ATI Radeon HD 5670 brings DirectX 11 and Eyefinity to the budget-minded market

AMD and ATI have got yet another GPU contender under their sleeve, and this one's got quite a one-two punch. The Radeon HD 5670 can boast DirectX 11 and Eyefinity support are for a suggested price less than one Benjamin Franklin. The usual suspects have weighed in on the card, and the consensus is that this is a "solid value" that outperforms its analogous NVIDIA GeForce GT 240. That's not exactly an A+ grade, but we weren't expecting it to go toe-to-toe with its older brothers costing hundreds of dollars apiece. AnandTech also points out that some DX11-compliant games (e.g. Battleforge, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) couldn't pull off manageable framerates. Hit up the source links for more thorough analysis, and join us after the break for the official presser. One last word of advice, as noted by TweakTown: make sure the model you pick up uses GDDR5 (instead of GDDR3), as it could make a world of difference.

ATI Radeon HD 5670 brings DirectX 11 and Eyefinity to the sub-$100 market

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Generation HD Gaming and Multimedia Features to the Mainstream

ATI Radeon™ HD 5670 is the first graphics card with support for Microsoft DirectX® 11 and ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology for under $1001

Sunnyvale, Calif. -1/14/2010
AMD (NYSE: AMD) today introduced the ATI Radeon™ HD 5670 graphics card, the latest addition to the award-winning line-up of the world's first and only graphics products to fully support Microsoft DirectX® 11 gaming and computing, as well as new innovations such as ATI Eyefinity technology. Priced at less than USD $100,1 the ATI Radeon™ HD 5670 graphics card enables a superior HD gaming experience in the latest DirectX® 11 titles, employs ATI Stream technology to boost performance in video playback and productivity applications,2 and helps enable the full Microsoft Windows® 7 experience.

Big performance, small price: The ATI Radeon™ HD 5670 graphics card delivers up to 620 GigaFLOPS of compute power and GDDR5 memory, delivering unprecedented gaming performance for under USD $100 in the latest DirectX® 11 titles such as Codemaster's Colin McRae™: DiRT® 2™, EA Phenomic's BattleForge™ , GSC Game World's S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat™ and Battlefield: Bad Company™ 2 as well as DirectX® 9, DirectX® 10, DirectX® 10.1 and OpenGL titles. In some of today's most popular games, the ATI Radeon™ HD 5670 graphics processor showed a more than 20 percent performance improvement over the closest competing product in its class.3

Panoramic computing hits the mainstream: The latest in ATI Eyefinity technology enables up to three displays to be used with a single ATI Radeon™ HD 5670 graphics card4, delivering the most immersive gaming experience with a graphics card for under $100.

Accelerate with ATI Stream technology: ATI Stream technology speeds up video transcoding and improves video playback performance with applications such as Adobe Flash, and helps to deliver video enhancements that produce better visual quality with sharper, more vibrant images.2

"AMD recently celebrated the shipment of its two millionth DirectX 11 graphics chip. AMD has already enabled DirectX® 11 support for the majority of the PC market and today's introduction of the ATI Radeon™ HD 5670 graphics card is yet another clear indication of AMD's commitment to address the strong market demand for DirectX 11-capable graphics cards," said Matt Skynner, vice president and general manager, AMD Graphics Group. "Combined with the successful launches of the ATI Radeon™ HD 5970, ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 series and ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 series, AMD has defined the DirectX 11 gaming experience like no other, bringing graphics innovations like ATI Eyefinity technology and ATI Stream technology to millions of consumers worldwide."

"DICE prides itself on delivering the best possible experience to gamers, and ATI Radeon™ graphics cards help us to do that with Battlefield: Bad Company™ 2 through the use of DirectX® 11 and our Frostbite engine," said Johan Andersson. "The fact that AMD has now shipped two million DirectX® 11 graphics processors demonstrates how excited gamers are by the awesome performance and feature set of the latest ATI Radeon™ products."

About AMD
Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is an innovative technology company dedicated to collaborating with customers and technology partners to ignite the next generation of computing and graphics solutions at work, home and play. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.

AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, ATI, the ATI logo, Radeon, and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

[Vigile Posted Jan 14th 2010 4:16AM]

Maybe something to add to more coverage, a review from PCPer:

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=857

[Streetfights Posted Jan 14th 2010 11:01AM]

@Vigile

I'm not sure I would trust the opinion of someone on PCP...

[NeatOman Posted Jan 14th 2010 4:32AM]

Wonder how this stacks up when theirs two... also doesn't it have uncompressed audio over HDMI?

[yulebellow Posted Jan 14th 2010 4:46AM]

I'm actually asking this for real...can it play Crysis?

[ChazClout Posted Jan 14th 2010 4:51AM]

@yulebellow I genuinely thought that too!

[k2001 Posted Jan 14th 2010 5:02AM]

@ChazClout
Yes it can play Crysis. Even my lousy 2600xt can play Crysis. But the question is how well it play Crysis.

Crysis Warhead benchmark
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/hd5670launch/15.html

[YpoCaramel Posted Jan 14th 2010 6:41AM]

@yulebellow Again, playability is governed by framerate - some say 60fps+, some say 30fps+ (it depends, really, on genre and how seriously you take performance in the game). The 5670 doesn't do too well with high settings and typical new desktop resolutions (15fps @ 1680x01050, Anandtech), so I'd say no.

[Vdek Posted Jan 14th 2010 7:31AM]

@yulebellow At medium settings, yes of course.

[annalevitich Posted Jan 14th 2010 2:26PM]

@yulebellow Yes it can play crysis, probably you're asking the quality of how it can play crysis. Me, I guess i'll be asking if this can play GTA IV at max-res. Although, I must say I got pretty excited hearing this baby will be selling like hotcakes sub-100 dollars.. OMG, compare to their 5970 "world's fastest video card" selling 5 benjamin franklins. LOL: http://bit.ly/worlds-fastest-video-card-made-by-radeon-very-remarkable

[jeninalovie Posted Jan 18th 2010 12:30AM]

@annalevitich As its name suggests, the ATI Radeon HD 5670 shares a number of features with its higher-end counterparts in the Radeon HD 5000 series, like Eyefinity and full DX11 support. Come along for the ride as we show you the new Radeon HD 5670, discuss its specifications, and ultimately take it for a spin through a number of benchmarks
Best deal? it's sub-100 USD.. More details: http://bit.ly/ati-hd-5670-details

[milkham Posted Jan 14th 2010 5:23AM]

Is it me or is that VGA port not connected to the pcb?

[mrqs Posted Jan 14th 2010 7:38AM]

@milkham

interesting observation...

[KAL326 Posted Jan 14th 2010 10:06AM]

@milkham It's AMD's new wireless video spec, didn't you see the press release?

[sawtx Posted Jan 14th 2010 11:48AM]

@milkham

It's a special VGA connector, just search for Edac slim vga connector.

[DrDr Posted Jan 14th 2010 2:05PM]

@milkham

It is connected on the other side.

[sebmason Posted Jan 14th 2010 5:30AM]

Would this be a good choice for a new cheap(ish) HTPC?
I've always wondered about audio through HDMI Graphics cards...
How does all that work? do you need a seperate soundcard (for 5.1 etc) as well as the graphics card with HDMI?

Sorry, I've just been looking into building a good HTPC for all my media/TV needs and was wondering if someone could help, this looks to be a very good option.

any thoughts?

[Phil P Posted Jan 14th 2010 6:13AM]

@sebmason The ati 5 series cards can put out every digital audio format you could want over HDMI and don't require a separate sound card.

If its an HTPC/gaming machine you're building, the 5670 would be a good start, but naturally a faster card would be better if you're serious about the gaming. If its purely a HTPC, you would be better off either waiting for the 5450 which will come out as it will be cheaper and quieter, or build a system using the new Intel core i3 chips. These do all the things the ATI cards do, HD acceleration, audio over HDMI etc only without the gaming performance.

[FORDY Posted Jan 14th 2010 2:46PM]

@Phil P
HTPC/Gaming ?!

As if that's a legitimate form factor..

The two uses are by definition very different. The only similarity may be found in wanting to play back HD.

HTPC's are designed to be small and quiet.

Gaming PC's are designed with egocentric Xx G4M3R xX 's in mind.. They are large (as they have to be to hold the owners ego) often noisy due to the 15 fans controlled by a touch screen controller that is so compulsory.

[ayle Posted Jan 14th 2010 4:26PM]

@FORDY
You are misguided....

[Decoy Posted Jan 14th 2010 6:01AM]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R is pretty grim at the best of times.

[combouser Posted Jan 14th 2010 6:37AM]

so I do not game at all...but i do transcode a bunch, would this still be good for a htpc? As I will also need a gpu that will eventually offload flash as well.....I would also assume that Blu-ray audio/video is all in on this card as well..

[FORDY Posted Jan 14th 2010 2:48PM]

@combouser
Erm, blu-ray audio/video actually tends to be on the BD disc..

But yes this card would playback HD content from a BD drive. However if your serious about your home theatre, you probably want to offload the audio to a sound card anyway.

[James Sonne Posted Jan 14th 2010 8:40AM]

"have got" and "one's got"? Really? That's how you want to write that? Really?

Does school not teach grammar any longer, or has everyone simply stopped paying attention?

[max1001 Posted Jan 14th 2010 11:13AM]

@James Sonne
Yes and yes. It's not a marketable skill. There's a reason English majors don't have job you know.

[James Sonne Posted Jan 14th 2010 11:56AM]

@James Sonne
Several colleagues, who majored in English and History, work for Newsweek and New York Times ... I guess that's why NYT is considered the pinnacle publication of the American English language. They make quite the salary, besides.

I'd like to think that the avoidance of simple redundancies, combined with improper conjugation, like "have got", is not too much to ask in any publication. It's absolutely glaring. I can understand the dangling participle, as that seems to be a predominant characteristic of American English as opposed to the King's English ... but still, it doesn't require any additional effort to form a proper sentence, and propagating poor grammar just makes it all the worse.

[aughscreennames Posted Jan 14th 2010 1:10PM]

This is not Business Week. Using conversational english is less of a chore to read and is more entertaining. Engadget is popular because it doesnt take itself completely serious, if you want a boring tech site then go somewhere like Ars Technica or Cnet.

[James Sonne Posted Jan 14th 2010 1:16PM]

@aughscreennames
I find "has got" to be a chore to read. Proper grammar doesn't make it a bore to read; on the contrary, it gives more weight to what is written because the person writing obviously is educated and thus their opinion comes from forethought.

[arcasinky Posted Jan 14th 2010 8:49AM]

Normally I'm not one to critique grammar and writing styles but lately Engadget's article summaries have suffered a noticeable decline in readability.

To wit: "The usual suspects have weighed in on the card, and while "solid value" that outperforms its analogous NVIDIA GeForce GT 240."

I'm pretty sure something was omitted from that sentence. Readers can interpolate the missing piece but come on, guys...

[mex Posted Jan 14th 2010 8:51AM]

budget minded... ok... so where is the price of it?

[Discipulus Posted Jan 14th 2010 2:08PM]

@mex

The price is at the store...

Since they are still new it's still at the $99.99 MSRP in most places.

[JoeyG Posted Jan 14th 2010 10:59AM]

So when are the low profile options going come out for HTPC users?

Thanks

[max1001 Posted Jan 14th 2010 11:04AM]

Can I use 3 monitors with this?

[sawtx Posted Jan 14th 2010 11:43AM]

@max1001

Yes, one of the slides says 3 at launch with 4 maximum.

[Wwhat Posted Jan 14th 2010 3:55PM]

Not in games, I estimate from the specs that this card is at least 25% slower than a HD4850 so I don't see it run any game on 3 monitors, but for other uses it could, just keep it realistic, even the best they have is struggling to push enough to handle 3 monitors in games.

[sawtx Posted Jan 14th 2010 4:43PM]

@Wwhat

It can play older games with 3 monitors just fine. The 5800 series can play pretty much any game over 3 monitors, you do have to turn down some settings for games like Crysis though.

[kjsin1994 Posted Jan 14th 2010 11:30AM]

woah! a good graphics card for under $100? that looks like a great deal!

[Wwhat Posted Jan 14th 2010 12:01PM]

DX11 in a card that can barely manage pong is pointless, and not the sales argument I assume.

[E71 Posted Jan 14th 2010 12:17PM]

What about for the space-conscious? Are they gonna release a single slot card with as much power as they could cram into it?

I feel like the single-slot legacy died with 4850. :(

[DrDr Posted Jan 14th 2010 2:07PM]

@E71

The one Anandtech reviewed was single slot

[techlord Posted Jan 14th 2010 12:49PM]

NVDIA still haven't come out single DX-11 card and now ATI aleady making budget line up for DX-11.

[techlord Posted Jan 14th 2010 12:52PM]

Specs of ATI 5670
http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-5000/ati-radeon-hd-5670-overview/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-5670-specifications.aspx

If 5670 beat my 8800 gts benchmark, I would grade to switch over, cause of mainly less noise and heat also power.

[normychas Posted Jan 14th 2010 12:55PM]

as a person considering building an htpc i had been following these cards but with the announcement of the i3 that will bitstream both of the hd audio codecs i think the built in gpu on the i3 makes more sense for an htpc build though if you already have a motherboard i can see why this would be attractive.

[Dr Rabbit Posted Jan 14th 2010 1:11PM]

"ATI Radeon™ HD 5670 is the first graphics card with support for Microsoft DirectX® 11 and ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology for under $1001"

Under $1001? Press-release typos FTW.

[JT88 Posted Jan 14th 2010 1:14PM]

Wow, is this card actually single-slot format? If so, I'm in. The problem with all the other 5000series cards so far is that the fan/cooler is so big that it hogs up 2 slots - I absolutely need the PCIe slot next to the PCIE16x2.0 slot that these cards tend to cover up in my HTPC microATX motherboard which is why I've been stuck with using the 3000/4000 series cards until now...

[JT88 Posted Jan 14th 2010 7:35PM]

@JT88 Answered my own question: looks like some companies are making single-slot sized 5670's! XFX has one listed:

http://www.xfxforce.com/en-us/products/graphiccards/HD%205000series/5670.aspx

[bebop Posted Jan 15th 2010 1:20AM]

The midrange cards (6 in second digit) from ATI are typically single slot designs.

[Dick Wad Posted Jan 14th 2010 1:16PM]

What exactly is the price? First it says $1001, then $100,1 then $100.
Did anybody bother to proofread the release before they sent it out?

[jol Posted Jan 14th 2010 1:34PM]

Fantastic. I've got a 4670, and it's a really good performer for the price. It's also super power efficient.

The reason STALKER wont run is because they've got some stupid lighting system that is very poorly optimized, and it just murders framerates.

[dreamerkm Posted Jan 14th 2010 1:35PM]

Wow. A pretty decent Radeon that won't rape our wallets.

[Nicnac Posted Jan 14th 2010 5:45PM]

hey! when did new GPUs stop being 5 feet long?