Powercolor's Radeon HD 5750 PCS scores with the beauty provided by its Zerotherm cooling solution. Whereas the coolers of other HD 5750 cards look like cheap OEM heatsinks, Powercolor's cooler conveys the feeling of solid quality and cooling performance. But aren't the inner values more important? AMD's new 40 nm Juniper graphics processor can provide performance surpassing last-generation's Radeon HD 4850, yet consumes only about half of its power. It also packs all the latest features like DirectX 11 and AMD EyeFinity support. On the connectivity side, things are bright too. You have the choice between two DVI ports, an HDMI port and a DisplayPort - and you may even use them all at the same time.
Our sample showed some impressive overclocking capabilities. Both core and and memory could be overclocked by over 20%. If you are willing to go this route, you could easily save some money and get performance similar to the HD 5770 or HD 4870.
The only weak points of the Powercolor HD 5750 PCS are that, compared to other HD 5750 cards, the idle power consumption is slightly higher and that the fan could be quieter. Even though the fan is quiet already, running at around 60°C allows for less fan noise at the cost of slightly increased temperatures.
When looking at pure performance per buck you will be disappointed however. AMD's HD 4850 can be had at substantially lower price levels (-30%) than the HD 5750 and offers similar performance (-8%). I have to admit that the new features like DirectX 11, EyeFinity, native HDMI & DisplayPort warrant a price increase, but these features are not important for everyone. So the bottom line is: if you want the best bang for the buck right now, go with the HD 4850. If you want a longer term investment in future technologies, check out the HD 5750.