AMD Radeon HD 7770 And 7750 Review: Familiar Speed, Less Power
These are the lowest-end cards built using AMD's new Graphics Core Next architecture. Is 28 nm manufacturing, a fresh design, and new functionality enough to warrant upgrading existing value-oriented champs like the Radeon HD 6850 and GeForce GTX 460?
Temperature And Noise
At idle, the Radeon HD 7770 stays cool by virtue of its large double-slot cooler. In comparison, the Radeon HD 7750’s smaller single-slot heat sink and fan aren’t as aggressive. Even still, though, it’s a lot cooler than the Radeon HD 6850, which idles at 51 degrees.
Stressed by a 10-loop run of Metro 2033’s built-in benchmark, the Radeon HD 7750’s little cooler works hard to maintain reasonable thermals. At less than 80 degrees, though, the single-slot board runs only a bit warmer than the Radeon HD 6850.
The dual-slot Radeon HD 7770’s beefier heat sink and fan manage much lower load temps, second only to Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 460 1 GB.
Happily, maintaining modest thermals doesn’t necessitate obnoxious acoustics. You’ll remember that we were disappointed with the amount of noise AMD’s Radeon HD 7970 made. The 7950 improved the situation substantially. And from one meter away, the Radeon HD 7770 and 7750 are far from intrusive. The 7770, in particular, does its job in relative silence.
Although the Radeon HD 7750’s fan is small, and the noise it makes is higher-pitched/more noticeable, the readings from our Extech 407768 still fall below the GeForce GTX 560 and Radeon HD 6850.
At idle, all eight of these cards run almost silently. The pump in our closed-loop liquid cooler was probably the biggest contributor to each reading.
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Derbixrace the 7750 will be a GREAT card compared to the 6670 for those who have a shitty 300w PSU and wants a nice GPU.Reply -
phamhlam If the 7770 is the same price as the 6850. I think we have the best value card right here. The 6850 was a great budget card but this card will change that.Reply -
dragonsqrrl "Although other cards beat it in encryption and decryption performance, the Radeon HD 7750 easily secures a second-place finish in the SHA256 hashing test."Reply
I think you mean AES256. -
jprahman The fight shaping up between all these new AMD cards and Kepler is looking to be a good one. Time to just sit back with some popcorn and enjoy the show... while planning a new build for when the price war breaks out.Reply -
esrever Seems ok, New stuff ussually cost more. The 6770 being more expensive than the 5770, the 6870 being more expensive than the 5850 ect.Reply
I'd expect prices to go down once supply goes up and demand goes down. -
confish21 What a sad release. I'm not even excited for Pitcairn now! I foresee the $170 6870 to hold its own.Reply -
This is ridiculous. Man this sucks, i've been waiting for the 7770 since early last year, and this crap is what they release?Reply
What_were_they_thinking? -
wicketr Well....here's hoping for a good 7850/7870 release on March 6th. Not much here worth spending money on IMO.Reply -
buzznut This is unfortunate, considering the naming scheme. The 4770, 5770, and 6770 were/are all good budget cards that performed above where they were priced. Bang for buck has always been the draw here, but that 7770 is overpriced. Hopefully AMD will see this fumble; I agree at $120-130 this card makes a lot more sense.Reply
I'd actually like to see the HD 7750 at a lower price too, as we know these prices will drop over time but I still think this is slightly high for launch.