Faster Graphics For Lower Prices: ATI Radeon HD 4770
by Derek Wilson on April 28, 2009 5:15 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
And there you have it: 40nm has arrived, and it looks pretty good. The Radeon HD 4770 always outperforms the older 4830 and sometimes gives the 4850 a run for its money.
As for the competition, the 4770 comes out on top in the games we tested. The more expensive GTS 250 leads in Call of Duty World at War, while the 4770 blows the doors off everything in Age of Conan. As for the other benchmarks, they come out pretty close with the 4770 generally ahead. But the clincher is Far Cry 2 performance which shows the Radeon HD 4770 leading the GTS 250 fairly well in a heavy hitting graphics engine.
Our expectations for the hardware were a little higher while our idea of price was also a little lower, but from our perspective, the extra $10 isn't out in left field as this card generally leads a competitive part that costs even more and sometimes pushes up toward the Radeon HD 4850. At the same time, you can spend a little bit less and get some very good performance if you are into the value option.
We still don't like the fact that the AMD decided to name this the 4770 despite the fact that it consistently outperforms the 4830. Unfortunately, we can't do any more about it than we are already doing. So we'll have to make do in the meantime.
NVIDIA should have 40nm parts out this year as well, and both camps have their own way of rolling out new process technology. AMD continues to be a little bit more aggressive on that front, seemingly making the move on the earliest viable hardware whether it's low or high end. NVIDIA looks to play it a little more cautiously. It's all about cost benefit. Certainly it's a benefit to have smaller GPUs as they cost less to make. But early on in the life of a manufacturing process, yields can suffer driving price up. Timing the move well can have its advantages, and NVIDIA is counting on that this time around.
It isn't clear when NVIDIA will have a part in this generation of their architecture that competes in the near $100 market. For now, the best option is clear: the Radeon HD 4770 is the way to go.
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coldpower27 - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - link
Yeah, it's kinda odd how GPU's simply skipped the 45nm base node this time around. I guess it's good in away quicker progress. Also much needed considering how much MORE core logic GPU's have then CPU's which over 50% of the transistor budget is cache.This is only a test shuttle basically for the 40nm process small simple part, for high yields and to work out the kinks before deploying complex parts on this new process.
Sorta like G92b for Nvidia
RagingDragon - Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - link
AMD and Nvidia GPU's are fabbed by TSMC. I don't think TSMC have a 45nm process - they jumped to 40nm instead, which seems sensible to me: timewise TSMC's 40nm process is entering production almost halfway between Intel's 45nm and 32nm processes.armandbr - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
here are crossfire numbershttp://www.matbe.com/articles/lire/1421/radeon-hd-...">http://www.matbe.com/articles/lire/1421...4770-per...
Exar3342 - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
I see no reason why this couldn't be in a single-slot solution. That is what everyone really wants...I would grab 3 of these if they were available in such a way.AmazighQ - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
really dont post a review as bad as thisyou make the 4770 look like any other card while its performance to price ratio is even greater then the 4850
final point this review failed miserably
frowny - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
Why are you guys focusing on 4770 vs GTS250? The correct comparison is 4770 vs 9800GT since those are the same price points.frozentundra123456 - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
This card seems to be kind of in limbo to me. It isnt a performance leader, but still is not particularly low in power consumption. It still requires a power connector and is dual slot (dual slot ???). In performance it is also bracketed by the 4830 and 4850. Price is also not outstanding.To showcase 40nm architecture, I would have thought that AMD would have had either a higher performance card or an improved performance 4670 type card that required no power connector and was single slot.
At this point, I would choose a 4670 for low power and no connector required or go with a 4850 or 4870 for better performance.
FireSnake - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
"or go with a 4850 for better performance"Read the article first, and stop writing nonsense!
frozentundra123456 - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
Don't be rude. I did read the article. It states that the 4770 is faster than the 4830. I took this to mean that the 4850 was faster than the 4770. Looking closely at the graphs, it is faster in some games, but not in others. I don't mind people pointing out mistakes, but you can be nice about it.RagingDragon - Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - link
The 4770 is going to replace the 4830, which will be (or has been?) phased out of production. The card is intened for gamers wanting more performance than a 4670 but who don't want to pay for a 4850. Looks to me like the target market is gamers with 1680x1050 panels. For lower resolutions less expensive cards would make more sense, for 1920x1080 and 1920x1200 the 4850, 4870 or 4890 makes more sense, and if you want to game at 2560x1600 you'll probably want a dual-GPU solution....