AMD Radeon HD 7770 review
The first two graphics cards in AMD’s new range, the «Tahiti»-codenamed Radeon HD 7950 and Radeon HD 7970, blew us away with their performance but, at £350 and £450 respectively, they’re incredibly expensive.
The HD 7770 is the top of AMD’s new mid-range «Cape Verde» graphics card line. It’s really a follow-up to one of our favourite mid-range graphics cards, the Radeon HD 5770, and AMD makes a big deal in its literature about how the HD 5770 is the «most successful DirectX 11 GPU to date as chosen by gamers», with a claimed 28 per cent of the market.
Unlike the Radeon HD 6770, which was essentially a tweaked HD 5770 with identical performance, the HD 7770 is a brand new graphics card based on a new 28nm GPU — the 5770’s GPU was based on a 40nm process. The new card has 640 stream processors compared to the HD 5770’s 800 and its 1GB of GDDR5 memory runs at 1.125GHz instead of 1.2GHz, but it makes up for this with a 1GHz instead of 850MHz core clock speed.
The card is slightly shorter than the HD 5770 at 211mm, so you shouldn’t have a problem fitting it in most cases, and it needs a single 6-pin PCI Express power connector. On the rear are a single DVI, one HDMI and two Mini DisplayPort plugs, so you can run three monitors if you have a DisplayPort model or using a £17 active DisplayPort adaptor.
Judging by the specifications, we didn’t feel the HD 7770 was going to be much of a step up from the HD 5770/HD 6770. However, the new card definitely showed a significant performance boost in our Dirt 3 test. At 1,920 x 1,080 with Ultra detail and 4x anti-aliasing, we saw a very smooth 41.3fps from the HD 7770, compared to 35.7fps from the older card — not a huge increase, but enough to stop the frame rate dipping below the 30fps mark during hectic scenes.
We had less luck in our Crysis 2 benchmark, where the HD 7770’s results were almost identical to the HD 5770’s — at 1,920 x 1,080 with Ultra detail, we saw just 15.4fps, which is essentially the same as the HD 5770’s 15fps.
Even when we turned down the detail to Very High the new card only had 25.9fps compared the HD 5770’s 24.7 — Crysis 2’s hugely high-resolution textures seemed to be troubling the cards’ small 1GB of memory.
Turning back to Dirt 3 for our three-monitor Eyefinity test, the HD 7770’s high clock speeds saved the day; at 5,760 x 1,080 with High detail and 4x anti-aliasing, we saw 36.6fps, compared to a not-quite-smooth 29.5fps from the HD 5770.
We tried overclocking the HD 7770 with the Catalyst Control Center’s Overdrive utility, but it seems to be clocked almost as far as it can go; we managed to overclock the core to 1.1GHz, but this only increased our Dirt 3 Eyefinity score to 38.5fps.
UK pricing for the card has just been announced; the HD 7770 will be £120 inc VAT from www.aria.co.uk, which is around £10 more than the current price for the HD 5770. However, the HD 6770, which has identical performance to the HD 5770, is currently just £86. The HD 7770 may be around 15 per cent faster, but it’s also about 30 per cent more expensive than the HD 6770.
It’s a fine mid-range graphics card and once prices have settled down it may well be our favourite card, but in the meantime we recommend picking up its bargain predecessor.
Basic Specifications |
|
|---|---|
| Price | £120 |
| Rating | **** |
| Details | www.amd.com |
| Interface | PCI Express x16 |
| Crossfire/SLI | CrossFire |
| Slots taken up | 2 |
| Brand | AMD |
| Graphics Processor | AMD Radeon HD 7770 |
| Memory | 1,024MB GDDR5 |
| Memory interface | 128-bit |
| GPU clock speed | 1.00GHz |
| Memory speed | 1.13GHz |
| Card length | 211mm |
Features |
|
| Architecture | 640 stream processors |
| Anti aliasing | 8x |
| Anisotropic filtering | 16x |
Connectors |
|
| DVI outputs | 1 |
| VGA outputs | 0 |
| S-video output | no |
| S-Video input | no |
| Composite outputs | no |
| Composite inputs | no |
| Component outputs | no |
| HDMI outputs | 1 |
| Power leads required | 1x 6-pin PCI Express |
Extras |
|
| Accessories | none |
| Software included | none |
Buying Information |
|
| Warranty | one-year RTB |
| Price | £120 |
| Supplier | http://www. aria.co.uk |
| Details | www.amd.com |
Review: PowerColor Radeon HD 7770 and AMD Radeon HD 7750 — Graphics
Anyone with a passing interest in PC graphics hardware knows that AMD released the high-end Radeon HD 7970 and HD 7950 GPUs recently, priced at £440 and £350, respectively. Based on a new Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture and providing solid performance with excellent power-draw characteristics, the asking price alone makes them aspirational products.
The success of AMD’s HD 7000-series GPUs lives and dies by the momentum and take-up of mainstream cards that, by their very nature, represent the bulk of the market. AMD needs to excel in the $100 to $199 (£75 to £150) bracket, and the GPUs populating this space typically provide a significant boost in performance over even the very latest integrated graphics found on modern CPUs.
In an interesting move that puts mainstream appeal ahead of trickle-down releases, AMD is, today, launching the Radeon HD 7770 and HD 7750 GPUs.
Roadmap shenanigans
The anachronistic release malarkey makes more sense if taking a butcher’s at the AMD-supplied roadmap. The firm is due to fill the $199 to $449 gap with «Pitcairn» GPUs in a month’s time; you’ll get to know them as Radeon HD 7870 and HD 7850, most likely. What this means is that incumbent Radeon HD 6950 and HD 6970 GPUs will soldier on for a while longer, which is understandable given that NVIDIA’s own technology in this area — GeForce GTX 570 and GTX 580 — is older than AMD’s.
Cape Verde — 28nm baby
Radeon HD 7770 and HD 7750 are code-named Cape Verde. They’ll slot-in just above the HD 6700-series that is actually based on venerable «Juniper» technology, as found on the HD 5770 — just don’t get us started on rebranding and codenames, people.
Cape Verde GPUs are based on the GCN architecture first brought to market with the HD 7970, and you can gain a better understanding of how it works by heading on over to here. The transition from high-end, premium GPUs to mainstream parts is done by the age-old method of removing enough parts of the headline silicon as to make it economically feasible to produce at, say, $99 or $149, or whatever cost is in mind.
Writing first from a pure GPU grunt perspective, the 28nm Cape Verde GPU features up to 640 processors located within 10 Compute Units, 16 ROPs and a 128-bit memory interface. Compare this, absolutely unjustly, with the 2,048 processors, 32 CUs, 32 ROPs, and 256-bit interface of the Daddy HD 7970 and, even in its Sunday best form, Cape Verde is a much, much less potent architecture than the range-heading «Tahiti.» But, of course, you wouldn’t expect a sub-£150 GPU to compete with the best, so let’s whip out the comparison table and see how it stacks up against recent Radeons.
| GPU | Radeon HD 7770 (1,024MB) |
Radeon HD 7750 (1,024MB) |
Radeon HD 6850 (1,024MB) |
Radeon HD (5)6770 (1,024MB) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Codename | Cape Verde XT | Cape Verde Pro | Barts Pro | Juniper XT |
| DX API | 11. 1 |
11.1 | 11 | 11 |
| Architecture | GCN | GCN | VLIW | VLIW |
| Process | 28nm | 28nm | 40nm | 40nm |
| Transistors | 1.5bn | 1.5bn | 1.7bn | 1.04bn |
| Die Size | 123mm² | 123mm² | 255mm² | 166mm² |
| Processors | 640 | 512 | 960 | 800 |
| Compute units | 10 | 8 | 12 | 10 |
| Texture Units | 40 | 32 | 48 | 40 |
| ROP Units | 16 | 16 | 32 | 16 |
| GPU Clock (MHz) | 1,000 | 800 | 775 | 850 |
| Shader Clock (MHz) | 1,000 | 800 | 775 | 850 |
| GFLOPS | 1,280 | 819 | 1,488 | 1,360 |
| Memory Clock (MHz) | 4,500 | 4,500 | 4,000 | 4,800 |
| Memory Bus (bits) | 128 | 128 | 256 | 128 |
| Max bandwidth (GB/s) | 72 | 72 | 128 | 76. 8 |
| Power Connectors | 6-pin | None | 6+6-pin | 6-pin |
| TDP (watts) | 80 | 55 | 120 | 108 |
| GFLOPS per watt | 16 | 14.9 | 11.9 | 12.6 |
| CrossFire Support | 2-way | 2-way | 2-way | 2-way |
| Street Price | £125 | £90 | £110 | £75 |
Comparison discussion
The two flavours of Cape Verde, aka Radeon HD 7700-series, are shown on the left, lined up against the impressive Radeon HD 6850 and HD 5770 HD 6770.
Comparison is apt and correct because the GPUs’ pricing is similar.
Performance speculation based solely on numbers doesn’t paint Cape Verde in a good light. The HD 7770, for example, has a lower single-precision GFLOPS rating than an HD 6770 (or, really, an HD 5770). It also has fewer processing cores and less bandwidth, too. The saving grace is excellent (claimed) power-draw figures of 80W. Be aware that AMD has changed the power-draw metric from maximum board power to typical board power. This change means the HD 7770/50’s figures aren’t directly comparable against older GPUs. Understand that HD 7770’s maximum board power is 100W
Radeon HD 7750, meanwhile, loses two Compute Units — 128 cores — and reduces core frequency, although the 128-bit memory bus and 72GB/s of potential bandwidth remain intact, and both Cape Verde GPUs are outfitted with 1,024MB of GDDR5 as standard.
Both GPUs eclipse previous mainstream offerings by keeping double-precision floating-point support intact, putting a smile on scientific bods’ faces.
The smile may not be that wide as AMD hobbles the Cape Verde parts by reducing this DP speed from one-fourth on HD 7970/50 to 1/16 here, or a maximum of 80GFLOPS.
Gigahertz Edition
AMD has used the bountiful frequency scaling of the 28nm GPUs and opted for a high core clock on the HD 7770, to offset the disadvantage created by having just 640 processing cores. Trumpeted with much fanfare during the press briefings, the default core clock is 1,000MHz, or a Gigahertz, and the word is AMD will be exploiting this seminal number with focussed marketing activity. Notwithstanding the attention-grabbing core frequencies, chances are that Radeon HD 7770 could be slower than an HD 5770/6770 in certain games.
GCN to the rescue, perhaps
Yet it can be misleading to compare GPUs on a number-to-number basis. AMD reckons the general improvements in the GCN architecture, as used on Cape Verde, offer gaming improvements that aren’t realised in a table like the one above.
Citing the much-improved tessellation engine, high-occupancy throughput of the GCN core, lots of on-GPU cache, and PCIe 3.0 certification, Radeon HD 7770/50 may punch above their weight. And they’ll need to, frankly, because the basic specs are much lower than we were expecting, given the quoted prices.
VCE — the ace in the pack?
These 28nm GPUs also boast features that older GPUs cannot match. The Video Codec Engine (VCE) is a dedicated piece of logic that hardware-accelerates the encoding of H.264 content (1080p, 60fps) — much in the vein of Intel’s Quick Sync — without really taxing other parts of the GPU. As great as this sounds — and we’ve seen demonstrations of it working rather nicely — AMD has still to expose the functionality of VCE in Catalyst drivers. This means that VCE is merely a tickbox on the specification page right now, and that’s disappointing because HD 7000-series GPUs are already out in the wild.
Cape Verde GPUs also have six display outputs hardwired into the silicon, with the add-in board partner choosing how many to plumb out.
Further, an improved HDMI specification, support for super-high-resolution displays, and ZeroCore power are forward-looking touches.
Summary
Architecture snips undertaken by AMD for the Radeon HD 7770/50 GPUs suggest that gaming performance should sandwich the Radeon HD 6770 — a GPU whose roots are firmly entrenched in the HD 5770 card released well over two years’ ago. Knowing this, pricing seems to be high, especially with the knowledge that the comparatively-potent Radeon HD 6850 can be purchased for £110 or so. But such observations need to be weighed against the non-gaming benefits conferred by the HD 7000-series architecture.
PowerColor Radeon HD 7770 1000MHz PCI-E 3.0 2048MB 4500MHz 128 Bit DVI HDMI HDCP characteristics, video review, reviews
- Type of video card/gaming day Mac 9000 -E 16x 3.0
- Maximum resolution 2560×1600
- Number of monitors supported 3
- GPU AMD Radeon HD 7770
- GPU frequency 1000 MHz
frequency RAMDAC 400 MHz Support Crossfire X is 2048 MB Connection connection connection connection connection
*Connectors DVI, HDCP, HDMI, DisplayPort Math block
*Number of universal processors 640 PowerColor Radeon RX 5600 XT 1750MHz PCI-E 4.
0 6144MB 14000MHz 192 bit 3xDisplayPort HDMI HDCP Red Devil 30761 ₽
PowerColor Radeon RX 5500 1647MHz PCI-E 4.0 4096MB 14000MHz 128 bit DVI HDMI 3xDisplayPort HDCP
17176 ₽
PowerColor Radeon RX 6800 Red Dragon 16GB (AXRX 6800 16GBD6-3DHR/OC)
61194 ₽
PowerColor Radeon RX 6800 XT Red Dragon 16GB (AXRX 6800XT 16GBD6-3DHR/OC)
AMD continues to expand its line of graphics adapters based on 28nm chips with the Graphics Core Next architecture. Following the top solutions, the company introduced the Radeon HD 7750/7770 video cards, which fall into the most interesting price segment of $100-200 and are intended for those who are not averse to playing, but are not ready to seriously spend money on buying an expensive adapter. Has AMD prepared a worthy replacement for honored veterans of the graphic front — Radeon HD 6750/6770? nine0089
The status of the manufacturer of the world’s fastest video cards is certainly very honorable.
Although the share of top-end adapters is often relatively small, the release of the most powerful devices is a demonstration of engineering and technical potential and care for the most dedicated enthusiasts who are ready to seriously invest in the highest speed video card. Such devices improve the company’s image as a leading developer in its field, indirectly helping to sell more affordable products. When it comes to mass products, graphics adapters from the $100-200 price segment come to the fore. nine0089 Juniper’s chip-based solutions, now available for $90-$120, have been in service for virtually two and a half years. Back in the fall of 2009, the Radeon HD 5770/5750 were introduced, which in April 2011 were transformed into the Radeon HD 6750/6770 by the power of the marketing spirit. In this guise, adapters are still available on the market. Undoubtedly, the solutions are very successful in their price segment, so we won’t be too indignant about this, however, a generational change in this segment has clearly suggested itself.
And it would not be superfluous to update solutions based on Barts chips. Let’s see how representatives of the new AMD graphics wave — 9 will cope with this task.0323 Radeon HD 7750 and Radeon HD 7770 . Course
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For its new entry-level and mid-range gaming solutions, AMD uses the full range of features that are available in top products. We considered the features of the latter in detail earlier, therefore we only note that a serious technological arsenal turned out to be at the disposal of the junior solutions of the Southern Islands family. nine0089
AMD highlights key points with the introduction of the Radeon HD 7700 series. . Of course, a special reason for pride is the progressive 28-nanometer chip manufacturing process. GPUs contain up to ten Compute Unit modules, which are kind of building blocks for GCN-based solutions, from which the necessary products are assembled.
The use of ninth generation tessellation blocks — the same as in the top Radeon HD 7950/7970. Buffer with 512 KB L2 cache, 16 ROPs and GDDR5 memory. Radeon HD 7700 family adapters are based on Cape Verde chips manufactured in 28nm process technology. The chip used contains about 1.5 billion transistors, which fit on a compact 123 mm² silicon wafer. For comparison, we note that the Juniper core (Radeon HD 6700) occupies 170 mm², and the Barts die area used for the Radeon HD 6850/6870/6790 is twice as large — 255 mm². nine0089
If we talk about the differences between the Radeon HD 7750 and 7770, they are not so significant. The key point is the number of computing units. The older model contains 10 CU modules, which in total include 640 stream processors, while the HD 7750 has 8 of them and, accordingly, 512 computers. The HD 7770 core operates at a symbolic frequency of 1 GHz, providing a theoretical computational performance of 1.28 TFLOPS. The HD 7750 chip operates at 800 MHz, and the declared calculation speed is about one and a half times lower than that of the older model — 819GFLOPS.
We also note the advantage of the HD 7770 in the number of texture units — 40 vs. 32. In both cases, GDDR5 memory is used, which operates at 4500 MHz and, in conjunction with a 128-bit bus, provides a throughput of 72 GB / s. As for power consumption, the typical value for the Radeon HD 7750 is stated at 55 W, and for the Radeon HD 7770 — about 80 W. In terms of price, the recommended price for the Radeon HD 7750 is $109 while 9The 0323 Radeon HD 7770 is available for $159 .
ZMIST
- 1 Radeon HD 7770
- 2 Radeon HD 7750
- 3 Acceleration
- 4 Results
Radeon HD 7770
Visually, the reference model Radeon HD 7770 is made in the usual style for reference AMD adapters. The two-slot cooling system is covered with a black plastic casing with red inserts. The top cover gives the impression of a monumental design of the device. An 80mm axial fan is installed in the central part of the adapter.
nine0089 The 1 GHz Edition decal on the propeller highlights the iconic technology barrier. The equipment of the interface panel is identical to that used for the Radeon HD 7970/7950: a pair of Mini DisplayPort, HDMI and DVI. All connectors are located in one row. Approximately half of the mounting plate area is occupied by a ventilation grille. Despite the fact that in this case, not a centrifugal, but an axial fan is used, part of the heated air is blown out to the limits of the system unit. To a certain extent, this is facilitated by the shape of the upper protective cover. nine0089
On the top panel of the adapter there is only a CrossFire connector, on the rear end there is one six-pin connector for connecting additional power. Given the declared typical level of power consumption of the Radeon HD 7770, this configuration is quite enough to satisfy the energy hunger of the video card.
Adapter PCB length 210 mm. The top cover does not protrude beyond the borders of the textolite plate, so when installing a video card into the case, no more space is needed.
nine0089 The layout of the reference PCB is quite interesting. There is quite a lot of free space on the board, while the elements of the power subsystem in this case are shifted closer to the fixing plate. The five-phase rectifier module is built according to the “3+1+1” scheme. The PWM controller used allows you to programmatically adjust the supply voltage on the GPU — a good help for studying the frequency potential of the core. At the initial stage, all adapter manufacturers use a reference PCB designed by AMD. Note that the Cape Verde chip does not have a protective frame, so it is necessary to remove or install the cooling system carefully enough to avoid chipping the crystal if the radiator is accidentally skewed. nine0089
The design of the Radeon HD 7770 cooler is quite simple. No heat pipes and composite blocks with a set of plates. Hidden under a protective cover is an anodized aluminum heatsink of a simple design, which is blown by an 80mm fan. However, this configuration proved to be very good during practical tests.
In idle mode, the temperature of the GPU is at 31 degrees. Rotating at a frequency of about 1200 rpm, the fan remains almost silent. During a scrupulous study of the nuances of the tracks in DiRT 3, the graphics core warmed up to 65 degrees, while the fan speed increased to only 1540 rpm. The merciless FurMark utility raised the GPU to 71 degrees — far from the boiling point. This result was recorded with relatively little blood — the propeller speed barely exceeded 1700 rpm. nine0089
On the whole, the Radeon HD 7770 cooler leaves a rather pleasant impression. Keeps the temperature of the chip at a quite comfortable level and makes very moderate noise during operation. Judging by the announcements that have taken place, most video card manufacturers will rely on original coolers of their own design for their products. But still, some companies, trying to reduce the cost of devices as much as possible, took the reference CO sample as a basis for their adapters, while simplifying the already seemingly simple design of the radiator.
Obviously, in this case, in order to keep the temperature of the GPU within acceptable limits, the fan will run at higher speeds. nine0089 Radeon HD 7750
Despite the fact that the junior model of the Radeon HD 7700 family is based on the same Cape Verde chip, it looks significantly different from the HD 7770. entry-level video cards.
In this case, there are three connectors on the interface panel: full-length, and therefore the most practical and do not require additional adapters — DysplayPort and HDMI, as well as DVI. nine0089
The black PCB has the original layout. Despite the rather modest dimensions of the printed circuit board, there are quite a lot of empty areas. The power subsystem is made according to the four-phase scheme «2 + 1 + 1». Surface mount elements are concentrated at the top edge of the board. The modulator does not allow for a GPU software volt mod, so when overclocking the adapter, you will have to rely more on luck.
The graphics chip is located in the central part of the board.
As with the Radeon HD 7770, four memory chips are located on both sides of the GPU. An important nuance is the lack of a connector for connecting additional power. The power consumption level declared by the developer (~55 W) allows the adapter to manage with what PCI Express sends. nine0089 The top edge does not have the usual, for adapters of this level, connector for connecting a CrossFire bridge. Nevertheless, a pair of adapters can be combined in one system, however, in this case, the PCI Express bus will be used to coordinate the operation of both video cards.
The used cooler surprises with its compact dimensions. Visually, it seems that the most common primitive radiator with a trivial profile and a very modest dissipation area is used for cooling. However, there was not without a small technological highlight. The fact is that at the base of the cooler there is a small evaporation chamber, therefore heat is removed from the core faster than would be the case with a conventional piece of aluminum of similar size.
nine0089 The installed radiator is blown by a 60 mm fan with an original flat impeller shape. In idle mode, the graphics core heats up to 33 C. The two-pin fan connection method does not allow you to accurately monitor its speed. In relative terms, the propeller rotation speed in this mode is 39%. Under heavy gaming load, the temperature of the chip increased to 71 degrees, and the fan speed to 51%. FurMark warmed up the GPU to 74 degrees, increasing the rotation speed of the compact wind blower by up to 55%. nine0089
In any of the modes, the stock cooler of the Radeon HD 7750 is definitely noisier than that of the reviewed Radeon HD 7770. Although it generally does a good job of cooling, fans of silence are unlikely to like this option. However, apparently, the reference cooling system will be used only on test samples from AMD. Among the already presented retail versions of the Radeon HD 7750, there are no adapters with a similar cooler. Therefore, the possibilities and nuances of this system are of purely academic interest.
nine0089 Rather, this is a demonstration of the fact that new AMD solutions of this level can already easily manage with a compact single-slot CO. And against the background of potential competitors in terms of performance, such external data, of course, look impressive. But, dashing trouble is the beginning. Surely, over time, low-profile modifications of the Radeon HD 7750 will also appear, and this will be a real find for owners of compact systems who want to get new impressions from modern games. Some companies have already presented options with a passive cooling system, and the number of such proposals, in our opinion, will only increase over time — TDP allows. nine0089
Overclocking
Keeping in mind the very decent overclocking results of AMD’s top solutions, we expected to see something similar in the case of the Radeon HD 7700. The 28-nm process technology allowed not only to reduce power consumption, but also to improve the frequency potential of the chips.
AMD itself raises this topic in the presentation of the Radeon HD 7700 series, preliminary outlining the frequency horizons.
For adapters from the Southern Islands family, the base voltage of the GPU can vary within a certain range and depends on the capabilities of a particular instance of the crystal. For the test sample Radeon HD 7770, this is 1.174 V. In this mode, the adapter remained stable when the chip frequency increased from 1000 MHz to 1130 MHz. The ability to independently change the voltage gives more room for maneuver. After increasing the voltage to a completely safe 1.2 V, the core frequency was increased to 1170 MHz, i.e. by 17%. The memory was successfully boosted up to 6120 MHz. The overclocking potential of the Cape Verde crystal without much fanaticism and undesirable consequences lies in the range of 1100-1200 MHz. Successful microcircuits will work at higher frequencies, but the picture is unlikely to be radically different. The results achieved are close to those obtained during experiments with Tahiti chips. Reducing the die size and the number of compute units does not benefit in terms of improving overclocking potential.
However, the 28-nm process technology already made it possible to set a new frequency bar for graphics processors. nine0089 As for the Radeon HD 7750, the modest configuration of the power subsystem, the impossibility of voltmod and the absence of an additional power connector are frankly not conducive to frequency feats. Because, as a trouble-free overclocking, we can only talk about a modest 850 MHz. Well, then — how lucky. Even for 900 MHz, you will need a relatively successful copy of the chip. As long as only devices based on reference PCBs are available on the market, it will not be possible to influence this situation in any way. Surely we will see adapters based on alternative printed circuit boards with enhanced circuitry. The price segment that the Radeon HD 7750 falls into is such that many potential owners of such devices would certainly not mind boosting performance in games by boosting their video cards. All that we managed to achieve during the experiments with the test instance — 893/5652 MHz.
If we talk about relative indicators, then the increase in frequency for the chip was 11.6%, and for the memory — 26.5%. Test bench configuration
Processor Intel Core i7-2600K Intel, www.intel.ua Cooler Thermalright Archon Rev.A «1-Incom», www.1-incom.com.ua Motherboard MSI Z68A-GD80 (G3) (Intel Z68 Express) MSI, www.msi.com Video cards HIS HD6790 Fan (H679F1GD), HIS HD6850 Fan (H685FN1GD), HIS HD6750 Fan (H675F1GD) SerOl Distribution, www.serol.com.ua MSI N550GTX-Ti Cyclone II 1GD5, MSI N560GTX Twin Frozr II MSI, www.msi.com RAM Team Xtreem TXD38192M2133HC9KDC-L (2×4 GB DDR3-2133) DC-Link, www.dclink.com.ua Accumulator WD WD1001FALS (1 TB, 7200 rpm) WD, www. 
wdc.com Power supply Thermaltake Toughpower Grand TPG-1200M (1200 W) Thermaltake, www.thermaltakeusa.com Test results
Traditionally, the first stages of the graphics test are classic benchmarks from Futuremark. In 3DMark Vantage , the older model on Cape Verde shows virtually identical results to the Radeon HD 6850, while the Radeon HD 7750 is only slightly behind the Radeon HD 6770 here.
In the newer 3DMark 11 , the performance of new products is somewhat modest. The Radeon HD 7770 is about 6.5% behind the solution based on the Barts chip, and the Radeon HD 7750 is about the same behind the HD 6750, having similar performance with the GeFofce GTX 550 Ti.
Synthetic applications, of course, do not give a complete picture of the capabilities of video cards. However, the data obtained allows us to understand the positioning of new devices and more accurately identify potential competitors, the comparison with which is the most interesting.
Based on the results of both versions of 3DMark, we can only draw preliminary conclusions about the potential of new AMD solutions. The Radeon HD 7770/7750 is noticeably more productive than the predecessors of the previous generation — the Radeon HD 6770/6750. The older model shows results close to those of the higher-class Radeon HD 6850, while the HD 7750 shows results that are more typical of the HD 6770. However, let’s still see what the new adapters are capable of in real games. nine0089 Far Cry 2 is a clear example of the fact that synthetic applications can only be used for preliminary evaluation. In conditions close to combat, the situation can be seriously different. In addition to the fact that the Dunia Engine graphics engine from Ubisoft favors NVIDIA solutions, the algorithms used clearly did not fit the soul of the new products with the GCN architecture. Here, the Radeon HD 7770 barely managed to get ahead of only the HD 6790, lagging behind the HD 6850 by an impressive 19%, and even let the GeForce GTX 550 Ti go ahead.
The Radeon HD 7750 video card also fell short of the HD 6770, but the gap between them is not so big — 7.5%. nine0089 Lost Planet 2 is also somewhat more loyal to NVIDIA solutions. Here, the Radeon HD 7750 is almost head to head with the GTX 550 Ti, 7% ahead of the HD 6770, and also, albeit minimally, still outperforms the HD 6790. It is significant that the gap between the HD 7750 and its predecessor, the HD 6750, is more than thirty%. The second version of the MT Framework engine is very resource-intensive and actively uses the capabilities of the DirectX 11 API. This allows solutions based on chips with a new architecture to show themselves in all their glory. The Radeon HD 7770 outperformed the HD 6850 by 5%, breaking away from the HD 6770 by as much as 38%. nine0089
Metro 2033 is a two-year-old project from domestic developers, which still remains a serious test for video cards of any level. In high graphics quality mode, the Radeon HD 7750 is on par with the HD 6770, 6% ahead of the GeForce GTX 550 Ti.
The Radeon HD 7770, in turn, confidently overtook the HD 6790, but the HD 6850 is unattainable in this project — it lacks almost 11.5%. 960 stream processors and a high-bandwidth 256-bit memory bus do their job here. nine0089
The Illusion Engine developed by 2K Czech for the Mafia II places greater demands on processor performance. It parallelizes the code well, getting a noticeable performance boost when using a CPU with more than two cores. In a mode with a resolution of 1920 × 1080 and high graphics quality, quite acceptable 40 frames / s can be obtained even with the Radeon HD 6750. The older model on Cape Verde is about 11% inferior to the HD 6850, and the HD 7750 turned out to be 10% slower than the HD 6770. Solutions from Nvidia did a pretty good job of shooting back — the GeForce GTX 550 Ti managed to outperform the Radeon HD 6790, and the GTX 560 was slightly ahead of the Radeon HD 6870. After activating full-screen anti-aliasing in the game settings, the results of all test participants dipped significantly.
At the same time, we note that for adapters with chips from NVIDIA, the decrease in performance in this case is more pronounced. It was not easy for the Radeon HD 7750 to have such a regime either. If initially the difference between it and the HD 6670 fit within 10%, then after turning on the anti-aliasing algorithm, the gap increased to almost 20%.
In game DiRT 3 , the situation is similar in many respects, with the only difference that the new items at Cape Verde are minimally behind the conditional rivals identified during testing — HD 6770 and HD 6850, respectively.
The power consumption test phase is the high point for new AMD solutions. A system with a Radeon HD 7750 and a quad-core Intel Core i7-2600K consumes just under 120W. During a typical gaming load, a system with a Radeon HD 6770 required 30 watts more, and when the graphics cards were executed in FurMark, the difference increased to almost 60 watts. Moreover, as it turned out, even the Radeon HD 7770 consumes less than the Radeon HD 6770.
And although the difference in this case is not so impressive, we must not forget that these are only a nominal decision receiver on Juniper, while its performance is much closer to that of the Radeon HD 6850.
nine0089AMD has managed to significantly improve the energy efficiency of new solutions. First of all, this is the merit of a new process technology for the production of crystals, but the developer also tried to improve the cost-effectiveness of solutions at the architectural level.
Results
AMD is noticeably ahead of its main competitor in terms of bringing solutions with 28nm chips to the market. The company has already managed to close strategically important segments by offering six adapters with Graphics Core Next architecture, which are designed for different price categories.
nine0089If we talk about the capabilities of the considered video cards based on Cape Verde chips, then according to the average performance indicators, the Radeon HD 7750 is approximately at the level of the Radeon HD 6770 or slightly lower than the latter.
In turn, the Radeon HD 7770 is somewhat inferior to the Radeon HD 6850. However, when evaluating the speed performance of new products, it is worth considering a rather important pattern — solutions based on Cape Verde show themselves noticeably better in modern projects saturated with complex shader models, tessellation, dynamic lighting, and other resource-intensive effects, while in aging engines the advantage of solutions based on 40-nanometer Juniper and Barts chips sometimes turns out to be quite significant. Beginners manage to compensate for it only after overclocking.
nine0089As the test results showed, the new products are only nominally the successors of the Radeon HD 6750 and HD 6770. The younger model on Cape Verde is 10-30% ahead of its predecessor, and the HD 7770, in turn, is 15-35% more productive than the HD 6770. However, with the increase in performance, the cost of video cards also increased, so the price / performance ratio, unfortunately, did not become some kind of revelation.