My Shiney New Gigabyte HD 5750 Silent Cell & OC Benchmar

[jackhulk]

Hello

Late last year I built the system you see below. I had the Palit GTX 275 and while impressed with performance and even though it was the quietest 275, the noise when pushed started to annoy me. Too much fan noise simply drives me to destraction and take away my enjoyment of gaming, something of which I've been trying to re-capture lately.

After much researching for replacement, I discovered the Gigabtye HD 5750 SILENT CELL! Happy happy joy joy! A mid-range passive graphics card (something of which I never knew existed!). While knowing it would be a step down from the GTX 275, I was happy to take that step, so I said hello to my first ATI card ever!

Received my card last week and fired it up. Even though I knew there would be a drop in performance, I was still a little disappointed in the lower FPS (I always want my cake and eat it!). However, after probably the easist overclock I have ever done via the catalyst control center, I got 870MHz out of the GPU (170MHz increase!) and 1265MHz on the memory (extra 115).

On to testing, comparing my Palit GTX 275 (which I ran at stock) vs HD 5750 Silent cell overclocked. Winner highlighted.

Crysis Benchmark Tool [1680x1050 / DX10]
Test 1 - High Setting / DX10 / Vsync.
GTX 275 = Avg 38.75 FPS.
HD 5750 SC = Avg 41.09 FPS.

Test 2 - High Setting / AA x2 / Vsync.
GTX 275 = Avg 34.37FPS.
HD 5750 SC = Avg 38.09 FPS.

Test 3 - Very High Settings / Vsync.
GTX 275 = Avg 21.47 FPS
HD 5750 SC = Avg 24.79 FPS

Sweeta! Never expect that!

Crysis Warhead Benchmark Tool [1680x1050 / DX10]
Test 1 - Gamer / Vsync.
GTX 275 = Avg 36.76 FPS
HD 5750 SC = Avg 40.85 FPS

Test 2 - Gamer / Vsync / AA x 2
GTX 275 = Avg 35.98 FPS
HD 5750 SC = Avg 31.43

Test 3 - Enthusiast / Vsync
GTX 275 = Avg 23.22 FPS
HD 5750 SC = Avg 23.58 FPS

Awesome! On par and even slightly better than my GTX 275 (playing Crysis at least).

Other benchmarks had my GTX 275 beating the new card though, but not by much and windows rated 5750 [OC] 7.4 compared to GTX 275 7.3.

Heaven [DX 10/ Shaders High / Anisotropy 4 / Anti-aliasing 4x / 1680x1050
GTX 275 = 802
HD 5750 [OC] = 734
HD 5750 [Stock] = 622

3D Mark Vantage [High]
GTX 275 = 7518
HD 5750 SC [OC] = 6760.
HD 5750 SC [Stock] = 5569

Overall extremely pleased! Played an hour of Crysis warhead tonight with Enthusiast settings and it ran quite nicely without any fans screaming in my ear!

[Aloz]

Hello, I was wondering if you could comment on where you sourced said card and its cost? Quick google for UK suppliers is coming up short.

Thanks!

[jackhulk]

Ah yes, this is the exact same problem I had and almost gave up searching.

When searching you have to use the model number which is GV R575SL-1GI. I got mine for morecomputers.com which was the cheapest (incl delivery) @ £126.68 at the time.

[CA_Steve]

Congrats on your new card. With the overclock, what temps are you seeing at idle/gaming/furmark?

[farns]

Im pretty pleased with my 5750 too, not too far behind a 4870 but shorter, doesnt even heat up barely and uses 60w less than my 4870 at idle (80w less under load).

[NightOwl69]

Hi,

I'm thinking of buying one of these for my HTPC and am trying to find out if it would fit it into my Antec Fusion Black Case (http://store.antec.com/Category/enclosure-itx.aspx).

The manufacturer can't really tell me and all the suppliers won't open one to check so I'd really appreciate it if you take the time.

I need to know:

• how long it is from the back of the bracket (i.e. how much length do I need in my case),
• how far the heatsink juts above the top of the bracket (where the screw goes in i.e. will it be too tall for my case), and
• its greatest width (i.e. will it be too wide for my case).

I'd really appreciate your help.

[KadazanPL]

I bought a passive 5750 from Powercolor to replace my dying EVGA 8800GTS and must say I'm extremely pleased! Framerates are much higher, everything inside the case runs cooler [5750 is more energy efficient and smaller than 8800] and it is noiseless Finally my system runs everything fine and is quiet enough to prevent me from tinkering.

Highly recommended.

[purist]

Hi Jackhulk,
First off, thanks for the benchmark! I'm a real Crysis fan but love the silence. I'm currently running the Gigabyte 4850 passive card and can't quite break 30fps in the Warhead test so that's quite a performance increase.

My question is... What temp do you reach when doing the test and what sort of airflow have you got over the card. I've got mine mounted so that there's a very quiet fan wafting directly over the cooling fins. That keeps the temps down to a fairly balmy 75-85 when maxed out.
Your card seems to be a great performer and if the temps are decent I'll probably put one on my upgrade list for next year.

Thanks again.

[mellon]

I'm thinking of buying one of these for my HTPC and am trying to find out if it would fit it into my Antec Fusion Black Case (http://store.antec.com/Category/enclosure-itx.aspx).

I bought (and later returned) a similar passively cooled HD5750 made by Club3D as it didn't fit into my NSK2480. The case had maybe 1,5cm of space from expansion bracket to case top plate, and the HD5750 heatsink extended from the bracket by maybe about 2,5cm. Also, the dimensions mentioned on the manufacturer website didn't count in the heatsink extension :p

So while I can't really be sure, I'd hazard a guess that the Gigabyte card won't quite fit into Fusion.

[allwinner]

I also wholly recommend the Silent Cell 5750 with one caveat (see below).

I recently purchased the Gigabyte 5750 Silent Cell to replace an ECS 8800GT w/Accelero S1 in my htpc. The HTPC case is a SilverStone Desktop HTPC LC20-B. I'm quite pleased with the results. It's cool, energy efficient, and, is unobtrusively silent. The Accelero S1 was too wide to permit complete closure of the top of the SilverStone case. The 5750 permits complete case closure.

The power draw comparison is as follows:
System Activity: Before (8800gt); After (5750)
Idle: 78; 56-57
CPU Load (Prime95): 105; 79
Low Def (standard AVI): 84-87; 68-72
Hi Def (720p MKV): 81; 68-72
I unfortunately never tested power consumption during 3dmark with the 8800gt. With the 5750, 3dmark was 102-116 with an avg. ~106.
System: AMD BE-2400 undervolted (but not underclocked), 8gb DDR2, Seasonic x650; nForce 750a based motherboard; 64gb Vertex 1 SSD; DVD-RW; Linksys 802.11n USB adapter; Windows MCE Remote IR receiver; Cordless mouse/keyboard USB receiver; 1 x 80mm fan (attached to video card in both instances); 1 x 92mm cpu fan.

There is one caveat for those who are purchasing this card for use in an htpc - technically incomplete 3D support. AMD has recently introduced AMD HD3D, its 3D support initiative. The purpose of the initiative is to provide full 3D support for gaming (converting 2d games to 3D), 3D desktop, and Bluray 3D support. However, the current drivers only support Bluray 3D for the 6000 series of cards. Hardware Support List here. This may change in the future as there is certainly no reason that the drivers cannot be made to support Bluray 3D via software, and an AMD representative has suggested that AMD intends to extend back full 3D support to at least the 5000 series.

That being said, there are workarounds to get BR3d output from the 5000 series cards as well as some indication that AMD has intentionally crippled the drivers to remove full BR3d decoding support from the 500 series in what could only be a marketing ploy. See the full thread for discussion of support options.

Hopefully AMD extends "official" full support to the 5000 series leaving no caveat's to the purchase of the 5750 Silent Cell for HTPC use. There aren't too many (if any) superior options at this point that do not require aftermarket cooling or modding (e.g., you could buy an Nvidia 450 or 460, or an AMD 6000 series and mod it). Power Color has exhibited a silent 6850 but I do not believe it's hit the retail market yet. And, I'm sure it will be much more expensive than the 5750 Silent Cell which has finally come down to a very competitive price to warrant an upgrade.