The Card

Sapphire's HD 5570 is really compact. If you remove the analog VGA output you can turn it into a single slot, low profile media PC card.


The card uses slightly more than one slot. One part of the heatsink goes around the card to the back. I am not sure why Sapphire added this piece - it can't add that much to cooling performance. Nevertheless, the card should still fit most small-form factor low-profile cases, but be sure to check before purchase.


The card has one DVI port, one HDMI port and one analog VGA output. For a lower-end card this is a perfectly valid output combination. Using an HDMI to DVI adapter (not included) you could use two digital screens.

For HDMI Audio, most NVIDIA cards require you to feed an external audio source, for example from your motherboard's on-board audio, to the card via SPDIF cable. AMD on the other hand has integrated a sound device inside their GPUs which is the easier solution for most users. Also AMD's integrated sound device has been upgraded to support HDMI 1.3a which includes Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, AC-3, DTS and up to 7.1 channel audio with 192 kHz / 24-bit.


No CrossFire connectors are present on all these low-end cards, any data that needs to be transferred is sent via the PCI-E bus.


Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.