Reviews - Pro-Clockers! PC Reviews One MegaHertz At A Time

Today, we will be looking at Sapphire’s latest video card creation. The new arrival is the Radeon HD 5670 Ultimate. The whole Radeon HD 5XXX series has been a real hit for ATI especially when it comes down to HD 5870 and HD 5970 which both put ATI back on top of the performance hill. Put like many of us we can’t afford to fork out $350 plus for a video card. So, we must settle for what our wallets can give us.

But with the Ultimate Radeon HD 5670 you will not be settling but getting a nice performing video card with all the features of the HD 5XXX series at an afford price. One feature that I personally cannot over look is the passively cooled GPU. With this card you get a decent gaming card, low power consumption and quietness. All three a big plus in my book.

The Sapphire Radeon HD 5550 Overclocked Edition is obviously overclocked, as stated by the name, but also coming with an upgraded cooler from none other than Arctic Cooling. Arctic Cooling is known for producing great coolers at incredibly low prices. Sapphire incorporated the cooling engineering A.C. is known for and topped off their newest HD 5550 card with it. Traditionally the HD 5550 core is clocked at 550MHz, where as this new model has a slight overclock of 650MHz, but is the overclock worth it? We will find out shortly.

But can you have silent and good performance and have no noise? Well, as of last a few companies have put out Radeon HD 5750 cards with passive cooling. And today, we have a Gigabyte model in house titled the Silent Cell. That is right with the Silent Cell you can get the performance you want from a fan-less GPU without having to resort to the lowly levels of the HD 5450 and HD5570.

The first sample of the HD 5830 we will be reviewing here at Pro-Clockers comes from our friends at Sapphire. At $240, this card is definitely better-priced than the HD 5850, but many of us were looking for a card closer to $200, but offering the same performance. With this being the case, the HD 5830 still offers all the visual benefits of the other 5XXX series, which includes Eyefinity, DirectX 11 and high quality audio though HDMI. Is it worth the $80 higher asking price over the HD 5850? We will find out.

Gigabyte also knows you have to grant people looking for a good budget GPU with the proper tools. The latest HD 5770 or GV-R577UD-1GD is just that card. For the $160 asking price, you get a blazing 850MHz Core and 4800MHZ of GDDR5 memory. Equipped with less stream processors, lower texture fill rate and memory bandwidth, the HD 5770 looks to still be a winner in our books. If you don't believe me, read the following pages for more proof..

Gigabyte has sent us their version of the Radeon HD 5450. The HD 5450 is in direct competition to the Nvidia Geforce 210. But cards will set you back less than $50. Neither card is going to make you run out and buy them. But if you are in the market for a ultra quiet better than iGPU than I would suggest you take a look at this new card from Gigabyte. Today, we will give you a head start at seeing just what the HD 5450 has to offer.

On the mid-range front, AMD has today released the HD5750, which is gunning for its older brethren, the HD 4850 and the Nvidia GT250. Curious about the price? We predict the card will hit the shelves at $150. Besides the price point, the HD 5750 offers some of the benefits of the more expensive HD 5870 and 5850, DirectX 11 support and Eyefinity. Yes, the much talked about Eyefinity.

Taking a look at the HD 4670, this is not the same HD 4670 we reviewed some months ago. This is a new and improved HD 4670 when has been packed with GDDR4, which is a technology jump from the GDDR3 on the older model. What we will be looking at besides the performance increase from the new memory is the new and quieter dual slot active cooler which sits atop the 750MHz GPU core. Sit back and read on as we take the new HD 4670 for a hefty round of tests. 

The ATI-powered HD4830 from Sapphire is showing promise at being one of the best bangs for the buck cards out there. The HD4830 has the same amount of ram as the HD4850, but is clocked slightly lower and lacks a few of the shader units of the bigger sibling. Granted the HD4830 isn't here to steal any of the HD4850�s thunder, but it is targeted at the Nvidia 8800GT and 9800GT line. It is time to put the card to the test and see just where it stands.

This leads us to today's review sample which is the Palit 9800GTX+. The overall specifications of the 9800GTX+ are very similar to the 9800GTX with a few differences. The main difference is the reducing of die size. After months of playing second fiddle to AMD when it came down to die size Nvidia finaly got with the program and reduced their's to 55nm. This meant a few things to the consumer one being less power consumption. And for those that really like numbers higher clocks came along for the ride. How does 745/1100 sound? I figured you would lke that. Palit has a couple more features that will win you over if these first couple don't.