XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 Review

A Close Look at the XFX HD 5770 1GB

The heatsink shroud is usually the one thing that stands out the most about any graphics card and indeed the HD 5770 looks to be a spitting image of the HD 5870 and HD 5850. It is interesting to see that ATI is going for a dual slot heatsink design on a mainstream card that sports a 40nm core but who are we to question such a great looking design?


The sticker XFX uses on the heatsink goes well with the red highlights that are present around the reference card but we can’t help feeling that the whole yellow and black “workzone” section is a bit overdone.


The rearmost portion of the HD 5770 has a pair of intake vents for the fan which also serve to cool off the VRMs so aside from looking a bit gaudy, they do serve a purpose. Unlike those found on the HD 5850 and HD 5870, these don’t work so well. First of all, the single PCI-E power connector is recessed quite far within its vent which makes finding it when the card in installed a bit of a hit and miss affair. In addition, the whole shroud projects about a quarter inch over the PCB causing it to look like a cheap, tacked-on afterthought rather than a seamless piece.


The side of the HD 5770 mirrors that of the higher end cards with an ATI Radeon-branded strip of red that houses a number of vents. These openings are strategically placed in order to take care of any excess hot air flow that doesn’t get exhausted out the backplate.

The backplate holds exactly what you would expect for an Eyefinity-compatible card: a pair of DVI connectors along with lone HDMI and DisplayPort connectors.


The back of the card is left without an aluminum heatsink plate even though it houses a quartet of GDDR5 memory modules. As with all of the other Radeon cards of the DX11 generation, the PCB is black.

The memory modules used are H5GQ1H24AFR units from Hynix. These ICs are rated for 1.25Ghz (5Ghz QDR) speed at 1.5V and are set up in a 128MB x 8 pattern on the HD 5770.


The HD 5770 is quite short which is par for the course when it comes to sub-$200 cards. In total, its PCB is 8 ¼” long but since the heatsink shroud projects about ½” over the back, its total length is closer to 8 3/4”.