INTRODUCTION
The Radeon 5000 series of graphics cards was recently released by AMD/ATI, and for the first time in a couple of years, AMD/ATI (hereafter just AMD) is once again leading the performance. NVIDIA will release its next generation of graphics cards fairly soon, but no date has been set and very little information has been leaked to the press.
Just a couple of weeks ago, AMD released the 5850 and 5870 graphics cards, which were very well received in reviews and by consumers. I myself did a review of an Asus 5850 card.
Just a couple of weeks later, AMD released the HD 5970, which is a dual GPU card codenamed “Hemlock”, a very powerful and expensive card. You can check the reviews on testeek.com. Here’s AMD’s current lineup:
I already discussed what’s new with the Radeon 5000 series in my Asus HD 5850 review, so I’m not going to repeat everything again. Suffice it to say that the new generation has some great new features. First, the chips are made using the new 40nm technology that promises lower power consumption and less heat. Second, ATI EyeFinity technology allows up to three monitors to be connected to each card for a total of 6 CrossFireX monitors. Other important features are ATI Stream (GPU acceleration), Open CL (API for GPU-CPU parallel processing), and Directx 11 support.
ENGINEERING SPECS: SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X HD5750 1GB DDR5
Well, enough is enough; Let’s take a look at the specifications of the Sapphire HD 5750 Vapor-X 1GB DDR5:
Sapphire 5750 HD Steam 1GB DDR5
Juniper PRO GPU (Radeon HD 5870)
40nm technology
720 stream processors
Texture Units 36
ROP 16
GPU speed 710Mhz (700Mhz HD 5750)
Memory 1GB GDDR5 (1GB/512MB GDDR5 HD 5750)
Memory speed 4640Mhz (4600Mhz)
Bus width 128 bits
Memory bandwidth 108GB/s
Vapor cooling system, double slot
Connectivity 2 DVI-I
hdmi
display port
CrossFireXY compatibility
External Power Connectors 1 x 6-pin PCI-E
Max Power Consumption 108W (Load)/18W (Idle)
Supported technologies DirectX 11, DirectX 10.1n, ATI Power Play, ATI Avivo, DXVA 1.0 and 2.0, Open GL 3.2 (G.), Dolby True HD and DTS-HD Audio Masters, ATI Stream, ATI Eyefinity.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS: 5750 SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X HD 1GB DDR5
In the Sapphire box, Vapor-X technology and all the new AMD technologies mentioned above stand out.
The card is secured in a cardboard box and enclosed in the usual antistatic plastic bag.
The included accessories are: a manual; a CD with drivers and utilities; the “ArcSoft SimHD” application; a coupon to download the game Dirt2 (compatible with DirectX 11); 2 molex to PCIe 6 pin adapter cables; a DVI-VGA adapter and a CrossFireX bridge.
IN DETAIL: SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X HD 5750 VAPOR-X 1GB DDR5
The card itself looks really impressive with its massive cooling solution. I’ve had the opportunity to look at 5750 models from quite a few manufacturers and the Sapphire card stands out.
The cooling solution occupies a dual slot, which can be a disadvantage because this card should be classified as a mid-range card and many users prefer single slot cards in this segment. AMD/ATI set the general rules by which manufacturers can build their cards and they often leave quite small margins, which I guess must be why I haven’t seen a single slot 5750 card yet .
The technology used by the Vapor-X cooling system has its origins in the aerospace industry. The cooling liquid (in this case water) turns to vapor on a hot surface (the GPU) and the resulting vapor condenses when it comes into contact with a cooler surface which turns the vapor back into a liquid and returns to the hot surface again and so the process repeats. Sapphire claims that the Vapor-X system is much more effective than the reference cooling system, up to 7 degrees.
In the right hands, less heat means less noise. And this is also another feature of the Vapor-X system.
To help the Vapor-X system cool the liquid circulating inside it, Sapphire has installed an 80mm fan that integrates seamlessly with the black plastic lid. One side of the plastic cover has a Sapphire logo that glows blue when the system is running. Take a look at the image below to see what I’m talking about.
The “Black Diamond” capacitors that caused quite a stir in the industry are included on this card. The aluminum polymer in these capacitors is superior to that used in “regular” aluminum capacitors. According to Sapphire, these capacitors are 25% more energy efficient than regular capacitors.
The card has an additional 6-pin PCIe power connector, as you can see in the image below.
The current 5750 has two CrossFireX connections although due to the inefficiency of the Catalyst drivers it is not recommended to install more than two cards.
The memory units are visible on the PCB of this card. They are four high-quality Hynix GDDR5 chips.
There are four video outputs on this card, two standard DVI-I; one HDMI and one DisplayPort. This should meet the needs of even the most demanding users. The card is only 185mm long and therefore fits in most cases.
SYSTEM TEST
These are the components in my test system:
Test equipment
Intel Core 2 Quad 9300 @ 3.245Ghz Processor
Zalman CNPS9900A LED CPU Cooler
Gigabyte EP45C-DS3R Motherboard
Sapphire HD 5750 Vapor-X 1GB GDDR5 Graphics Card
integrated sound card
OCZ Reaper HPC Ed DDR2 1150 2×2GB (5-6-6-18) Memory
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB hard drive
Corsair HX850W Power Supply
Cooler Master 690 PURE Case
Operating system and software
Windows 7 64bit operating system
Catalyst 9.11 System Drivers
DirectX August 2009
3D Mark 06 Benchmarking Software
3D brand advantage
Furmark 1.7
Unigyne Sky Landmark
Games The Last Remnant
Tom Clancy’s Hawx
street fighter iv
They reside Evil V
weak can cry 4
stalker clear sky
WEAPON 2
Cry 2 Revolutionary Armed Forces Officers Club
Crysis warhead
Other software CPU-Z 1.49
GPU-Z 0.3.7
OCCT 3.1
Here are screenshots of my test system setup:
BENCHMARKING TESTS
Unfortunately I received this card a bit late so I could test it on my old test system where I have done a lot of graphics card testing. This means that I will have to comment out the numbers without having any real reference to the results of previous tests. I will try to be as objective as possible.
It’s no secret that AMD cards often score surprisingly high in FutureMark benchmarking programs (3D Mark 06 and 3D Mark Vantage). And this time was no exception, as you can see from the charts above.
The DirectX 10 and Direct 11X Unigine tests were interesting to me because of the results I got with the same tests on the Asus HD5850 card a couple of weeks ago. One of the main marketing points of DirectX 11 is that it is supposed to be much faster than its predecessor. With the HD 5850 I got the opposite results and as you can see from the graphs above the same goes for the 5750 card. Obviously AMD is having trouble here. Hopefully we will see improvements with the release of new Catalyst drivers.
GAME I
The performance of the Radeon HD 5750 is spectacular. It is able to maintain a high FPS rate with all the games in this first series. I had no problems when I boosted the resolution and turned on the filters. The fact that it includes 1 GB of GDDR5 with a bandwidth of 108 GB/s should be what finally keeps games smooth, even with filters activated.
GAME II
In the second battery of games that includes the most demanding games, the limitations of the HD 5750 come to light. Although it does not prevent us from enjoying the games as a whole, it is clear that it is a mid-range card. To the HD 5750’s credit it needs to be said that even the incredibly powerful HD 5850 had some problems playing these games at all settings maxed out. Considering that the HD 5850 has twice the number of stream processors compared to the HD5750, it’s fair to say that the HD 5750 is a very powerful card.
OVERCLOCKING, COOLING AND POWER CONSUMPTION
The launch of the HD 5750 brings power to the mid-range segment. So far, I haven’t said much about its overclocking capabilities, but reports from other reviews and forums have been positive. So I was eager to try an HD 5750 card and see that the overclocking potential really was as good as I had heard. I can’t deny that I was even happier when I found out I could try out an HD 5750 with Vapor-X technology.
Indeed, the overclocking ability of this card is high. Take a look at the following screenshots I got without modifying the voltages but just using the Catalyst Control Center.
After having tried countless combinations, I received a stable configuration at 860 Mhz for the GPU and 1345 MHz for the memories. This is an increase from the default figures of 23% for the GPU and 17% for the memories (the percentages were calculated based on the values of the reference model with 700 MHz for the GPU and 1150 MHz for the memories).
The Vapor-X cooling system obviously does a fantastic job. In the following graph you can see the temperatures when the card is in IDLE and FULL LOAD mode. IDLE temperatures were measured after the system had been running for half an hour with no load. FULL CHARGE numbers were taken after the system was on full charge (using Furmark 1.7) for half an hour. The ambient temperature was 17ËsC.
Vapor-X technology clearly does a lot to keep temperatures low. It’s been a long time since I saw these low numbers at full load. I say it again; the Vapor-X does a great job.
It is always difficult to talk about the noise level, since it is something very subjective. The fan can be set manually or automatically. During my overclocking, the fan regulated itself and spun at 50% of full speed. I think the noise it made at these levels was perfectly fine, but when it goes up it becomes noticeable and somewhat annoying.
