HIS recently have announced a low profile HD5550 to go on sale in a few weeks. The press release for that has *only just* fallen in my inbox as this was going live. It may be worth a look if the Sapphire is not up to your needs. If we get either of these in to test, we'll let you know how they do.
Agreed though obviously there would be a problem with the heatsink surface area... I guess it's either full height and single slot or lp and dual slot for a card with this power draw. IMHO though big big mistake to use ddr2, that completely ruins performance for this card. With ddr3 (not gddr3 as noone uses that on cheap cards nowadays) performance could be a lot higher with pretty much the same power draw.
I know the 5570 and 5450 were both testing for their post-processing abilities, will this one be tested when it is available? Especially since the 5570 could handle everything and the 5450 could not, I would like to see if it's possible to use this for a HTPC with the same abilities as the 5570 in terms of video playback post-processing. Passive > Active any day for HTPC.
Can this card run three displays at once? I've seen ATI solutions before, but they all required one of your monitors to use DisplayPort, or use an expensive active DisplayPort adaptor.
When they come with display port you MAY use the display port with a cheap passive adaptor DP>VGA to run 3 monitors at once, as long as the DP monitor is the principal. YMMV, but there are plenty webreports of people successfully running 3 monitors with a cheap and passive DP>VGA ( not to confuse miniDP>VGA).
But when the card has HDMI, DVI and VGA outputs there seems to be no way to run 3 monitors, which is kind of weird, since one could assume that the VGA output is running from the DisplayPort interface.
Given that most 56XX and 55XX use the DVI-HDMI-VGA setup, it would be gret if AT once again clarifies the issues with Eyefinity in the low end cards.
The displayport to vga adapters you can get for 30 bucks or so are actual active adapters. They may not have the usb power, but they drawpower from the displayport port and they barely get enough power from the displayport port to work. In fact there are occasionally issues with these adapters not due to the adapter themselves but the fact that sometimes the displayport doesn't provide enough power, though a bios update on the card telling the card to provide more power can fix them.
You need an active adapter to run eyefinity of any sort with 3 monitors, or a native displayport monitor. This is because all the hd5xx0 series video cards only have 2 TMDS generators (Transition Minimized Differential Signaling aka the Clock Signal generator). You need TMDS generators to use HDMI, DVI, or VGA; Displayport works on a different technology and because of this doesn't need a TMDS generator.
So while there are 3 connections on the card, with only 2 TMDS generators you can only get 2 monitors working at once. Now if you buy an active adapter it actually actively converts a displayport feed to another form of signal, including introducing a TMDS signal/a clock signal. Passive adapters do not work for they aren't actually converting a displayport to dvi or hdmi signal instead the card recongizes there is a passive adapter plug in and actually sends an hdmi or dvi signal through the displayport pins which the passive adapter will reroute those pins into an hdmi or dvi connection. All displayport to vga adapters though are active adapters, you can't reroute a vga signal through a displayport connection like you can from displayport to dvi or dvi-a to vga or dvi-i to vga.
Now you can always run eyefinity with only 2 monitors, and if you are using only 2 monitors you don't need an active adapter or a native displayport monitor. But if you want to use 3 monitors or more you need an active adapter or a native displayport monitor.
with most motherboards having built-in graphics with dvi/hdmi and support for multuple monitors. who need to buy a graphics card that can't run games and/or don't have enough DirectCompute/openCL power?
I have 2 older brothers of this card , being the Sapphire 4670 Ultimate 512mb ddr3.They work as a team in xfire(software) in a smallish case. Never had a problem and the hdmi is god send ,as i have a wife who hates cables,so all sound goes via HDMI, of a quality what i hear as 100% ok.
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Lonyo - Friday, April 30, 2010 - link
There's something wrong... maybe it's the complete lack of being low-profile.;thumbsdown;
IanCutress - Friday, April 30, 2010 - link
HIS recently have announced a low profile HD5550 to go on sale in a few weeks. The press release for that has *only just* fallen in my inbox as this was going live. It may be worth a look if the Sapphire is not up to your needs. If we get either of these in to test, we'll let you know how they do.Ian
ssiu - Friday, April 30, 2010 - link
A blurb and picture of the HIS low-profile: http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18661/1/LoneWolf15 - Friday, April 30, 2010 - link
...It would be nice to see a low-profile version.Spivonious - Friday, April 30, 2010 - link
I totally agree. I'm also curious how this would do in a cramped case, as most HTPC cases are just big enough to fit a uATX board.mczak - Friday, April 30, 2010 - link
Agreed though obviously there would be a problem with the heatsink surface area...I guess it's either full height and single slot or lp and dual slot for a card with this power draw.
IMHO though big big mistake to use ddr2, that completely ruins performance for this card. With ddr3 (not gddr3 as noone uses that on cheap cards nowadays) performance could be a lot higher with pretty much the same power draw.
neoflux - Friday, April 30, 2010 - link
I know the 5570 and 5450 were both testing for their post-processing abilities, will this one be tested when it is available? Especially since the 5570 could handle everything and the 5450 could not, I would like to see if it's possible to use this for a HTPC with the same abilities as the 5570 in terms of video playback post-processing. Passive > Active any day for HTPC.adholmes - Friday, April 30, 2010 - link
Can this card run three displays at once? I've seen ATI solutions before, but they all required one of your monitors to use DisplayPort, or use an expensive active DisplayPort adaptor.geok1ng - Friday, April 30, 2010 - link
The low end 5xxx are a very weird bunch:When they come with display port you MAY use the display port with a cheap passive adaptor DP>VGA to run 3 monitors at once, as long as the DP monitor is the principal. YMMV, but there are plenty webreports of people successfully running 3 monitors with a cheap and passive DP>VGA ( not to confuse miniDP>VGA).
But when the card has HDMI, DVI and VGA outputs there seems to be no way to run 3 monitors, which is kind of weird, since one could assume that the VGA output is running from the DisplayPort interface.
Given that most 56XX and 55XX use the DVI-HDMI-VGA setup, it would be gret if AT once again clarifies the issues with Eyefinity in the low end cards.
Roland00 - Friday, April 30, 2010 - link
The displayport to vga adapters you can get for 30 bucks or so are actual active adapters. They may not have the usb power, but they drawpower from the displayport port and they barely get enough power from the displayport port to work. In fact there are occasionally issues with these adapters not due to the adapter themselves but the fact that sometimes the displayport doesn't provide enough power, though a bios update on the card telling the card to provide more power can fix them.You need an active adapter to run eyefinity of any sort with 3 monitors, or a native displayport monitor. This is because all the hd5xx0 series video cards only have 2 TMDS generators (Transition Minimized Differential Signaling aka the Clock Signal generator). You need TMDS generators to use HDMI, DVI, or VGA; Displayport works on a different technology and because of this doesn't need a TMDS generator.
So while there are 3 connections on the card, with only 2 TMDS generators you can only get 2 monitors working at once. Now if you buy an active adapter it actually actively converts a displayport feed to another form of signal, including introducing a TMDS signal/a clock signal. Passive adapters do not work for they aren't actually converting a displayport to dvi or hdmi signal instead the card recongizes there is a passive adapter plug in and actually sends an hdmi or dvi signal through the displayport pins which the passive adapter will reroute those pins into an hdmi or dvi connection. All displayport to vga adapters though are active adapters, you can't reroute a vga signal through a displayport connection like you can from displayport to dvi or dvi-a to vga or dvi-i to vga.
Now you can always run eyefinity with only 2 monitors, and if you are using only 2 monitors you don't need an active adapter or a native displayport monitor. But if you want to use 3 monitors or more you need an active adapter or a native displayport monitor.
rainyday - Thursday, May 6, 2010 - link
with most motherboards having built-in graphics with dvi/hdmi and support for multuple monitors. who need to buy a graphics card that can't run games and/or don't have enough DirectCompute/openCL power?i just don't get it.
adhdownload - Sunday, June 13, 2010 - link
I have 2 older brothers of this card , being the Sapphire 4670 Ultimate 512mb ddr3.They work as a team in xfire(software) in a smallish case. Never had a problem and the hdmi is god send ,as i have a wife who hates cables,so all sound goes via HDMI, of a quality what i hear as 100% ok.