Introduction

When you are improving an old product where do you start? How would you go about improving something but keep it in the same category and at the same price point? I'm sure this is a debate the happens constantly in the technology industry. There are so many categories of products and so many pricing tiers within them, that manufactures need to offer to hit every type of consumer. Everyone is always looking for the best buy that their budget will allow.

Let's look at it in terms of cars. Motor Vehicle makers will use the same base for nearly every generation of car until their technology improves. However, when jumping from a 2009 to 2010 model  they want to offer more incentive to buy but keep the base retail price the same.  What is the difference between an 2009 Lancer DE to a 2010 Lancer DE? Not much to the naked eye. Nothing was changed under the hood. However, they improved the gas mileage by 2 miles. Which means there were some minor improvements made to fuel economy not listed on paper. This could be shifting timing changes, maybe a little improvement on the quality of spark plugs used, or maybe better quality exhaust. Personally, I don't know the specific details. But, it was enough to keep the price the same, and offer more.

The ATI Radeon HD 5570 512MB GDDR5 has gotten that same upgrade. The Radeon HD 5570 comes equipped with DDR5 memory rather than DDR3 and keeps all its other same baseline specifications as well as price tag. The 5570 is supposed to remain the sub $100 budget friendly video card that can be used by both casual gamers and mainstream users that want to take advantage of ATI Stream as well as Eyefinity and DX11. There are 512MB as well as 1GB versions available. I will be reviewing the 512MB version of the new 5570.