Final Thoughts and Conclusions
The ATI Radeon HD 5670 512MB GDDR5 reference design did fairly well for being a $99 card that basically contains just a quarter of the Radeon HD 5870 graphics core. It performed better than NVIDIA's GeForce GT 240 in our benchmarks and that just goes to show you that this card is no joke. When it comes to gaming performance this card easily beats the EVGA GeForce GT 220 SSC and EVGA GeForce GT 240 SuperClocked video cards that we compared it against. The SuperClocked GT240 retails for $109.99 before a $10 rebate, so both cards are basically the same price. The Radeon HD 5670 can run DirectX 11 applications and beats the GT240 in the benchmarks so the choice for the $100 price range is pretty clear.
The Sapphire Radeon HD 5670 1GB GDDR5 video card that we got a chance to review had an impressive CPU cooler on it by Arctic Cooling, but we didn't see much of an improvement with the extra frame buffer in our benchmarks with the exception of H.A.W.X. We honestly have mixed feelings on this card as it retails for $130. Sure it has the CrossFire connectors, 1GB of GDDR5 memory and a nice cooler on it, but for $135 you can purchase a Sapphire Radeon HD 5750 graphics card. If you go back and look at the benchmarks you'll notice the performance numbers on the Radeon HD 5750 were much higher than either Radeon HD 5670 graphics card, so for a gamer we still have to suggest the Radeon HD 5750 for an extra $5.
The AMD Radeon HD 5670 512MB graphics card is a great low-cost graphics card for someone looking to run a triple monitor setup, do casual gaming or build a HTPC. For just $99 the card is very affordable and has better performance than NVIDIA's offerings at the same price point and just slightly more power usage.
Legit Bottom Line: The ATI Radeon HD 5670 512MB graphics card brings AMD's DirectX 11 offerings down to under $100 and is an impressive card. The Radeon HD 5670 1GB GDDR5 model cards are just slightly less expensive than the Radeon HD 5750 and don't offer as good of a price versus performance punch according to our testing. Both cards are faster than their direct competition, which would be the NVIDIA GT 220 and GT 240 graphics cards.
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