ATI Radeon HD 5450 & HD 5570 Review
Introduction
The launch of high-end DirectX 11 (DX11) parts in late 2009 had a lot of gamers waiting impatiently for the release of AMD/ATI’s mainstream and entry level DX11 products. They didn’t have long to wait as AMD delivered in spades. In January the HD 5670 came and brought with it amazing performance that has become a new standard for the $100 price point.
Next up on ATI’s release calendar was to be the Radeon HD 5450 which I previewed last week. This week the Red Team has let another cat out of the proverbial bag by bringing a cost- and power-efficient gaming card for $80. It is known as the Radeon HD 5570.
DirectX 11 has now truly come to the masses and I’m sure you are eager to find out how much performance you can get for such a small cost.
The 5570 consumes 69 watts more power under load and 40 watts more in idle? No way, something must have gone wrong here. The results on other sites are in a different league – single digit watt difference in idle and ~30 watts under load.
Thanks for your comment Howitzer. The fact is exactly as I stated, this is the power draw on the *entire* system. Other sites may have the tools such as power meters that can measure the video card power draw at the slot level. I am only privy to a Kill-A-Watt unit.
The major factor in this is that the 1100W PSU that powers my system has driven up the idle power load quite a bit. Now the difference in the figures will also take into account any additional power draw from the CPU also being under load along with other smaller components like hard drive(s) spinning up and so on.
We do hope to continue improving our testing with better equipment, as our very limited resources will allow.
Thanks for your time. =)