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
Crysis: Warhead
Kicking things off as always is Crysis: Warhead. It’s no longer the toughest game in our benchmark suite, but it’s still a technically complex game that has proven to be a very consistent benchmark. Thus even four years since the release of the original Crysis, “but can it run Crysis?” is still an important question, and the answer continues to be “no.” While we’re closer than ever, full Enthusiast settings at a 60fps is still beyond the grasp of a single-GPU card.
With AMD’s GCN architecture, Crysis is finally losing some of its predictive power, but it’s still a good indicator of overall performance. And the indicators aren’t very good.
From a price/performance perspective the 7700 needs to beat at least the 6850 on the AMD side and at least the GTX 560 on the NVIDIA side in order to ensure a clear-cut victory. Unfortunately it’s falling well short of that, underperforming the 6850 by 20% never mind the GTX 560. On paper the 7770 is outgunned on everything from texture performance to ROP performance to shader performance, so take your pick on what’s holding back Crysis performance, but the end result is that it’s well behind its previous-generation peers. In fact it’s closer to the 2.5 year old 5770 than it is the 6850.
As for the 7750, things are a bit better. In spite of its massive texture and shader deficit compared to the 7770, it’s only behind by 15%, offering some strong support that the actual performance difference between the two cards won’t be nearly as big as it is on paper. That said, on a price/performance basis it should be able to beat the 5770, and it isn’t quite there. But as the only card here that’s sub -75W, it has other favorable attributes.
Elsewhere XFX’s R7770 BESDD shows us that 7770 performance scales well with clockspeeds, with a 12% core overclock netting 11% better performance. This is a good sign for overclockers, but for factory overclocked cards it’s a mixed bag, as the higher price these cards fetch only puts them more in competition with the 6870.
The story of minimum framerates is much the same. The 7700 series continues to underperform its last-generation competition by quite a bit, and unfortunately we’re still several frames per second away from being able to sustain 30fps+ in Crysis at 1680.
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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.