ASUS Radeon HD 5770 1GB Voltage Tweak Edition Review

Manufacturer's Part Number: EAH5770/2D/IS/1GD5/A
Price: Approx. $160USD
Warranty: 3-Years



Not long ago, ATI was late to market with their DX10-supporting architecture and it looked like NVIDIA was about to run away with the performance crown. Somehow even after the minor disaster that the HD 2900-series was, the boys in red were able to hold on for dear life until they had products that could compete on a level footing with the best the competition could offer. If we fast forward to the present day, the roles of each company have dramatically reversed with ATI taking its first plunge into the DX11 marketplace while NVIDIA is struggling to find a way to answer.

Usually when new architectures are released, graphics card companies are content to focus the first cards on the high end enthusiast segment (with astronomical prices to boot) and wait a few months for the market to settle before attacking the lower price brackets. ATI is now bucking that trend. They aren’t content to just go after the competition’s jugular when it comes to high-end cards but are rather aiming to establish a stranglehold on the entire market, top to bottom. Today marks the day that the DX11 generation moves into the affordable mainstream performance market with the availability of ATI’s HD 5770 and HD 5750 cards. While both cards are aimed for basically the same type of consumers, they may prove to be quite different from one another when it comes to overall performance.

The HD 5770 1GB is supposed to be the spiritual successor to the popular HD 4770 512MB card from a few months ago. Priced around $160USD, it is also aimed to bridge the gap between NVIDIA’s own GTS 250 and GTX 260 216 series of cards that have had the limelight in the sub-$225 category for some time now. However, this isn’t to say that other ATI cards will be safe either since the red team has the HD 4850 512MB, HD 4770 512MB and the now-EOL HD 4830 512MB all within spitting distance of this new card as well.

The card we will be looking at in this review is the ASUS HD 5770 1GB Voltage Tweak Edition. Even though ASUS doesn’t have the warranty length of some of their competitors and this card sticks to stock clocks, they are trying to spice things up with included voltage adjustment software that is supposed to help increase the overclockability of their cards. This should help them stand out from the crowd come launch day which is typically cluttered with reference-based cards and not much else.

All in all, the HD 5770 1GB is looking to be a great card for the market it is aimed at. We know people are anxious for it as well so it should also prove to be a boon for retailers in these somewhat unsettled times.