Today I unboxed a XFX HD 5770 which I bought at NCIX for a price of $174.99 Canadian

Unboxing it was really nothing special. You get this nice fancy box with a lot of shiny all over it. Inside is your video card, installation guide and crossfire wire + adapters.

Okay so first look at the video card and you can tell one thing.... it is quite solid and not a flimsy piece of junk (like that XFX HD4870). It has one exhaust vent that moves air outside of the case and side vents that push the remaining hot air into the case. The video card runs on a 6-pin power cable and is a lot more energy efficient than the 48XX series of cards. The size of the card itself is around 9 inches long which means it is a pretty standard card nowadays (the HD 5870 is around 11 inches).

Installation went quite smooth with Windows 7. First thing I did was test the fan speed. At 70% fan speed I could barely hear it over my case fans. Putting it at 100% fan speed sounded like someone is starting their car.

I don't really have any high end games to test it with so how I wouldn't really know how good it really is (ET and a bunch of Source based games that easily pushes over 200 FPS lawl). Its performance in games is slightly under to on par with a 4870 judging by online reviews. Pricewise it is the same price as the XFX HD 4870 1GB (The flimsy 4870 version) and $25 cheaper than another branded HD4870 1GB and Palit 260 GTX. Was it a good deal? Probably just average, but i really wanted to go for one of the newer cards on the market.

Also as for me I am finally done my comp. The total cost was $672.12 to be exact. $72 dollars more than my friends $600 dollar Canadian Gaming Rig but in return I have a DDR3 mobo and DDR3 ram.