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
Video Post-Processing: GPU Loading
We saw in our coverage of discrete HTPC GPUs last year that noise reduction loaded up the GPU, and as such, was even disabled in the low end GPUs for want of shader resources. Starting with this review, we are planning to tabulate GPU usage under various post processing scenarios instead of running decoder benchmarks. GPU-Z gives us the necessary data for this purpose.
A 1080i60 H.264 clip (same as the one used in the discrete HTPC GPU article last year) was decoded with the LAV Video Decoder (DXVA2 Copy-Back mode) using EVR-CP as a renderer in GraphStudio Next's Decoder Performance section. Various post-processing options were turned on and off in CCC and the GPU usage recorded in each case.
| Video Post Processing GPU Usage: 1080i60 H.264 | |
| AMD Radeon HD 7750 (1GB GDDR5) / Catalyst 12.1 | |
| LAV Video Decoder DXVA2 (Copy-Back) v0.46 / EVR-CP | |
| Post Processing Algorithm | GPU Load |
| No Video Post Processing | 19% |
| Vector Adaptive Deinterlacing + Pulldown Detection | 25% |
| Edge Enhancement | 22% |
| Noise Reduction | 48% |
| Dynamic Contrast and Colour | 25% |
| All Post Processing / 'Enforce Smooth Video Playback' Disabled | 62% |
We also put some Full SBS / Full TAB 3D clips (which are basically 2 x HD resolution) through the same process. Those progressive clips resulted in around 70% of the GPU being loaded with all the post processing steps enabled.
It is not yet possible to use the madVR renderer from within GraphStudio Next, but, in future HTPC / HTPC GPU reviews, you can expect to find similar benchmarking with the madVR renderer (now that it is possible to use madVR along with hardware accelerated decode for AMD GPUs also). That said, we see that up to 62% of the GPU is loaded using just EVR-CP. It is not clear how much room is left for madVR processing, and we hope to address that question in future reviews.
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kallogan - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
HD 6850 is still the way to go.zepi - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
So basically in couple of generations we've gone4870 > 5770/6770 > 7770
Chip size
260mm2 > 165mm2 > ~120mm2 chip.
Performance is about
100 > 100 > 120
Power consumption in gaming load according to Techpowerup (just graphics card):
150W - 108W - 83W
And soon we should have 1 inch thick laptops with these things inside. I'm not complaining.
silverblue - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
Good point. One thing I think people forget is that smaller processing technologies will yield either better performance at the same power, or reduced consumption at the same performance... or a mix of the two. You could throw two cards in dual-GPU config for similar power to one you had two years back, and still not have to worry too much if CrossFire or SLi doesn't work properly (well, if you forget the microstuttering, of course).cactusdog - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
WHy is the 6770 left out of benchmarks?? Isnt that odd considering the 7770 replaces the 6770? I really wish reviewers would be independant when reviewing cards, instead of following manufacturer guidelines.Markstar - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
No, since the 6770 is EXACTLY the same card as the 5770 (just relabeled). So it makes sense to continue using the 5770 and remind AMD (and us) that we do not fall for their shenanigans (sadly, many do fall for it).gnorgel - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
For your 6850. It should sell a lot better now. Maybe they really stopped producing it and need to get rid of stocks. But when it's sold out almost anyone should go for a gtx 560, 7% more expensive and 30% faster.The only reason to buy a 7770 now is if your powersupply can't support it and you would have to get a new one.
duploxxx - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
by the time the 6850 is out of stock the 78xx series are launched which will knock out 560don't understand what evryone is complaining about, its faster then the 57xx-67xx series, les spower. sure it's not cheap but neither are the 57-67 @ launch. Combined with old gen available and NV products a bit to expensive but this is just starting price....
akbo - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
Moore's law apparently doesn't apply to graphic cards. People expectations do. People expect that every two years gpus at the same price point have double transistors and thus be faster by so. Obviously perf does not scale like so since the 28 nm shrink only has a 50% improvement from 40 nm. However that would mean a 50% improvement is expected. Imperfect scaling would mean a 40% improvement.So people expect that a card which is 20% faster than a card from 2 years ago to be 1.2/1.4 the price at launch, or an ~ 85% of the 5770 launch price in this case. That would mean that the card should retail at around $130-140 or so for the 7750 and sub-$100 pricing, like $90 or so. I expect it to be that price too.
chizow - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
Moore's Law does actually hold true for GPUs in the direct context of the original law as you stated, roughly doubled transistors every 2 years with a new process node. The performance has deviated however for some time now with imperfect scaling relative to transistors, but at least ~50% has been the benchmark for performance improvements over previous generations.Tahiti and the rest of Southern Islands itself isn't that much of a disappointment relative to Moore's Law, because it does offer 40-50% improvement over AMD's previous flagship GPU. The problem is, it only offers 15-25% improvement over the overall last-gen performance leader the GTX 580 but somewhat comically, AMD wants to price it in that light.
So we end up with this situation, the worst price performance metrics ever where a new GPU architecture and process node only offers 15-25% performance increase at the same price (actually 10% more in the 7970 case). This falls far short of the expectations of even low-end Moore's Law observer estimates that would expect to see at least +50% over the last-gen overall high-end in order to command that top pricing spot.
arjuna1 - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
DX11.1?? With only one true DX11 game on the market, BF3, there is literally no incentive to upgrade to this generation of cards 7xxx/kepler.Unless nvidia comes out with something big, and I mean big as in out of this world, I'll just skip to the next gen, and if AMD insists in being an ass with pricing, I'll go Ngreen when the time comes.
Now, the worrying thing is that it's becoming evident, both parties are becoming too cynical with price fixing, when is that anti trust lawsuit coming?