DirectX 11 Goes Mainstream with ATI Radeon HD 5770 & 5750 Launch

From DailyTech: ATI launched the first DirectX 11 parts less than a month ago. The Radeon HD 5870 and 5850 have been very popular due to their outstanding performance and future-proofed features. However, at MSRPs of $379 and $259 respectively, these cards occupy price points that many consumers are unwilling or unable to afford.

With the Windows 7 launch a little over a week away, ATI is preparing to serve the mainstream performance market by introducing two new cards. The Radeon HD 5770 and the Radeon HD 5750 with 1GB of GDDR5 will be introduced at $159 and $129 respectively. A 512MB Radeon HD 5750 version will also be introduced at $109. All cards in the Radeon 5700 series will have two DVI outputs, a HDMI output, and a DisplayPort output. Up to three monitors can be driven at the same time using a single card.

The Radeon 5700 series cards use a brand new 40nm chip previously codenamed Juniper. It consists of 1.04 billion transistors on a 166mm2 die, much smaller than the 334mm2 of the RV870 Evergreen chip used in the Radeon 5800 series. This enables ATI to hit the major pricing sweet spots in the $100-$200 range.

Currently the Radeon HD 4890, 4870, 4850, and 4770 video cards are major sellers in that range. Based on nomenclature alone, a consumer might believe that the Radeon 5770 directly replaces the Radeon 4770. However, the Radeon 5770 is similar enough in performance to the Radeon 4850 that it will start to replace it as production ramps up. Our sources have indicated that there are tens of thousands of 5700 series video cards hitting retailers today, with many more already enroute across the Pacific Ocean.

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