We are always up for a good fight, but over the past few years we've realized that there are rather two battles that we just can't win. One is telling people that the video cards they want to buy have more memory than they need and if they want to save a few dollars while getting almost identical performance, go for the one with less memory. The second is convincing people that those budget CrossFire or SLI setups just aren't worth it, as almost every time you could get an single card solution that's going to perform slightly better for what is usually a slightly lower price. And high memory cards of course have their place in the high-end segment and so does CrossFire and SLI in that same segment. - TweakTown

MSI Radeon HD 5670 1GB CrossFire Graphics Review

We never expect much from these mid-range graphics cards when it comes to the bundle and this one is just no different. The first stand out point for this MSI Radeon HD 5670 is the fact that the company has opted for its own cooler. This means that compared to the reference card, we're looking at another dual slot version of the Radeon HD 5670. The whole design isn't anything we haven't really seen before and if past experience is anything to go by, we shouldn't have any issues when it comes to keeping our GPU cool with this option. Like the others we've looked at, we don't have any extra power needed like the reference version.

We hate to admit it, but budget CrossFire setups are beginning to have a place in the market thanks to aggressive pricing and low-end cards are performing quite strong these days. The MSI Radeon HD 5670 car is going to set you back $115, while a Radeon HD 5770 with the stock cooler is going to be $170 after a mail-in rebate. Now, before you say that two Radeon HD 5670's are more expensive than a single Radeon HD 5770, let us stop you and say we know. These Radeon HD 5670's can be had for under $100. While that setup is slightly more expensive than a single Radeon HD 5770, it's also slightly faster across the board.

So setting up CrossFire is of course going to require a motherboard that supports the technology, but with many people sporting the Core i7 or Core i5 processor, this shouldn't be a problem. The only other issue that tends to pop up is power requirements, but at just below 350W at load, just about any good quality power supply will handle the setup. On to the specifics that are part of the Radeon HD 5670 from MSI, we discover it's another good variation from these stock models thanks to its aftermarket cooling option. Performance is as you would expect and this model of course supports EyeFinity which is an important feature.

Overclocking can be done with their Afterburner software, but as we discovered, don't expect miracles when it comes to the performance increase you get. While some extra frames can be had, if you are really looking for something that can game better at higher detail or higher resolutions, look at the CrossFire setup or a Radeon HD 5770 and above.