Reviews - PowerColor Radeon HD 7770 and AMD Radeon HD 7750

[HEXUS]

GCN-imbued Radeons do battle with the best mainstream cards.

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[Ross1]

As I said with the 7900 cards, it looks suspiciously like they are unwilling to undercut and make obsolete the last gen cards yet.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TBH,a bit disapointed the HD7770 did not match the HD6850 overall,especially when it does not have the power limitation the HD7750 has. Hopefully,when these hit the sub £100 market these would be a better choice. It would be interesting to see how the HD7750 stacks up against the HD6670 though.

[scaryjim]

As predicted, a 640 shader GCN card is a disappointment, even at 1GHz.

What would be interesting would to see the comparison between the 6670 and the 7750 though - as both are bus powered single-slot cards that would be (IMO) a more meaningful comparison. Also be good to have a 6750 throw in

Price definitely needs to come crashing down for these cards though. Can't understand why AMD have done so little in this price space for ~ 4 years now: the 7750 doesn't look significantly faster than the £100 4830 (and yes, I know they're still suffering for the strong £ when the 4 series was released, but even so, these cards really aren't much of an improvement on the incumbent 67x0 cards, except in power draw, and they're demanding significantly higher prices... ). I can only assume we'll see a 7790 / 7830 to fill the gap (which will no doubt be a disappointingly crippled version of the more expensive card, too...)

[Terbinator]

Anandtech title says it all: AMD Radeon HD 7750 & Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition Review: Evading The Price/Performance Curve.

[shaithis]

I'm pretty sure the prices will drop fast. They are just milking the "new card on the block" status......nothing new or unique about it, plus you have to hope that drivers will take up some (if not all) of the slack between price and performance.

Things could get very interesting in the next 6-8 weeks.

[Terbinator]

I'm pretty sure the prices will drop fast. They are just milking the "new card on the block" status......nothing new or unique about it, plus you have to hope that drivers will take up some (if not all) of the slack between price and performance.

Things could get very interesting in the next 6-8 weeks.

But even with a complete (AMD limited) overclock (in the shape of the Sapphire card) its still slower than a 560/6870 yet costs more.

560Ti's could be had for only a tenner more which i really can't see them competing with after driver updates.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

According to TPU,the card looks around GTX460 768MB or HD6790 level performance and HardwareCanucks puts the HD7770 as being 5% faster than the HD6790. AMD really should have launched these cards at around £100. Having said that the HD5770 1GB launched at around £115 to £145 and the HD4870 1GB was cheaper and generally a tad faster IIRC.

[Terbinator]

According to TPU,the card looks around GTX460 768MB or HD6790 level performance and HardwareCanucks puts the HD7770 as being 5% faster than the HD6790. AMD really should have launched these cards at around £100. Having said that the HD5770 1GB launched at around £115 to £145 and the HD4870 1GB was cheaper and generally a tad faster IIRC.

Maybe they just don't know how to price correctly for the mid-range?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Price definitely needs to come crashing down for these cards though. Can't understand why AMD have done so little in this price space for ~ 4 years now: the 7750 doesn't look significantly faster than the £100 4830 (and yes, I know they're still suffering for the strong £ when the 4 series was released, but even so, these cards really aren't much of an improvement on the incumbent 67x0 cards, except in power draw, and they're demanding significantly higher prices... ). I can only assume we'll see a 7790 / 7830 to fill the gap (which will no doubt be a disappointingly crippled version of the more expensive card, too...)

Look at the competition from Nvidia though. Remember that cards like the GTX460 768MB launched at around £150 to £180. The GTS450 and GTX550TI were pretty damp squibs in their own right,and thats not bad enough - look at the sub £70 market. Nvidia seems to almost have given up on producing low end gaming cards. AMD,bested all of them with half arsed efforts.

I really hope Nvidia releases some decent Kepler based cards for the sub £100 market.

Maybe they just don't know how to price correctly for the mid-range?

I think AMD have got carried away with the whole custom SKU business from launch. They should have concentrated on pushing lower price SKUs initially and let the OEMs push their bling editions later.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Look at the HD7750 and HD7770 pricing at Scan:

http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-...n-hd7750-pci-e

http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-...-hd-7770-pci-e

OTH,look at the pricing from OcUK,Ebuyer and Aria:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produc...=56&subid=1699

http://www.ebuyer.com/search?store=2&cat=48&subcat=3575

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...D+7700+Series/

http://www.dabs.com/category/compone...37?q=hd%207750

http://www.dabs.com/category/compone...37?q=hd%207770

It seems OcUK and Dabs have the "cheapest" HD7770 cards at around £110 to £115. The cheapest HD7750 cards seems to be from OcUK,Dabs and Ebuyer at around £80 to £86. OcUK seems to cheapest for both cards!!

[Terbinator]

When was the last time Scan was actually cheap, in all seriousness?

Edit: At £110 its still to expensive.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

When was the last time Scan was actually cheap, in all seriousness?

Edit: At £110 its still to expensive.

Hence the "cheapest" moniker.

Actually,the only cards which look interesting to me are these ones:

http://www.ebuyer.com/search?store=2&cat=48&subcat=3575

http://www.dabs.com/products/best-va...%207750&src=16

They are HD7750 cards with a single slot cooler and look around the same size as the HD5670 or HD6670. Most of them come with dual slot coolers!!

Once,these drop a bit in price they should be quite nice for an SFF computer.

[amdavies]

As mentioned, when the 5k series launched there were still a few 4850, 4870 and 4890 cards floating around that offered better performance for the price. These were available at prices around the same level as the 5770's launch price (£120) and were better options for most people at the time. We've got the same thing happening now, the 6850 and 6870 are being pushed down in price because of the newer architecture so they are a better purchase for most people wanting to play games.

The pricing of the new 7k series will depend more upon nvidia's response than the older 6k series cards that are still floating around. AMD will have a couple of months to milk the newness factor for additional revenue and then will adjust pricing depending on the perceived threat of nVidia's new series of cards. Again, as has been mentioned above, nVidia seem reluctant to challenge AMD at the £100 mark. The original 560Ti at £160ish is the benchmark for that price range but they don't have anything overly strong below it allowing the 6850 and 6870 free reign.

[Terbinator]

Hence the "cheapest" moniker.

....

They are HD7750 cards with a single slot cooler and look around the same size as the HD5670 or HD6670. Most of them come with dual slot coolers!!

Once,these drop a bit in price they should be quite nice for an SFF computer.

I was being sarcastic.
While i do like the idea of single-slot cards i can imagine them being fairly loud under the kosh.

[scaryjim]

... The cheapest HD7750 cards seems to be from OcUK,Dabs and Ebuyer at around £80 to £86.

To be fair, that's similar pricing to the first round of HD5670 GDDR5 cards, which (iirc) started in the mid £70s and went up to the low £90s - so assuming the 7750 gives 5750 levels of performance, in a bus powered card, at a lower launch price (from memory the 5750 launched at ~ £100), that doesn't strike me as too bad. All the more reason to want a 7750 vs 6750 vs 6670 comparison though

*EDIT* I note with some dismay that the Gigabyte and Sapphire HD7750s both use dual slot coolers This is a 55W card, that could easily be cooled passively: why the big chunky fansinks?!