Quick Look: PowerColor’s Radeon HD 5770 PCS+ Vortex Edition
by Ryan Smith on August 25, 2010 11:22 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Radeon
- PowerColor
Final Words
When we first agreed to review PowerColor’s Radeon HD 5770 PCS+ Vortex, we weren’t quite sure what to expect. Whatever we were expecting though was that the card would be easy to evaluate in one manner or another. This didn’t turn out to be the case.
We’ll start with the Vortex’s adjustable fan, the card’s big feature. In short, the adjustable fan is a useless gimmick in our tests. Extending the fan doesn’t change the card’s temperatures and it only makes the card slightly louder. There’s no useful reason to extend the fan and hence there’s no reason to take advantage of the card’s adjustable fan. For all practical purposes, this card should be considered a double-slot 5770 with a fan that can be removed for an easy cleaning.
The 5770 is not a hot card in the first place, so the fact that an adjustable fan didn’t have a significant impact doesn’t really surprise us in the end. As we’ll see in some other triple-slot cards later this month and next month there’s definitely a point to a wider design, but it only manifests itself on larger, hotter cards that also go all the way with a triple-slot cooler rather than toying with the concept like PowerColor does here.
But while the adjustable fan is a gimmick, the overall cooler design for the Vortex is not. It’s generally as good as the reference 5770 which was already a solid design in the first place. Much more impressive is the fact that PowerColor managed to pull this off on a card over an inch shorter than the reference 5770 with no downsides to speak of. With a factory overclock it’s faster than, as cool as, and as overclockable as any reference 5770, all in a smaller package. Unlike the fan, this really is an impressive feat for the Vortex.
Finally we’re left with pricing. The 1GB 5770 market is fairly competitive, and as a semi-specialty card the 5770 Vortex is not competitively priced with the cheapest cards on the market. At $165 it’s not poorly priced but it’s also not a steal. If you need a shorter Radeon HD 5770, it’s one of only a few cards that will fit the bill, otherwise you have to look at the overclock and the included copy of Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 2.
Cards with a similar overclock – including PowerColor’s previous PCS+ 5770 based on the same PCB – can be had for as little as $140 after rebate. Since we haven’t tested the previous PCS+ so we can’t say too much about it, but ultimately the Vortex is only price competitive if you value a copy of Modern Warfare 2. Otherwise as one of the more expensive 5770s on the market, it should be possible to find a similarly performing card for less.
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JimmiG - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link
So the cooler manages to be almost as good as the stock cooler while being louder and potentially taking up more space. The card itself is about as overclockable as any other 5770 card and comes with a 6% factory overclock, while costing 10% more than other 5770 cards. No thanks.Ryan Smith - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link
Just to be clear, the cooler takes up no additional space unless you extend the fan. When it's lowered it's no wider than any other double-slot card, and since it's shorter overall it's smaller than the reference 5770.GatoRat - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link
This makes me want to buy a NVidia GTX 460! Runs cooler and faster and uses less power! The 768MB version sells for only $30 more.Goty - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link
Yeah, a whole 2-3 watts less at idle. Whoopee?Taft12 - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
... along with 40W more power at load and not $30 more, but $50 more.The GTX460 is a great product but can we please keep the fanboy exaggerations down?
JarredWalton - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link
I am not interested in 3-slot GPUs. What I'd actually like to see is a review of the single-slot 5770 by XFX. Mostly, what happens to noise and temperatures on that card. But then, I have a rather odd BTX motherboard/system that won't let me use more than a single-slot GPU. :-)ggathagan - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link
Jarred,As an SB86i owner, I agree, but until Anand gets you one to test:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canu...
Canuck's biggest beef: XFX gave up the HDMI connection for a 2nd DVI connection.
You gotta' talk to your boss about what's important.... :)
spac18 - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link
Hi everybody. I signed up to anandtech forums couple of weeks ago and activatrd my account. I can log into my account but when I try to post, it says that I dont have enough previleges or permisions to post. Whats going on? Sorry for being off topic, but this is the only way I can get help.LordanSS - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link
I was wondering if it'd be too much trouble, or impossible, to add more graphics cards to the GPU Bench... namely the mainstream cards? At least from this generation (5430->5475, 5570, and the nVidia equivalents, that jazz).Would be nice to have a couple from the old generation too (4650/4670, 4770, etc). Those cards are still widely available here in Brazil (and I suspect in the US too), so having a direct comparison tool like Bench, to see how much could be gained from an upgrade, or new build, would be really nice. =)
Keep up the good work! =)
vol7ron - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link
It's true, this site is not the best GPU review site. http://www.gpureview.com/ is okay.The articles are quality, but GPU review is not like CPU review, there are so many cards out there. Mobos and GPUs just require fulltime staff and lots of capital to test.