The Test & Performance

As the Vortex has a slight factory overclock compared to a stock-clocked 5770, we’ve run our usual gauntlet of benchmarks. We’ll forgo the running commentary, but with a 5% core overclock and 2% memory overclock, the card performs a few percent better than the stock-clocked 5770 on average.

CPU: Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.33GHz
Motherboard: Asus Rampage II Extreme
Chipset Drivers: Intel 9.1.1.1015 (Intel)
Hard Disk: OCZ Summit (120GB)
Memory: Patriot Viper DDR3-1333 3 x 2GB (7-7-7-20)
Video Cards: AMD Radeon HD 5970
AMD Radeon HD 5870
AMD Radeon HD 5850
AMD Radeon HD 5830
AMD Radeon HD 5770
AMD Radeon HD 5750
AMD Radeon HD 4890
AMD Radeon HD 4870 1GB
AMD Radeon HD 4850
AMD Radeon HD 3870
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768MB
PowerColor Radeon HD 5770 PCS+ Vortex Edition
Video Drivers: NVIDIA ForceWare 197.13
NVIDIA ForceWare 257.15 Beta
NVIDIA ForceWare 258.80 Beta
AMD Catalyst 10.3a
AMD Catalyst 10.7
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Index Power, Temperature, & Noise
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  • Stuka87 - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link

    This article totally reminds me of mythbusters. Will the fan work better while extended? As it turns out, myth busted!

    Great article as always guys.
  • MrBrownSound - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link

    This card looks like the perfect mid range ati card.
  • kmmatney - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link

    The only problem is I paid $175 for my HD4890 a long time ago (well over a year ago), and it is still faster than this card. Nothing exciting has happened in the mid-range for a long time.
  • i3arracuda - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link

    That thing got a HEMI? :-B
  • chrnochime - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link

    The car that they based the diagram on looks to be the Camaro. Obviously Camaro does NOT use the Hemi.
  • Saidas - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link

    Looks more like a Mustang to me, but wouldn't have a HEMI either.
  • pcfxer - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link

    You're an idiot. It is clearly a Camaro.
  • Mari0Br0s - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link

    There's no way having a fan closer or further will affect the airflow in a closed environnement (in occurrence the somewhat small duct).

    The only thing that can be affected, is the noise, when you use a bigger fan, you can reduce the speed of it, so the noise drop, and you keep the same airflow.

    Another myth people beleive in, is making the fan turn faster, will cool down the heatsink better. This is actually logical up to a point. The point where the heatsink itself can't transfert any faster the heat. Aluminium and copper have a limit to what amount of thermal it can transfert, eg: speeding up a 120mm fan more than 1200rpm, will not cool more your CPU. You'll need a better heatsink design that can dissipate more heat at the same time.
  • Goty - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link

    Actually, separating the fan from the heatsink surface CAN improve performance by limiting the dead spot underneath the fan hub (fan shrouds on radiators, anyone?).
  • Patrick Wolf - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - link

    Best thing a person can do to reduce heat and noise (aside from an aftermarket cooler) is to replace the cheapo stock goop on your GPU with MX-2 (or other quality paste). Simple, quick, do it right: great results.

    That's what AT should do! Take all of the mid-high range cards from both camps, replace the TIM, then test. *drool*

    Just put a stern warning on the article that it shouldn't be attempted if you're a real dummy who will end up bricking the card.

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