Roundup: Mainstream Graphics Cards From ATI And Nvidia

Sapphire HD 4770 512M (Radeon HD 4770, 512 MB)

To see all the photos in our gallery for this card, click the image below.

The Radeon HD 4770 is a pronounced step up from the Radeon HD 4670. With 640 stream processors onboard, it approaches the performance of a two-card Radeon HD 4670 CrossFire configuration. In fact, it lags only 15.6% behind in total performance (measured in FPS).This  is pretty impressive, given that the Radeon HD 4770 is a smaller version of the Radeon HD 4800-series and consumes about 60 W less power. This card owes its level of performance to its GPU’s 40 nm process and 512 MB of GDDR5 graphics RAM.

The Sapphire card we received adheres to ATI's reference design, with clock speeds of 750 MHz for the GPU and 800 MHz for the RAM. The fan enclosure is large enough to make this a dual-slot solution, even though it includes no air channel and consequently exhausts its warm air into the PC case, unlike the reference card.  Nevertheless, temperature levels are acceptable, hitting 44° C in 2D mode (eight degrees cooler than the ATI reference design). At heavy 3D load, this card comes in at 71° C, which is one degree cooler than the ATI reference card. In 2D mode, noise levels were measured at 36.6 dB(A), and under a heavy 3D load, it produced a still-quiet 37.4 dB(A)--quieter than the reference card’s reading of 38.5 dB(A).

This card is 8.27" long (21 cm), but requires a six-pin PCIe supplemental power connector. Sapphire includes a power adapter cable, a flexible bridge connector for CrossFire, and a Y-connector for HDMI video via its DVI port. Bundled software includes CyberLink's Power DVD 7 6-ch and DVD Suite 5, with various backup and video applications on two CDs.

  • Bloodblender
    All I can say is that Tom's recent articles have been an excellent read, and this exactly the stuff I (as well as many others) require for their research purposes. Keep up the great work!
    Reply
  • dirtmountain
    Nice article,very well done, but you need to show the 4670 in CF as costing $162, not $81 as shown in the final chart.
    Reply
  • rambo117
    the iceQ concept is amazing. keeps my 3870s nice and chilly (70C) while hardcore gaming
    and not to mention they both look intimidating in my case ;)
    Reply
  • pij
    Quick question -

    4770 in crossfire or single 4890 best bet???..
    Reply
  • to me the gaming benches are most important but energy efficiency and heat dissipation run a close 2nd. thanks for providing it all!
    Reply
  • Julianbreaker
    Newegg has quite a few 4850s that retail for $100 and it appears to be getting consistently better benchmarks than the 4770. I am confused as to why you would not recommend it over the 4770. Perhaps you are confused by simple maths.
    Reply
  • radiowars
    PijQuick question - 4770 in crossfire or single 4890 best bet???..They already did a whole article on that...
    Reply
  • bucifer
    I don't understand why you still won't use the 1GB version of the Radeon 4870. It's clear to me that the card is limited by it's amount of video memory when using hi-res, AA and AF.
    Searching for prices in US and Europe it retails cheaper than the GTX260(192 or 216).
    The point is: the card should be included in the test just as the GTX260-216. It's clearly a better option than the 512 mb version and it's good for comparison!
    Reply
  • masterjaw
    Nice article here. Most importantly, no unnecessary bias included.
    Reply
  • holodust
    Nice article, but I don't see how testing these cards on i7 920@3.8 fits into mainstream.
    Reply