ATI Radeon 5670, 5550 & 5450 Review - Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2 is the classic first person shooter. It is a DX9 title. At this point DX9 doesn't really tax graphics hardware with any of its "features," and any benchmarking comes down to a pushing raw pixels. Half-Life 2 does not like the extra video RAM provided by 2GB cards, and does not like the Eyefinity6 in CFX.

The Source Engine is no match for even the Mainstream series. Widescreen resolutions produce results in excess of 60fps on the 5670, and average 30fps in Eyefinity. Again these were all at max settings. Even the 5550 averages 60fps between the widescreen tests.

Given the DX9 nature of the title, the Episode 2 iteration of the Source engine is not shader-dependant. If you are a fan of games based on the Source engine (HL2, Team Fortress 2, and the Left4Dead series), the 5670 and 5550 both provide excellent performance for a single widescreen.

Hitting 60fps

Widescreen - Both cards hit the 60fps goal in widescreen.
Eyefinity - The 5670 averages 30fps in Eyefinity across the two tests.