For the environmentally, economically and otherwise interested parties, PowerColor has introduced a new line of graphics cards under the “Go! Green” banner. These cards aim to reduce power consumption by half while still competing with and beating the competition. Benchmark Reviews has obtained the AX5670 1GBD5-NS3H which has been modified from the HD 5670 reference design to include an extra 512MB of memory as well as reduce power consumption. This review will test the lofty goals set by PowerColor as well as reveal the truth about going green.

When first released and tested, the reference HD 5670 consistently under-performed close competitors like NVIDIA’s 9800GT. As a result the 5670 was initially priced to closer to the GTS 240. Since that time the price on the 9800GT has dropped into a competitive range. Part of the performance anemia in the reference design may be due to ATI’s stance on RAM. It has been consistently claimed that 512MB of memory is enough to support computations. Yet third parties like PowerColor consistently bolster the reference design by adding more and faster memory. In the case of the Go! Green AX5670 only the quantity was increased, possibly in hopes to step above the limitations of the reference design and close the gap on the competition. Another smart move by PowerColor was choosing reference cards with already low power consumption to performance ratios and making them even better.

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