14 DAY TRIAL // Now that Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices has released its ATI Radeon HD 5570, hardware manufacturers are already taking turns revealing their own customized versions of the card, as it always occurs when AMD, Intel or NVIDIA launches a new device. One company that already has its HD 5570 on hand is Micro-Star International (MSI). The manufacturer has just introduced the R5570-MD1G, the latest in the company's line of DirectX 11 graphics.
The graphics card has stock specifications, but it is designed with features that increase its reliability and stability. The R5570-MD1G is built around the 40nm Redwood graphics processing unit (GPU), whose core clock is set at 650MHz. In addition, the card boasts 400 stream processors and 1GB of GDDR3 that has a memory frequency of 1600MHz and an interface of 128 bits. The product adopts the low-profile design, making it easy to fit inside an HTPC. Its usability in home-theater PC configurations is allowed by the HDMI port and the lossless Dolby 7.1-channel HD audio output.
The two features that provide an increased stability and reliability are the single-slot active cooler and the all-solid capacitor design. This design enables a longer life and an increased tolerance for high temperatures, thus giving more stability to the entire system. The active cooling solution will keep the card's heat in check, aided by the low-profile form factor that improves the airflow.
The output capabilities of the MSI R5570-MD1G include HDMI, D-Sub and DVI outputs. The card is HDCP ready and also supports the ATI Eyefinity technology (with resolutions of 3 x 2560x1600), OpenGL 3.2, Accelerated Video Transcoding, HDMI 1.3, the ATI Stream technology, ATI Avivo HD, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio Support. These features give it a decent performance when running mainstream games and make it excellent for performing multimedia applications.
MSI's R5570-MD1G DirectX 11-capable graphics adapter is already being listed with a price tag of $85.