PowerColor PCS+ 5770 Review

RHKCommander959 - December 29, 2009
» Discuss this article (1)

Lowest Prices

Testing:

To test the PowerColor PCS+ 5770, the card will be used in a range of games and benchmarks to see how well it performs against other competitive products. The games consist of Far Cry 2, Crysis Warhead, Darkest of Days, Call of Duty: World at War, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Resident Evil 5, and Left 4 Dead, while the benchmarks are 3DMark 06 and 3DMark Vantage. After running the card normally through the testing phase, the video card will then be overclocked and then re-tested. The results of the overclocked and stock speed performance can then be compared to see how large of a gain (if any) is made. All the system settings remain the same from card to card and test to test, with the exception of disabling PhysX where applicable.

Processor: Intel Core i7 920 150x20
Motherboard: MSI X58 Platinum
Memory: Mushkin HP3 12800 7-7-7-20
Video Card: PowerColor PCS+ 5770
Power Supply: Mushkin 800 watt modular power supply
Hard Drive: 1 x Western Digital Green 1TB SATA
Optical Drive: LG DVD-RW
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate Edition 64-bit SP1
Case: Hiper Osiris

Comparison Video Cards:

Overclocking:

Overclocked settings:

PowerColor PCS+ HD 5770 940/1340

For overclocking the PowerColor PCS+ HD 5770, I stuck with ATI Catalyst Control since it had fan control and the overclock limit was set higher than the card's overclocking capabilities. For stability testing, I pushed until I reached artifacts, then backed down until it was gaming stable. The graphics card was already factory-overclocked, but I was able to take it from 875MHz core and 1225MHz memory to 940MHz core and 1340MHz memory - approximately 7.4% and 9.4% overclocks, respectively. Not humongous gains, but gains nonetheless.