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
Metro: 2033
Paired with Crysis as our second behemoth FPS is Metro: 2033. Metro gives up Crysis’ lush tropics and frozen wastelands for an underground experience, but even underground it can be quite brutal on GPUs, which is why it’s also our new benchmark of choice for looking at power/temperature/noise during a game. If its sequel due this year is anywhere near as GPU intensive then a single GPU may not be enough to run the game with every quality feature turned up.
Things get better for AMD under Metro. Metro is extremely shader bound, which helps prop up performance in some areas and drives it farther apart in others. For the 7770, this means it still trails the 6850, but now only by 15%. Meanwhile XFX’s factory overclock helps to close that gap.
Given the shader-heavy nature of Metro, it’s interesting to note just how well the 7770 is doing versus the 5770, even though the 7770 only has 94% of the theoretical shader performance. Although the launch of the 7900 series didn’t give us a lot of data to work with regarding the efficiency of GCN shaders in games, the 7700 provides the first piece of solid data that GCN shaders are actually more efficient than VLIW5 shaders in at least some cases. Considering the die space penalty for implementing GCN functionality, this is very good news for AMD.
Of course as Metro is so shader heavy, it means it drives a wedge between the 7770 and 7750. The 7770 is now 21% ahead of the 7750, which compared to the 45% price premium is quite good, but it means the 7750 won’t be performing so close to the 7770 all of the time. And much like Crysis it’s slightly trailing the 5770.
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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...