discussion XFX Radeon HD 5750 1GB GDDR5 Review

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Crysis: Warhead (DX9)

Crysis: Warhead (DX9)

To benchmark Warhead, we recorded a 5 minute timedemo on the Ice level which included ranged and hand to hand combat. The sequence was then played back using the Crysis Benchmarking Tool from HOC

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Crysis Warhead seems to be a good friend to ATI’s mid-range cards since the HD 5770 and HD 5750 seem to stick close to one another even though the bigger brother of the two gives much higher performance numbers. When it comes to the NVIDIA cards in comparison, even the GTS 250 1GB lags behind the HD 5750 but never by more than about 10%.

 

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Crysis: Warhead (DX10)

Crysis: Warhead (DX10)

To benchmark Warhead, we recorded a 5 minute timedemo on the Ice level which included ranged and hand to hand combat. The sequence was then played back using the Crysis Benchmarking Tool from HOC

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In this test the GTS 250 and HD 5750 are pretty much matching one another stride for stride until the ATI card is able to pull away at 2560 x 1600 with AA enabled.

 

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Dawn of War II

Dawn of War II

Even though Dawn of War II has its own in-game benchmarking tool, we decided not to use it. Instead, we played through approximately 10 minutes of the final Sapce Marine mission “Last Stand” while recording framerates with FRAPS. With a massive amount of enemies rushing your position and additional troops deployed on your side, this mission features some of the largest battles in the single player game. In addition, since the Tyranid swarms appear at regular intervals, this mission is also perfect for comparison testing.

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Once again the HD 5750 manages to narrowly beat the GTS 250 1GB but the real story once again is the additional performance a mere $30 can give you if you choose to go with the HD 5770 1GB.

 

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Fallout 3

Fallout 3

For these Fallout 3 benchmarks we decided to use one of the more graphically intensive portions of the game: a gameplay session which starts at the exit from Vault 101, through Springvale, over a small hill towards Washington and then back towards Megaton. Within this session two ants were fought near Springvale. All in all, the gameplay time is about 6 minutes.

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Fallout 3 usually provides us with some entertaining results and this time it does just that. The HD 5750 is actually routinely beat by the GTS 250 512MB when AA is turned off but in those cases, our inclusion of minimum framerates tells a different story. Even though the average scores show the HD 5750 loosing, it will provide a much smoother experience due to its consistent minimums rather than high averages. Meanwhile, when AA is turned on the HD 5750 is able to surge ahead and perform on par with the GTS 250 1GB.

 

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Far Cry 2 (DX9)

Far Cry 2 (DX9)

Even though Far Cry 2 has its own built-in benchmarking tool with some flythroughs and “action scenes”, we decided to record our own timedemo consisting of about 7 minutes of game time. It involves everything from run-and-gun fights to fire effects. The built-in benchmarking too was then set up to replay the timedemo and record framerates

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At lower resolutions and even when playing on a 24” monitor, the HD 5750 1GB is really able to shine and it takes a GTX 260 216 to actually offer a competitive answer. However, we also have to remember the gap between it and the HD 5770 which is huge considering their prices in relation to one another.

 

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Far Cry 2 (DX10)

Far Cry 2 (DX10)

Even though Far Cry 2 has its own built-in benchmarking tool with some flythroughs and “action scenes”, we decided to record our own timedemo consisting of about 7 minutes of game time. It involves everything from run-and-gun fights to fire effects. The built-in benchmarking too was then set up to replay the timedemo and record framerates

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2560 x 1600

It seems that the overall performance of the HD 5750 in the DX10 version of Far Cry 2 is good but the minimum framerates are a bit of a mixed bag with huge dips when AA is turned on.

 

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Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead

For benching Left 4 Dead, we used a pre-recorded 5 minute timedemo taken on the No Mercy campaign during The Rooftop Finale mission. Framerates were captured with FRAPS.

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ATI bills their cards as having better AA efficiency than their NVIDIA counterparts and while the majority of results within this review don’t seem to bear this out, Left 4 Dead does. Basically, the HD 5750 and the GTS 250 1GB trade blows again and again but the HD 5770 is able to maintain a sizable lead over both.

 

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Tom Clancy’s Hawx (DX9)

Tom Clancy’s Hawx (DX9)

Even though HawX has a built-in benchmarking tool, we found that it did not provide accurate enough results needed to reflect what actual in-game performance would be. Thus, we played through the first 6 minutes of a mission and recorded the results with FRAPS.

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ATI’s performance in HawX has never been up to snuff but the HD 5750 simply gets brutalized by the competition here. There really isn’t anything else to say.

 

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Tom Clancy’s Hawx (DX10 / 10.1)

Tom Clancy’s Hawx (DX10 / 10.1)

Even though HawX has a built-in benchmarking tool, we found that it did not provide accurate enough results needed to reflect what actual in-game performance would be. Thus, we played through the first 6 minutes of a mission and recorded the results with FRAPS. All ATI cards have DX10.1 enabled.

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In this test, the HD 5750 starts running circles around the competition, especially when its 1GB framebuffer comes into play. However, the most interesting aspect of this test is its closest completion is actually the HD 4770 and HD 4750 512MB from the last generation.

 

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Heat & Acoustics / Power Consumption

Heat & Acoustics

For all temperature testing, the cards were placed on an open test bench with a single 120mm 1200RPM fan placed ~8” away from the heatsink. The ambient temperature was kept at a constant 22°C (+/- 0.5°C). If the ambient temperatures rose above 23°C at any time throughout the test, all benchmarking was stopped. For this test we use the 3DMark Batch Size test at it highest triangle count with 4xAA and 16xAF enabled and looped it for one hour to determine the peak load temperature as measured by GPU-Z.

For Idle tests, we let the system idle at the Vista desktop for 15 minutes and recorded the peak temperature.

With a 40nm core at its heart and a dual slot cooler taking care of heat, the temperatures on the HD 5750 never even reach 70C and the card actually stays cool to the touch when it is at idle. The fan speeds are actually aided by the cool-running core and even when the card is under load, it is virtually impossible to tell that it is running.

Power Consumption

For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption while letting the card sit at a stable Windows desktop for 30 minutes to determine the peak idle power consumption. We have also included several other tests as well.

Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.

Even though we were prepared for some great power consumption numbers, the HD 5750 simply stunned us and showed how far ATI has come in terms of overall efficiency in comparison to NVIDIA. With load power consumption that was better than any card tested to date coupled with the performance it showed in games makes this one of the best performance per watt cards on the market today.