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
VCE & The Test
Although it’s not unheard of for a video card to launch without all of its features enabled in its drivers, it’s rare to see a video card go for more than a couple of weeks without support for a major feature. AMD’s Video Codec Engine (VCE) – their fixed function H.264 encoder – is still not enabled as of the 7700 series launch. For the 7900 series this wasn’t such a big deal as high-end cards are typically paired with high-end CPUs, but the fact that it’s not enabled for the 7700 series launch is a bit more unsettling. These are cards that are going to be paired with slower CPUs, where having a high speed H.264 encoder is going to be all the more important. This is particularly so for the 7750, given its obvious aspirations for HTPC usage.
AMD was supposed to provide an official statement on the matter for the 7700 launch, however as of press time they have yet to do so. At this point we can only speculate what the holdup is, but regardless it’s unfortunate for AMD.
Moving on, for the launch of the 7700 series AMD provided us with a new driver, which identifies itself as 8.932.2. This driver only works with Cape Verde, and while we’re unable to test it with other cards we’re told there are no performance differences between it and the 7900 series drivers AMD released last month.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-3960X @ 4.3GHz |
| Motherboard: | EVGA X79 SLI |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 9.2.3.1022 |
| Power Supply: | Antec True Power Quattro 1200 |
| Hard Disk: | Samsung 470 (256GB) |
| Memory: | G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1867 4 x 4GB (8-10-9-26) |
| Case: | Thermaltake Spedo Advance |
| Video Cards: |
AMD Radeon HD 7970 AMD Radeon HD 7950 AMD Radeon HD 7770 AMD Radeon HD 7750 AMD Radeon HD 6870 AMD Radeon HD 6850 AMD Radeon HD 5770 AMD Radeon HD 5750 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 |
| Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA ForceWare 295.51 Beta AMD Catalyst Beta 8.921.2-120119a AMD Catalyst Beta 8.932.2 |
| OS: | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
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faizoff - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
I thought the 7770 would outperform the 6850 at least. Great review.sigmatau - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
For AMD cards, you look at the second number to indicate performance. An 8 series card like in the 6850 usualy performs as well or slightly better than a next generation 7 series card like the 7770.The 3rd number also indicates performance, but not nearly as much as the second number.
TerdFerguson - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
er, not really. A 58xx is faster than a 68xx.sigmatau - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
The 68xx series introduced an anomaly in the formula. But generaly what I stated is true.CeriseCogburn - Saturday, March 10, 2012 - link
The anomaly here is the NVIDIA Gtx460 SMOKES the 7770 on everything, in every test, and costs 33% less.I see the crazed fan base cannot bring themselves to say it.
I'll say it - 19 pages unsaid, over a long time.
THE NVIDIA GTX460 SMOKES THIS CARD RO DEATH, AND THERE'S MORE OF THOSE ON NEWEGG FOR LESS MONEY THAN THE 7770.
Spunjji - Thursday, June 21, 2012 - link
My word you are tiresome.nissangtr786 - Thursday, July 5, 2012 - link
Using your logic a gtx 580 smoke the gtx 460.The reason why 7770 costs a bit is because its new technology, power consumption goes down quite a bit. Compare the card to same power consumption of new generation card maybe a 7870 and the 7870 will smoke the gtx 460.
perferformance per watt 7770m smokes the gtx 460.
lambchowder - Thursday, November 1, 2012 - link
you seriously need to stop posting. everything you post comes off as rabid nvidia fanatic, because you evidently are one, and you seem to camp outside these benchmarks to say the same thing everytime!! "this thing SMOKES~~~~!! the 7770!!! thats all i look at are the frame rates!!! i dont take anything else into consideration cause im an nvidia superfan"Beararam1 - Thursday, February 16, 2012 - link
Really? I thought the 6870>5850. No?CeriseCogburn - Saturday, March 10, 2012 - link
This 7k series needs some www.verdetrol.com--
LOL - How low can you go amd ?
Seems like more firings and cullings are in the works - or perhaps they already dragged the cat in and are now stuck with perverts.