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
Meet the XFX R7770 Black Edition S Double Dissipation
Our final card of the day is XFX’s R7770 Black Edition S Double Dissipation, one of a multitude of Radeon HD 7770 cards XFX will be releasing today. XFX will be releasing two factory overclocked Black Edition cards today, with the S edition BESDD being the higher clocked of the two. It will be clocked at 1120MHz core and 5.2GHz memory, which is a 120MHz (12%) core overclock and 700MHz (15%) memory overclock compared to the reference 7770.
Like all the other 7770s being released today XFX is using the AMD reference PCB for the BESDD, so XFX is primarily relying on their factory overclock and their custom cooler to stand apart from AMD’s other partners. To that end the BESDD is very similar to the other XFX Double Dissipation cards we’ve reviewed in the last month. A copper plate sits at the base of the cooler, transferring heat to an aluminum heatsink that runs virtually the entire length of the card. Above that sits a pair of fans and then finally the metal shroud that covers the card.
Overall the design is similar to a number of other dual fan cards we’ve seen in the past, and as we’ll see in our benchmarks the resulting cooling is quite effective. In terms of quality however I feel XFX has missed the mark – the cooler is only attached to the PCB around the GPU, so at 8.25” long there’s nothing retaining the PCB at the far end to keep it from flexing. A stiffener would have been a great idea here, which is something XFX does on the 7900 series. Furthermore in the case of our sample the construction quality was also subpar, as the screws responsible for securing the metal shroud were not properly tightened and thereby leaving the shroud loose. This is nothing 30 seconds with a screwdriver couldn’t fix and I don’t have any reason to believe this is a common problem, but it’s a quality control issue none the less.
As the BESDD uses AMD’s 7770 PCB, the length of the card and display connectivity is identical. The card measures 8.25” long with no cooler overhang, while display connectivity is provided by 1 DL-DVI port, 1 HDMI port, and a pair of miniDP ports.
Rounding out the package is the same collection of extras that we saw in the 7950 BEDD. Inside you’ll find the usual driver CD and quick start guide, along with a metal XFX case badge, a mid-length CrossFire bridge, a DVI to VGA adaptor, and a passive HDMI to SL-DVI adaptor. All of this is packed in one of XFX’s pleasantly small boxes, which doesn’t use much more space than the card itself.
The MSRP on the R7770 BESDD is $184, $25 over the MSRP for a regular 7700 and pushing it well into the territory of the Radeon HD 6870 and GeForce GTX 560. XFX is offering a base 2 year warranty on the R7770 BESDD, which can be extended to a lifetime warranty by registering the card within 30 days of purchasing it.
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tipoo - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
I probably won't be enticed into a video card upgrade until the next generation of Microsoft and Sony consoles are out. In the land of console ports, even a 6770 can run nearly everything comfortably at most common monitor resolutions.Movieman420 - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
I have an OCd C2D Wolfdale running the 4850 and I also agree that the 4850 will go down as one of the best bang for the buck cards ever.My current i5/Z68 rig is running what I think will be considered another BBFTB card...the 6850...the dual fan Gigabyte 685OC in my case.
The 5770/6770/7770 are a fantastic line of mid-range cards...esp OCd but for a few $$ more an OCd 6850 still holds it's own quite well, there's no real counter for a 256bit vs 128bit memory bus. A big hats off tho to the 7770's high res numbers...pretty damn sweet, but I don't need uber res for a 23.5 inch monitor...ofc I'm not a hard core gamer either.
cjs150 - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
7750 seems perfect for an HTPC. But to put it into context, IGPs should be using the 7750 as the benchmark for what to aim for. Can see this becoming completely obselete very soon once products based on Raspberry pi or Cu Box get released and match (the very impressive) picture quality of the 7750. In mean time get a low profile passive cooled version out and it will be perfect.As for the 7770 I simply see no purpose for it at all. NVidia 560 is only marginally more expensive and beats it completely. 7770 seems to me to be a complete waste of stock
Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
So the 7770 should be at $109, and that forces the 7750 down to $89 or less. The die sizes on these chips are a lot smaller than their competition so I dont see what AMD is thinking. Inflation? lol.Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
Why would a 7750 consumer 3 watts less than a 7770 during the "long idle" state. That really makes no sense. During that state there shouldnt be any difference at all between the two cards.tipoo - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
It has over 100 more stream processors? 3W is pretty minuscule.akbo - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
They are using a gorram 1200W PSU and those have s*** efficiency at 10% load. 3 watts means that it may pull about 1 watt more on-chip.KompuKare - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
Which begs a simple question that has been bothering me with Anandtech GPU reviews for a while: how come they don't measure the wattage for the cards rather the whole system. Ok, it needs a custom PCI-E riser board and a multimeter but other sites (like techpowerup.com or this French site (can't think of it ATM) where the place I first saw that method used) manage it.Or at a minimum why is there no IGPU (Intel 3000) power usage in the review to act as a baseline?
Death666Angel - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
I'm kinda disappointed by the 77xx launch. I'd have hoped for some €150 - €200 cards, consequently performing better than the 6870. Maybe the 78xx will be better. I really hope nVidia comes around with good cards, that way the consumer won't get ripped off. Although I also hope that AMD makes some money in the mean time.geniekid - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
I just want to reiterate how much I appreciate the games you've chosen for your benchmarks. It's a very diverse set of games and covers a lot of the non-FPS genres that other review sites tend to leave out.