Review: XFX Radeon HD 5750 XXX

Factory-overclocked 3D cards, such as the XFX Radeon HD 5750 XXX, are a pretty common next step for most manufacturers when a GPU starts maturing, and it's no surprise. When your fabs have cranked out squillions of chips, the price-war between stock cards has stabilised and a new generation of cards is peeping over the horizon, there's the natural drive to differentiate and offer a little more performance to keep the GPU attractive.

That's exactly what this BIOS-tweaked version of the HD 5750 core is all about. 50MHz up on the core and 500MHz up on the RAM, it's an on-paper performance-hike for the puppy in AMD's midrange, DX11-capable midrange litter.

But contrary to expectations, the cooler has slimmed down from the dual-slot reference design to a single slot, making this an attractive little card for SFF and HTPC systems. Sadly, this leaves little room for an HDMI slot, so the video-out options are reduced to dual DVIs and a single display port. So just who is this card aimed at?

Far Cry 2 Low (1680x1050, x4aa x8AF)

HD 5750: 52.7
GTS 450: 66.5
XFX HD 5750 XXX: 54.57
HD 5750 CF: 98.1
GTS 450 SLI: 124.94

Far Cry 2 High (1920x1080, x8aa, x16AF)

HD 5750: 38.5
GTS 450: 51.8
XFX HD 5750 XXX: 41.67
HD 5750 CF: 54.9
GTS 450 SLI: 99.6

Just Cause 2 Low (1680x1050, x4aa x8AF)

HD 5750: 38.8
GTS 450: 30.1
XFX HD 5750 XXX: 39.9
HD 5750 CF: 57.9
GTS 450 SLI: 57.6

Just Cause 2 High (1920x1080, x8aa, x16AF)

HD 5750: 21.4
GTS 450: 17.6
XFX HD 5750 XXX: 21.8
HD 5750 CF: 37.8
GTS 450 SLI: 29.1

Heaven 2.0 Low (1680x1050, x4aa x8AF, medium Tesselation)

HD 5750: 16.1
GTS 450: 20.7
XFX HD 5750 XXX: 21.8
HD 5750 CF: 30.8
GTS 450 SLI: 40.1

Heaven 2.0 High (1920x1080, x8aa, x16AF, extreme Tesselation)

HD 5750: 7.7
GTS 450: 10.5
XFX HD 5750 XXX: 8.8
HD 5750 CF: 12.3
GTS 450 SLI: 20.1

Against the stock 5750, XFX's HD 5750 XXX is a clear improvement… by one frame per second in pretty much every game. For a £5 premium over the average 5750, it's hardly a stretch for the wallet, but difficult to justify.

However, if you want to play games at medium to high resolutions with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering cranked up to the nines, you're shopping on the wrong shelf. And don't make the mistake of assuming that because this is a DX11-ready card, you'll see the benefits in gaming. Tessellation, the headline gaming-visuals feature, is pretty demanding, and a single 5750 just won't cut it at any kind of tasty framerate.

Its performance makes it more suited to media centre systems, and the single-slot design means it's perfect for a dinky chassis. The only problem that leaves us with is the lack of an HDMI port, which is a dog-gone necessity for media-centre systems.

Which leaves us… where? Sort of halfway to something, but that conundrum is solved by the addition of a second identical card. In CrossFireX, you see major performance gains with these cards, and excellent DX11-supporting midrange performance at less than £200 shouldn't be sniffed at.

However, there's a clear winner in the sub-£100 3D card market at the moment, and it's Nvidia's GTS 450. It outperforms ATI's competing crop of 5750 cards in most gaming tests, and when you pop a couple in your system for SLI dual-card kicks, they outperform their sub £200 price-tag like a pair of glue-fuelled X-Factor hopefuls. Until these HD 5750s see a considerable price-drop, the GTS 450 is where you should wave your wallet.

We liked

Elegant, quiet, and happiest at lower resolutions, it's a decent budget gaming card for small systems. The single-slot design is a welcome reduction in real-estate from the stock twin-slotter 5850s, and that smaller cooler doesn't bother the GPU in the slightest.

We disliked

The lack of an HDMI port doesn't completely ruin it for media-centre systems, but it certainly doesn't help matters. We'd prefer to see an HDMI and a single DVI, rather than dual DVIs. In terms of gaming performance, there's little to write home about over the stock 5750.