If you're in the market for high end gaming graphics, you've probably been looking at nVidia's recently released "Fermi" GTX 400 cards, or possibly an ATI Radeon 5000 series, like the highly acclaimed 5870 or even a 5970. These cards represent the peak of performance from their respective manufacturers, and they've got the price tag to prove it. But what if all you're looking for is a video card with low power consumption, quiet operation and decent 3D performance, all at a rock bottom price? Well if you are also concerned about future-proofing your purchase with DirectX 11 support, you really only have one choice and that's ATI.


Launched in January, the Redwood core represents ATI's third chip in the Evergreen series. Using a 40nm die size, coupled with only 64W peak power, 14W idle, and a sub-$100 price, the 5670 is poised somewhere between the previous 4670 and 4770 in performance. Compared to nVidia, this is roughly in the same ballpark as the GT220/240 or 9600GSO/9800GT range. MSI offers three versions of the 5670, a 512Mb card, a 1Gb card, and the one we have for review today, the 1Gb Cyclone. Although all three cards use an improved cooler rather than the reference single-slot design, the Cyclone ups the ante with a dual heatpipe arrangement similar to their 4000-series high-end coolers.

Join me as I take a closer look at the MSI R5670 Cyclone 1G.