private military companies with elite mercenaries who have a relaxed view on the law. As these non-governmental organizations gain power, global conflict erupts with one powerful PMC attacking the United States.

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While we can see the HD 5750 struggles at 1920 x 1200, the HD 5770 SOC doesn't have an issue getting that 60 FPS average. We're actually 8 FPS past it which is great to see.

Benchmarks - Darkest of Days


Darkest of Days

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.4
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.darkestofdays.com/index.php
Product Homepage: http://www.darkestofdays.com/index.php





Darkest of Days takes the player through time into historic battles in an effort to save key individuals from certain death. The battles range from Custer's Last Stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 to fighting in Pompeii as ash and fire rain down from an erupting Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. Other locations include the battles of Antietam and Tannenberg, and a German World War II P.O.W. camp. There are different missions in every time period and the game takes about 4 hours to complete.

The game features over twenty weapons, both from the original time period as well as those brought back from the future. In addition, there are artillery weapons from different time periods to assist in battle.

Note: With the PhysX set to Medium or High Darkest of Days take advantage of the NVIDIA PhysX abilities. For that reason we will test ATI cards at the Low preset, NVIDIA based cards though will be tested at Low and High.

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We again see that the HD 5770 is the difference between smooth game play and not. At 1920 x 1200 the HD 5750 just falls shy of that 60 FPS average we want to see. The same can't be said about the HD 5770 which flies past the 60s and gets into the 70s.

Benchmarks - Far Cry 2


Far Cry 2

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.01
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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We can see that the HD 5750 just manages to scrape past that 30 FPS minimum at both resolutions. The HD 5770 SOC on the other hand doesn't have any problems dealing with the these detail levels under Far Cry 2.

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.batmanarkhamasylum.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, ATI cards will be tested with the technology off due to it not being supported on their cards.

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Batman AA runs great on most cards and here is no different. Our minimum is actually above 60 FPS at both resolutions.

Benchmarks - Dark Void


Dark Void

Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.airtightgames.com
Product Homepage: http://www.darkvoidgame.com/




The game's story takes place during World War II and centers around a cargo pilot named William Augustus Grey (voiced by Nolan North) who is teleported to another world while flying through the Bermuda Triangle. In this world, known as the 'Void', Will encounters an alien race as well as other humans, which are known as the Watchers and the Survivors respectively.

Will reluctantly joins the Survivors who are engaged in a feud with the alien race to satisfy his desire to return to Earth. While aiding the Survivors, Will discovers that the Void is a middle ground that connects both the Watchers homeworld and Earth. It also becomes apparent that the Watchers are supplying the Axis powers with various supplies for reasons unknown. With the help of Nikola Tesla, Will utilizes retrofited Watcher technology to combat the Watchers and eventually find a way to escape the Void.

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Dark Void isn't the most intensive game and you can see that performance is again very good from all the cards including the HD 5770 SOC from GIGABYTE.

Benchmarks - Elcomsoft Wireless Security Auditor


Elcomsoft Wireless Security Auditor

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.51
Timedemo or Level Used: Sample File
Developer Homepage: http://www.elcomsoft.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.elcomsoft.com/ewsa.html




ElcomSoft has pioneered many software innovations that have made it easier to recover passwords protecting various types of resources. For the first time in the industry, the company's patent-pending GPU acceleration makes its way into Wi-Fi password recovery, reducing the time required to recover Wi-Fi passwords up to a hundred times.

Supporting up to four NVIDIA boards such as GeForce 8, 9, and 200, as well as ATI video cards such as RADEON HD 4000 Series and up, Elcomsoft Wireless Security Auditor allows building servers with supercomputer performance at a fraction of the price.

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WSA performance isn't bad; it performs where we would expect it to.

Temperature Test


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 temperature on the HD 5770 SOC is very low. The only card to run cooler is the HD 5570 which is quite low end.

Sound Test


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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Unfortunately these low temps do come at the cost of noise. Even though we were getting 70dB from our Sound Meter, to be honest it doesn't sound that loud. Considering we've heard GTX 400 cards at 100% fan speed which put out similar numbers, they sound considerably louder.

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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Being a mid range card, the low power draw doesn't come as a surprise. Its idle is a little higher when compared to some of the competition, but we're dealing with quite low numbers anyway so it doesn't really matter.

Total Performance Rating (TPR)


Total Performance Rating

The TPR graph is a combination of all our benchmarks in which NVIDIA and ATI are on an even playing field. This includes benchmarks where PhysX can be forced off like Dark Void and Batman: Arkham Asylum, but not Darkest of Days.

The TPR number is a combination of:

3DMark Vantage, Heaven Benchmark V2, CINEBENCH R11.5, Resident Evil 5, BattleForge, Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X., Far Cry 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum (PhysX Off), Dark Void (PhysX Off) and our three High Quality tests which include Far Cry 2, Resident Evil 5 and Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

All of the benchmark results achieved are then combined into a single number. As this graph will grow over time and cards won't be re-tested, next to each model you'll find the driver version that was used when the card was benchmarked.

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Compared to our other mid range cards, it doesn't come as a surprise that the card is the fastest. It's the highest model out of the lot and the most expensive. You can see here just how much faster the model is, though.

Total Value Rating (TVR) and Final Thoughts


Total Value Rating

The TVR graph is the TPR score divided by the price of the video card. The price of the video card is based on the list price of the model on Newegg.com. In the event the card isn't listed, it will be based on the U.S. $ MSRP given to us by the manufacturer.

In the event we can't source a price from either, the product will not receive a TVR rating. As with our TPR graph, the amount of video cards on the list will grow over time and the price of the model won't change from what it was when first reviewed. For this reason the U.S. $ price that the card is based off will be included next to the name of the model.

In the event you want to find the TVR rating yourself based on the current price, all you have to do is simply divide the TPR number by the list price.

TVR numbers are rounded to the nearest whole number; 100.3 will be 100; 100.8 will be 101 and 100.5 will be rounded down to 100.

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The HD 5770 is one of the better valued mid range models. Its price to performance ratio is really quite good.


Final Thoughts

The HD 5770 has always been a good model. Going through the graphs, there's very few instances that the HD 5770 SOC from GIGABYTE struggles at the resolutions we tested at. Considering you're talking about a card that costs well under the $200 mark, it's a great little buy for the casual gamer that is going to game at 1680 x 1050, 1920 x 1080 or 1920 x 1200.

We're not sure if the model really deserves the Super Overclock tag that GIGABYTE has given it, especially since they didn't opt to overclock the memory. A 50MHz overclock on this model's core is impressive, though, and the performance for the price is ultimately very good. We just hope that GIGABYTE doesn't go silly with the SOC naming and start giving it to models that don't really deserve it. We feel the HD 5770 SOC is about the lowest point where we would give the tag.

For the money there's not really a better buy than the HD 5770 SOC. Sure, with models like the GTX 460 out now that offer amazing value for money, they're closer to the $200 mark. If you want to spend closer to the $150 area this is a better option. At the end of it all we're able to run just about everything at 1920 x 1200 with game settings maxed out. Sure, you might be avoiding AA and AF and as more intensive games come out over the life of the model you might have to drop the detail level down, but really, for the money it's a great little buy.

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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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