AMD's Mainstream Graphics: Radeon HD 7770 and 7750 Reviewed

Nice timely review guys- the perfect complement for pizza and a Coopers IPA.

The biggest hurdle for the 7770 might actually be the 6870. The HD 6870 can be had for $10-15 less and provides 20-30% better performance. Textbook example of "no-brainer".

Not sure if Rory Read's pick-a-price-ticket-out-of-a-barrel strategy makes a lot of sense tbh. At this rate, the HD 7990 could be a $1000 card.
 
Great review, Julio. Although I found it weird you didn't choose a little more demanding games for these cards. Then again, if these cards can't run Skyrim properly, how mainstream are they?

I'm happy the review was well-written and detailed, but very sad AMD's new affordable offerings can't even be compared to the 550/560.
 
Cape Turd has arrived. Barely beats HD6790, loses to HD6850 and gets rapped by HD6870, while being priced higher than all of them.

This card has no business being more than $129, but realistically it would need to be cheaper than HD6850 which can be found for $120-140.

If NV doesn't bring anything to the table, at this rate Rory Read will price HD8770 at $259 and HD8970 at $899 next round. What a douche.
 
Is it just me or is AMD's pricing for these 7000 series cards extremely disappointing? A new generation should offer much better performance/price ratio and force price cuts on the older generation but this is totally not the case...
 
Yeah, really disappointing from a price/performance point of view.

All the new features are nice to have.
But the performance can't really compete with same price nvidia cards.

What really hurts is their own older 6800er lineup.
The 7770 is priced around 160€ (about $210) but a 30€ cheaper
6870 crushes the new card in performance.

Sadly its a no brainer: if you're an AMD Fan, buy an old 6800er card
or wait till prices come down.

Waiting for 7800er cards isn't an option either because they will most
certainly be lackluster price/performance compared to older 6900er cards.

see you
 
This is more than disappointing, it is frustrating. I swore I'll never buy nvidia chips again after catching nvidia selling me bad chips on laptops and restricting the use of old powerfull chips on new games just by driver settings. Nvidia does not exist for me period. As for 7770, gah it sucks hard to be slower and pricier than 6850 and on top of that it is heating up more too. I would have liked that option if it was also lower on temperature on high load as it is lower in power consumption.
 
Great review, Julio. Although I found it weird you didn't choose a little more demanding games for these cards. Then again, if these cards can't run Skyrim properly, how mainstream are they?

I'm happy the review was well-written and detailed, but very sad AMD's new affordable offerings can't even be compared to the 550/560.

I am sorry about that. We would have like to included more games like what we did with the Radeon HD 7970 review as well as a few extra higher end cards but with less than 24 hours to put the entire review together we did the best we could.

Still as we explained on page four we plan to do some Crossfire testing soon and we will include a lot more games, more graphics cards and overclocking performance.

And finally thanks for the feedback we appreciate it.
 
No BF3 at 1920x1200 :( Above 24FPS as a minimum frame rate is all I care about. Oh well.
 
Great review as always and also perfect timing for me. I'm helping a friend build a budget gaming PC and now I know to go with HD 6870. Disappointing that AMD couldn't have done better with these 77 series cards. It always seems to be one step forward, two steps backwards with that company.
 
I definitely think that the pricing on these cards are just AMD trying to capitilise on the window period in which Nvidia takes to get it's new platform cards onto the shelves.. I'm convinced that when nvidia released the Geforce 660 that the prices will normalise to be in line with what is available.
 
I'm definitely not upgrading from my 5770 to a 7770 then with a paltry gain like that. Looks like NVIDIA will probably pull an ace out of their sleeve now, and I'll end up going back to them.
 
Looking at the overall picture, the 7000 series looks to be another stop gap measure again like the 6000 was, but this is down to AMD's roadmap then anything else.

Everything 7600 and below is a rebadge of 6600 and below, and that's down to the fact that the new A series chips GPU this year are going to be funily enough based on the 6600. So they need to be the same so they can be crossfired together.

The 7700 really are an odd ball though, 7750 is at the right price its the 7770 thats thrown everyone for a loop. Yes it can on the odd game here and there it beats a 6850, but most of the time its trailing slightly or majorly behind it.

No doubt they'll release a 7790 based on a cut down 7800 some time after the 7800 launch to fill the hole.

And we have yet to see what Nvidia launch with, god knows how thats gonna affect the mix.
 
Still on the 5870v2 (Asus), hasn't let me down yet. Glad I got my money's worth. It OCs like a charm too, and I feet it extra power with the molex slot built onto the mobo. I'm living a dream here folks, someone pinch me!
 
captainawesome said:
I definitely think that the pricing on these cards are just AMD trying to capitilise on the window period in which Nvidia takes to get it's new platform cards onto the shelves.. I'm convinced that when nvidia released the Geforce 660 that the prices will normalise to be in line with what is available.

Ha, funnily enough I was thinking the same thing, sortof. I'm also thinking that the release of xbox 720 and wii-u (which use AMD), will trigger a price drop to the normal non-overpriced price.
 
I definitely think that the pricing on these cards are just AMD trying to capitalize on the window period in which Nvidia takes to get it's new platform cards onto the shelves.. I'm convinced that when nvidia released the Geforce 660 that the prices will normalize to be in line with what is available.
Ha, funnily enough I was thinking the same thing, sortof. I'm also thinking that the release of xbox 720 and wii-u (which use AMD), will trigger a price drop to the normal non-overpriced price.
I'm thinking the exact same thing. Is this not what AMD has done the last few generations?

I'm waiting for Geforce 660 regardless of AMD's offerings anyway.
 
I definitely think that the pricing on these cards are just AMD trying to capitilise on the window period in which Nvidia takes to get it's new platform cards onto the shelves.. I'm convinced that when nvidia released the Geforce 660 that the prices will normalise to be in line with what is available.

Historically, AMD have been run by engineers, which reflected their attitude towards pricing. AMD is now run by a bean-counter whose prime objective is to keep AMD relevant and profitable. I wouldn't bank on past influencing the future too much.
Secondly, AMD have acted as a foil to Nvidia's less than aggressive pricing structure. You are now relying on Nvidia acting as AMD have done in the past...pricing to keep AMD "honest". Is this likely? Or is it more likely that Nvidia dovetail their cards with AMD at present price/performance, and both companies reap a higher average selling price ?

I'd hazard a guess and say that unless either Nvidia or AMD are making a run for a sizeable leap in marketshare, you won't see them cutting each others throats by cutting profit lines. The biggest factor in AMD pricing is more likely to be how long the HD 6000 series hang around in the retail channel....and for anyone thinking that the 6850/6870 aren't long for this world (with the 7750/7770 taking their price points), it might be worth noting that the 5750/5770 and 5850 have only recently disappeared from many (r)etail inventories.
 
interesting review, I think the HD7750 is looking better, for its price it performs OK, the 7770 should be slightly cheaper tough..... BUT on the long run they can lower the price quite a bit, and the other options might not be an option anymore... if it stays on the market as long as juniper have...

OT:
I noticed you have a HIS HD6750 I'm looking all over the internet for the bios file of this card and can't seem to find anywhere, I would be really glad if you could save the file using GPUz or something and if you could send me to roboticblademaster@gmail.com

many thanks
 
Good review Steve, the 7750 is looking pretty solid, but as mentioned the 7770 not so much at the current price point. Maybe in a few months when we see more of the next generation cards will these be more interesting. Still wish they would've released the 7850/7870 first and not next month =/ .
 
"Cape Turd has arrived. Barely beats HD6790, loses to HD6850 and gets rapped by HD6870, while being priced higher than all of them."

Hahaha! Spot on!
 
Haha. nothing Unexpected here ,AMD =FAIL!
Where is your CPU or GPU offering? Could you do better?

AMD does not equal failure, they have been competing for many years and probably many more years. Staying in the game can be viewed as a winning position.
 
I note that the tests did not include a the 6850, and 6870. If they had included those, the benchmarks would show them getting trounced in nearly every scenario. I see no compelling reason to get an AMD HD 7770 or HD 7750 compared to the HD 6870 and HD 6850. With a new card we expect some advances in performance relative to a certain price point, and to be blunt: The AMD HD 7770 & HD 7750 are roughly the same level of performance we had from cards of similar price 2 years ago. The only real improvement is that they consume less power.

AMD will kill off of the 6850, and then the 6870 fairly quickly. If you want one or have one and have been putting off that decision to crossfire until the come down in price -- you probably better get yours now. The cost cycle tends to mean they go up in price once they get discontinued.

From a consumer perspective, other than the 7750 being able to go into pre-prebuilt machines with the industry standard pathetically underpowered power supply; there is nothing compelling about either card. The HD 7770 is lack luster, limp, and comes with sticker rape to boot.

Much like the 4870 (and some very nice X2 versions!), the 6850 & 6870 hit a sweet spot. The only draw back to the 6870 & 6850 is that most versions only have 1GB of memory, and they really need 2GB (preferably 3GB) of memory for the really high resolution work to perform like lions. If I were in the market to buy a mid-range card I would be checking for rebates on the 2GB versions of the 6870 instead. A pair of those will serve your needs for a lot longer. With judicious use of price comparisons, rebates, and free shipping -- the difference in cost is not much more $20-30 per card, and the difference in performance is huge.
 
There is one thing that I believe all reviewers are missing with both these cards.
new monitors are arriving with full display ports and this is the point.While the reference is for mini display ports on geforce and Radeon cards the Radeon 3rd party manufacturers are the only ones putting a full display port on their product.(Asus and Sapphire)
This is necessary if you are to use the 120HZ available on the new Samsung monitors otherwise you have to buy a converter which equals another $24.00 plus freight of $10.00.
Now that makes cards with mini display ports more expensive.
Also note that using a DVI to DisPlay port converter wont work as the only ones available fit at the monitor end and not at the Video card end so there is another reason to look for cards with a DisPlay port because eventually you will have to buy one if you dont wanrt to be shelling out dollars for converters.
 
correction.........should read dvi to display port converter is for use with cards with a existing display port and for converting to DVI at the monitor.so what I am trying to say is, if you have a DVI at the card you wish to convert to dispaly port at the monitor,this converter will fit but it wont work.
 
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