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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rdh - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
Bingo. But your numbers look at if you were to want to buy today. You might have bought the 5750 or 5770 at a significantly lower cost during a sale in the past 2.5 years. So individual price comparisons may be different than today's prices.IN ADDITION: the 7770 and 7750 require about 3% less power and produce frame rates about 10% higher than their 57xx counterparts. This is after the 57xx have been out for nearly TWO AND HALF YEARS. I purchased both (the 5750 for one system at $65 and the 5770 for another at $99) about 6 months after introduction. Two years later, there is no compelling reason for me to upgrade. That means AMD is only going to be selling these to new desktop purchasers.... a quickly shrinking market. This cannot be good for AMD.
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, March 10, 2012 - link
Since fps is your only metric, itself being a murky and disturbed error filled easily biased mess based upon game set, driver cheating, resolutions, and in game settings chosen, the entire price/perf chart is EPIC FAIL.When your drivers crash, when your game doesn't work, when new games don't work for weeks and months, when dual card drivers are absent, when features like PhysX are no can do - NONE OF IT IS ACCOUNTED FOR....
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Obviously all amd has to do is follow the simpleton idiot fps/per dollar formula for all the stuck cursor gsod fanboys to bloviate and screech they saved 20 cents... then the amd forum masters casn continue to lock them out, lock user problem threads, and smart off that "it's works for them on their eyefinity setup theya re starig at right now"...
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When a crazed, worship filled, religious zealoutry claims the heavens have opened on the cheap and the devil competition has lost all, beware...
Oh.. wait... sorry talking to the wrong person...
Roland00Address - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
I am curious how high these cards will go before they hit the powertune limits.Ryan Smith - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
I'm still writing up an addendum, but here's what I have for the 7770.Ref 7770: 1125MHz core, 4.8GHz memory
XFX 7770: No meaningful overclock on top of XFX's factory overclock. Crashed at 1160MHz core
As for performance, basically look at the XFX card.
Roland00Address - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
Personally I find that the more interesting cardRyan Smith - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
We didn't do any overclocking tests on the 7750. It was necessary to quickly test it in order to be able to ship it to Ganesh for HTPC testing.DarkSynergyt - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
Might be a stupid question but can the 7750 output audio over HDMI? I'm in the process of building an HTPC and this is the final piece to the build.evilspoons - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
My 6570 can and I'm pretty sure they said in the review that it has all the same features as previous generations for video features.ganeshts - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
Yes, it does. With full bitstreaming options too (even WMA Pro). 7.1 channel LPCM support is also there. No worries. (Of course, hot plugging [ say, moving from a direct monitor connection to an AV receiver input ] causes the audio output to act crazy, but that is the case with every card. Reboot fixes the issue)evilspoons - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
This really drives home how obsolete my GTX 285 is. The 7770 has about equivalent performance and uses *130 watts* less.I need a new video card, but I want to see what Nvidia has for us next - I'm not a fanboy (in spite of all my gaming cards since the 3dfx Voodoo 3 being Nvidia), I'm just genuinely hoping for either some competition to drive prices down or something better to blow us away. Come on guys, get a move on already!