ATI's on a roll at the moment. After successfully launching the Radeon HD 5870 and 5850 a scant two weeks prior, it's following up with some more mainstream offerings - the Radeon HD 5770 and 5750. The Radeon HD 5770 will cost $159, and the Radeon HD 5750 will hit the market even lower at $109. We received the Radeon HD 5770 for testing and put it through the gauntlet.

　　Specification wise, both cards are essentially cut down versions of their top-end brethren. At roughly half the price, you're also getting half the card. The numbers for both cards follow below.

　　Radeon HD 5770

　　800 Stream Processors850MHz Core Clock1GB GDDR51.2GHz Memoy ClockRadeon HD 5750

　　720 Stream Processors700 MHz Core Clock512MB or 1GB GDDR51150MHz Memory ClockBy comparison the flagship $379 Radeon HD 5870 has 1600 stream processors, an 850MHz core clock, and 1GB of GDDR5 memory running at 1.2GHz. The rest of the benefits of the Radeon 5000 series apply to both the 5770 and 5750 - lower power usage, DirectX 11 support, and great home theater support for Dolby True HD and DTS Master Audio.

　　Eyefinity

　　Both the Radeon HD 5770 and 5750 support Eyefinity, ATI's multi-monitor output solution. The two cards can run three monitors, although doing so could prove tricky. If you already own three monitors and want to plug them in, two of your monitors can run on either DVI or HDMI inputs with plug converters. To enable the third monitor you will need a Displayport monitor or an active Displayport adapter to convert an existing DVI/HDMI monitor into one. We've seen numerous posts, in forums about just this issue. ATI didn't go out of their way to hide this little fact. It's just not something most people are looking for in the manual, and to be honest we were a little blindsided by it too, despite the company's best efforts.

　　At $100, an active Displayport adapter doesn't come cheap. Depending on how big of a monitor you have, you might be better off selling it and simply getting a new Displayport monitor. Displayport monitors aren't nearly as plentiful as standard DVI/HDMI monitors, but fortunately there's not much of a cost premium attached to them either. Dell has numerous models ranging from $200 on up.

　　Performance

　　Depending upon the game, the Radeon HD 5770 performs right underneath the Radeon HD 4870 and the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 or fairly close to them. The GeForce GTS 260 is close in price, but the real competition comes from the Radeon HD 4870, which can be had for as little as $145. Choosing between the two is difficult, as you could opt for higher overall performance or go slightly slower and gain the benefit of lower power requirements, DirectX 11 support, and a glimpse into the future of multi-monitor gaming. With less than $20 up or down, you pretty much have to figure out what's more important to you. We'd side with the Radeon HD 5770 simply for the triple monitor desktop support.