AMD Radeon HD 7750 & Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition Review: Evading The Price/Performance Curve
by Ryan Smith & Ganesh T S on February 15, 2012 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- HTPC
- GCN
- Radeon HD 7000
Final Words
Wrapping things up, I once had someone comment to me that they can gauge my opinion of a product based solely on the first paragraph of the final page. If I say “there’s no such thing as a bad card, only bad prices” then it’s likely not a favorable review. That statement is once more being validated today, if only in a meta context.
To be clear, we’ve been waiting for some time to see GCN filter down to lower priced cards, and even longer to see PowerTune in particular make it down here. The fact that we now have reliable power throttling and solid compute performance is not lost on us. It’s a welcome advancement.
However our expectation with a new manufacturing process – and perhaps we’re being greedy here – is that we’ll see cards become cheaper and we’ll see power consumption come down. AMD has achieved the second item in spades, and as a result both the Radeon HD 7750 and Radeon HD 7770 are well ahead of any competing 75W and 100W cards respectively. The 7750 in particular is a standout thanks to the fact that it generally offers 5700 series performance on a sub-75W card, and even at $109 it clearly offers a great deal of value as an HTPC video card. All of this will be an even more welcome change when Cape Verde filters down to laptops in the coming months.
The problem for AMD today isn’t the power/performance curve, it’s the price/performance curve. 16 months ago AMD launched the Radeon HD 6850 at $179 amidst fierce competition from NVIDIA. Ignoring the current price of the 6850 for the moment, on average the 7770 delivers 90% of the 6850’s gaming performance for 90% of the 6850’s launch price. In other words in 16 months AMD has moved nowhere along the price/performance curve – if you go by launch prices you’re getting the same amount of performance per dollar today as you did in October of 2010. In reality the 6850 is much cheaper than that, with a number of cards selling for $159 before a rebate, while several more 6870s sell for $159 after rebate. The 7770 is so far off the price/performance curve that you have to believe that this is either a pricing error or AMD is planning on quickly halting 6800 series production.
Now to be fair there’s more to consider than just performance in existing games. The 7770 supports DX11.1, VCE, PowerTune, Fast HDMI, and other features the 6800 series doesn’t have, and it does all of this while consuming around 25W less than the 6850. But that’s just not enough. DX11.1 is a point update that’s still the better part of a year away and will only offer a tiny number of new features, while VCE is AWOL and cannot be evaluated, and Fast HDMI will be a niche feature for use with extremely expensive TVs for some time to come. This is not like the 4000/5000 series gap – today and tomorrow the 7000 series will only offer marginal feature benefits. The best argument for the 7770 is the power difference, but considering that both the 6850 and 7770 require external power anyhow that 25W difference is unlikely to matter.
The 7700 series is a fine lineup of cards, but AMD has finally shot itself in the foot with its conservative pricing. The 7750 can ride on the sub-75W niche for now, but the only way the 7770 will make any sense is if it comes down in price. Until then AMD’s worst competition for the 7700 series is not NVIDIA, it’s their 6850.
With that said, the 7700 series clearly has potential. XFX’s R7770 Black Edition S Double Dissipation does a great job demonstrating this with its virtually silent operation, while the card’s factory overclock largely closes the performance gap with the 6850. With its combination of performance and power consumption the 7700 series will be AMD’s midrange workhorse for 2012, of that there is no question. Now it’s simply up to AMD to make it so. After all there’s no such thing as a bad card, only bad prices.
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chizow - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - link
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.There's a reason we look at the past, because chances are, what's already in your rig performs the same or better than what AMD is trying to sell you at the same or higher price than what you paid "in the past".
Everyone needs to set the bar for themselves in terms of what they are willing to pay for an "upgrade", and given there is negative scaling with these parts, its pretty obvious they fail on all fronts. But hey, even you acknowledge this.
Galidou - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
Those with a choosen side should not try to explain whatever the history tells us because they have a biased opinion. They can't see both side of the medal as objectively possible as someone with an impartial view and form the beginning you've proven to be on nvidia's side.End of the discussion, you can try to explain history but it's YOUR perception. I never said history wasn't worthy of anything the thing is you always are on the same side which means it's worthless from the very beginning.
Galidou - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
I do not think it's a TOTAL fail, the 7970 and 7950 isn'T very well priced, but it's not a fail like those. From your point of view a fail is from historical pricing. From my point of view and ALWAYS was like that, it's from a performance/price standpoint and I won't change because you tell me we should look at everything things from the past. Sure we can learn from it.There was once a man that beleived the earth was round. But the historians and everyone else beleive it was flat so they killed him. No need to put names in there... History used as an argument makes that sometimes.... You've got to renew your point of view else, you can't see further from what you know.
AMD is trying to sell you at the same or higher price than what you paid "in the past".
Like we said before, nothing new here, it's always the same with x2 parts from last gen for years now... And it's only an example from many others of rebranding older designs selling at higher price point which AMD and Nvidia are both strong at.
Galidou - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - link
The price is a failure from my perception, 7770 and 7750 is a big fail..... Unlike 7950 and 7970 non-attractive price/performance but still a little justified by it's performance compared to parts that are out NOW and not compared to freaking history of pricing or future video cards...People out there will buy the 7770 and they'll be totally satisfied for as long as they'll own the thing. If you spent 4 hours on the internet looking at video card prices and benchmarks and realize you're way better off with a 6850 you might find it a bargain. But for others, if you tell them what you did to get to that conclusion, they'll maybe end up being happy with their choice without searching because they had 4 hours of playtime outside on a sunny day and that's worth it, while you're on the computer looking to spend your money on the best you can find.
So in the end, whatever we might say, perception is the key in life, we can take a whole day speaking about that and in the end, everyone will be right, because each of us create it's reality by thinking and seeing it the way THEY want... You want to live in the past and the future analyzing everything, you'll end up loosing the present which is the only thing that exists...
chizow - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - link
Yes Rarson, its proof stupid people have low standards and will buy anything. How's your 7700 treating you?Plenty in stock actually: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...