AMD’s Radeon HD 5670
The reference Radeon HD 5670 graphics card we received in for our review is pretty basic but meets the needs of cards in such a low price point.
The card is of a single slot design – something we can’t say for the two GeForce GT 240 cards we tested in November. The color scheme stays with the black/red combination of the entire 5000-series though obviously it is lacking in terms of “style” of the HD 5800 cards.
The rear of the card only reveals that all of the 512MB of frame buffer is included under the heatsink.
The display connections on the HD 5670 include a dual-link DVI output, an HDMI connection and a DisplayPort connection, all of which can be used simultaneously and will have to be in order to take advantage of a three display configuration. We have lamented over and over about the problem with DisplayPort connectivity in today’s monitor markets and the need for active adapters (for DP to DVI) but it bears repeating: AMD needs to get help out to customers on this issue. It is something they have been PROMISING since before the first 5000-series card review ever hit and they have yet to follow through.
The HD 5670 makes good on its promise to not require any external power and instead uses the 75w available to it from the PCIe connection.
The naked Radeon HD 5670 is pretty boring as far as GPU designs come…
Though you can quickly see that the new RV830/Redwood GPU is significantly reduced in die sized compared to the Cypress GPU seen below:
