Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 FleX 1GB

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by Rob Williams on October 18, 2010 in Graphics & Displays

AMD’s Eyefinity technology has helped gamers over the past year realise that multi-monitor setups are not that unrealistic, and thanks to great support from game developers, more gamers are considering the move. Sapphire, with its Radeon HD 5770 FleX, caters to gamers who do want Eyefinity, but don’t want to go broke in the process.

Page 7 – StarCraft II

Of all the games we test, it might be this one that needs no introduction. Back in 1998, Blizzard unleashed what was soon to be one of the most successful RTS titles on the planet, and even as of today, the original is still heavily played all around the world – even in actual competitions. StarCraft II of course had a lot of hype to live up to, and it did, thanks to its intense gameplay and superb graphics.

StarCraft II

Manual Run-through: The portion of the game we use for testing is part of the Zero Hour mission, which has us holding fort until we’re able to evacuate. Our saved game starts us in the middle of the mission, and from the get-go, we build a couple of buildings and concurrently move our main units up and around the map. Total playtime lasts about two minutes.

Some might disagree, but I have found 30 FPS to be good enough for most gamers in this title, and despite the low number, the overall gameplay is still smooth, which is rather surprising. For hardcore gamers, I wouldn’t doubt that higher framerates would be desired at 2560×1600, but for any resolution under that, the performance seen here is good.

Graphics Card
Best Playable
Min FPS
Avg. FPS
NVIDIA GTX 480 1536MB (Reference)
2560×1600 – Ultra Detail, 0xAA
25
72.674
AMD HD 5870 1GB (Sapphire)
2560×1600 – Ultra Detail, 0xAA
31
57.28
NVIDIA GTX 470 1280MB (EVGA)
2560×1600 – Ultra Detail, 0xAA
20
55.961
NVIDIA GTS 450 1GB (Reference SLI)
2560×1600 – Ultra Detail, 0xAA
32
50.060
AMD HD 5850 1GB (ASUS)
2560×1600 – Ultra Detail, 0xAA
32
48.787
NVIDIA GTX 460 1GB (EVGA)
2560×1600 – Ultra Detail, 0xAA
25
41.306
AMD HD 5830 1GB (Reference)
2560×1600 – Ultra Detail, 0xAA
20
32.986
NVIDIA GTS 450 1GB (ASUS)
2560×1600 – Ultra Detail, 0xAA
19
32.561
AMD HD 5770 1GB (Reference)
2560×1600 – Ultra Detail, 0xAA
17
30.515
AMD HD 5770 1GB (Sapphire FleX)
2560×1600 – Ultra Detail, 0xAA
18
30.216
AMD HD 5750 1GB (Sapphire)
2560×1600 – High Detail, 0xAA
23
37.297
NVIDIA GTS 450 1GB (ASUS)
2560×1600 – High Detail, 0xAA
22
33.331

At Ultra detail settings, and no anti-aliasing, the game hits my minimum mark of 30 FPS, so that becomes our overall best playable. If you are a competitive player and are using a larger monitor, you might want to decrease the settings to High, but if you don’t take things ultra-seriously, you should be more than pleased with the performance from the FleX at 1920×1080 and under, regardless of settings.

Unfortunately for Eyefinity gamers, Blizzard has taken it upon itself to say that there’s no place in StarCraft II for multi-monitor gaming. While hacks exist to get around the limitation, we didn’t test with it as the number of people willing to tweak their game and risk getting their accounts banned is going to be small.

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Rob Williams

Rob founded Techgage in 2005 to be an 'Advocate of the consumer', focusing on fair reviews and keeping people apprised of news in the tech world. Catering to both enthusiasts and businesses alike; from desktop gaming to professional workstations, and all the supporting software.

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