discussion Gigabyte HD 5770 Super Overclock Review

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Just Cause 2 (DX10)

Just Cause 2 (DX10)

Just Cause 2 has quickly become known as one of the best-looking games on the market and while it doesn’t include DX11 support, it uses the full stable of DX10 features to deliver a truly awe-inspiring visual experience. For this benchmark we used the car chase scene directly following the Casino Assault level. This scene includes perfectly scripted events, some of the most GPU-strenuous effects and lasts a little less than four minutes. We chose to not use the in-game benchmarking tool due to its inaccuracy when it comes to depicting actual gameplay performance.


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Metro 2033 (DX11)

Metro 2033 (DX11)

There has been a lot of buzz about Metro 2033 which has mostly centered on its amazing graphics coupled with absolutely brutal framerates on even the best GPUs on the market. For this test we use a walkthrough and combat scene from The Bridge level which starts at the beginning of the level and lasts for about 5 minutes of walking, running and combat. Famerates are measured with FRAPS and Advanced PhysX is turned off.


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1920 x 1200

 

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Unigine: Heaven v2.0 (DX11)

Unigine: Heaven v2.0 (DX11)

Unigine’s Heaven benchmark is currently the de-facto standard when it comes to simple, straightforward DX11 performance estimates. While it is considered a synthetic benchmark by many, it is important to remember that no less than four games based on this engine will be released within the next year or so. In this test we will be using a standard benchmark run with and without tessellation enabled at three resolutions,


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Core Temperature & Acoustics / Power Consumption

Core Temperature & Acoustics

For all temperature testing, the cards were placed on an open test bench with a single 120mm 1200RPM fan placed ~8” away from the heatsink. The ambient temperature was kept at a constant 22°C (+/- 0.5°C). If the ambient temperatures rose above 23°C at any time throughout the test, all benchmarking was stopped. For this test we use the 3DMark Batch Size test at it highest triangle count with 4xAA and 16xAF enabled and looped it for one hour to determine the peak load temperature as measured by GPU-Z.

For Idle tests, we let the system idle at the Vista desktop for 15 minutes and recorded the peak temperature.

Cool and quiet are two of the qualities we usually associate with Gigabyte’s Super Overclock series of cards. Naturally, due to its low TDP rated core the heatsink on this HD 5770 really doesn’t have to do all the much work but it still returns very good results. Near-silence is also the name of the game here since the large fan really doesn’t have to spin all that fast to dissipate what little heat there is.

System Power Consumption

For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption while letting the card sit at a stable Windows desktop for 30 minutes to determine the peak idle power consumption. We have also included several other tests as well.

Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.

There is absolutely no surprise here since this is an overclocked card and as such it consumes slightly more power than the reference version.

 

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Overclocking Results

Overclocking Results

Even though Gigabyte touts their Super Overclock series as being built for overclocking, pushing the clock speeds of this HD 5770 proved to be a lesson in frustration. To begin with, Gigabyte’s OC Guru software includes a great little core voltage adjustment slider but then caps overclocking at 930Mhz. Considering the SoC had no issue reaching this level, any voltage adjustments were completely pointless.

Switching over to MSI’s Afterburner we were able to push things a bit further but were once again frustrated but the inability of Gigabyte’s software to “remember” voltage increases when Afterburner was enabled. Nonetheless, we were still able to eke a small performance increase out of the card but it was nothing close to what we had hoped for.


Final Clock Speeds

Graphics Clock: 959Mhz
Memory Clock: 4980Mhz (QDR)

 

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Conclusion

Conclusion

Somehow Gigabyte has always been able to impress us with their Super Overclock series of cards so there is no denying the fact that we had high expectations for this one. The HD 5770 SoC proved itself to be an extremely competent card but in our opinion, it completely failed to live up to the tradition of its forebearers.

Traditionally, Gigabyte reserves their highest-binned chips and largest clock speed increases for the Super Overclock products but in this case we are left with what amounts to standard OC-edition specifications wrapped up into a pretty package. Sure, the fan is quiet, the components have been beefed up and the packaging cries for attention but under this marketing smoke screen lies a card that should have been much, much more. A mere 50Mhz overclock is simply a slap in the face for everyone’s long-standing expectations of Gigabyte’s flagship series.

In the end you are left paying for upgraded components and a better than reference heatsink; both of which are absolutely pointless on this type of card. The upgraded components could in theory help you increase overclocks but Gigabyte’s OC Guru software stops you cold at 930Mhz anyways. This also makes any voltage adjustments superfluous at best. With such a low factory overclock and very little headroom to further increase speeds, the extensive heatsink goes to complete waste as well. We would go so far as to say it takes a step back from the reference cooler since it lacks the ability to exhaust heat outside of your case and really doesn’t provide a meaningful decrease in temperatures or noise. So here we have a card with a ton of excellent features but it just doesn’t give the end user an opportunity to USE any of them.

We are likely being a bit harsh on this card and on the positive side it doesn't cost all that much more than a reference HD 5770. Its performance per watt ratio is also praiseworthy. However, an average cost of $180 puts it far, far to close to the GTX 460 768MB which pretty much dominates the SoC in nearly every single test.

The HD 5770 SoC is not a bad card in any way, shape or form. Rather, it is a perfectly good card that doesn’t have any business wearing the Super Overclock badge. If marketing begins diluting what was once a name synonymous with high performance, Gigabyte will have a hard time setting their cards apart from those of the competition. Let's hope this trend doesn't continue.


Pros:

- Good performance at most resolutions
- Great performance per watt ratio
- Runs quiet and cool


Cons:

- Paltry overclock which has no business in the SoC series
- Software caps overclocking
- Dominated by the $20 more expensive GTX 460
- Needlessly massive heatsink

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