HIS Radeon HD 7750 & HD 7770 CrossFire Review

Name: HIS Radeon HD 7750 & HD 7770 CrossFire
Brand: HIS

W1zzard

on Feb 14th, 2012,

in Graphics Cards.

Manufacturer: HIS

(19 Comments) »

Introduction

Today, AMD launched its Radeon HD 7700 series to solidify its competitiveness in the sub-$200 graphics card market segment. The launch consists of the Radeon HD 7770 and Radeon HD 7750, both capable of 2-way CrossFire. While we don't expect anyone to buy two HD 7700 series in one go, since there could (we're figuring that out in this review) be better single graphics card options in higher price points, CrossFire capability allows users incremental upgrades.

People can get one HD 7700 series graphics card now, and add on a second card later, as their performance needs go up. A CrossFire upgrade could also let people game on higher resolutions than what a single HD 7700 series graphics card is meant for, so really, the 'incremental upgrade' argument is the only sensible way we see people buying two of these cards.

What's more, AMD's architecture allows you to pair between different SKUs in a series. For example, you can pair a Radeon HD 7770 with a Radeon HD 7750, so that adds a lot of flexibility. In this review, we will measure the performance of two HD 7770 in CrossFire, and two HD 7750 in CrossFire.

But before you proceed, make sure you have a clear understanding of what the HD 7700 series as single-card solutions are all about, go through any of the reviews linked below.

AMD Radeon HD 7770 (reference design)
ASUS Radeon HD 7770 DirectCU Review (custom cooler & overclocked)
HIS Radeon HD 7750 iCooler (custom cooler)
MSI Radeon HD 7770 OC (custom cooler & overclocked)
PowerColor Radeon HD 7770 (custom cooler)
XFX Radeon HD 7770 Black Edition Super OC Review (custom cooler & overclocked)

HD 7750 and 7770 CrossFire Review Market Segment Analysis
	Radeon HD 5770	Radeon HD 7750	GeForce GTX 550 Ti	Radeon HD 6790	Radeon HD 6850	GeForce GTX 460	GeForce GTX 460	Radeon HD 6870	Radeon HD 7770	GeForce GTX 560	GeForce GTX 560 Ti	Radeon HD 7750 CrossFire	Radeon HD 6950	Radeon HD 7770 Crossfire	GeForce GTX 570	Radeon HD 6970
Shader Units	800	512	192	800	960	336	336	1120	640	336	384	2x 512	1408	2x 640	480	1536
ROPs	16	16	24	16	32	24	32	32	16	32	32	2x 16	32	2x 16	40	32
Graphics Processor	Juniper	Cape Verde	GF116	Barts	Barts	GF104	GF104	Barts	Cape Verde	GF114	GF114	2x Cape Verde	Cayman	2x Cape Verde	GF110	Cayman
Transistors	1040M	1500M	1170M	1700M	1700M	1950M	1950M	1700M	1500M	1950M	1950M	2x 1500M	2640M	2x 1500M	3000M	2640M
Memory Size	1024 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB	768 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB	2x 1024 MB	2048 MB	2x 1024 MB	1280 MB	2048 MB
Memory Bus Width	128 bit	128 bit	192 bit	256 bit	256 bit	192 bit	256 bit	256 bit	128 bit	256 bit	256 bit	2x 128 bit	256 bit	2x 128 bit	320 bit	256 bit
Core Clock	850 MHz	800 MHz	900 MHz	840 MHz	775 MHz	675 MHz	675 MHz	900 MHz	1000 MHz	810 MHz	823 MHz	800 MHz	800 MHz	1000 MHz	732 MHz	880 MHz
Memory Clock	1200 MHz	1125 MHz	1026 MHz	1050 MHz	1000 MHz	900 MHz	900 MHz	1050 MHz	1125 MHz	1002 MHz	1002 MHz	1125 MHz	1250 MHz	1125 MHz	950 MHz	1375 MHz
Price	$105	$110	$120	$125	$135	$140	$140	$155	$160	$170	$210	$220	$240	$320	$330	$340

Test System

Test System - VGA Rev. 16
CPU:	Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.8 GHz (Bloomfield, 8192 KB Cache)
Motherboard:	Gigabyte X58 Extreme Intel X58 & ICH10R
Memory:	3x 2048 MB Mushkin Redline XP3-12800 DDR3 @ 1520 MHz 8-7-7-16
Harddisk:	WD Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500 GB
Power Supply:	Antec HCP-1200 1200W
Software:	Windows 7 64-bit Service Pack 1
Drivers:	NVIDIA: 285.62 ATI: Catalyst 11.12 HD 7950 & 7970: 8.921.2 RC11 HD 7750 & HD 7770: 8.932.2
Display:	LG Flatron W3000H 30" 2560x1600

Benchmark scores in other reviews are only comparable when exactly the same hardware & software configuration is used as in this review.

All video card results were obtained on this exact system with the exact same configuration.
All games were set to their highest quality setting unless indicated otherwise.
AA and AF are applied via in-game settings, not via the driver's control panel.

Each benchmark was tested at the following settings and resolution:

1024 x 768, No Anti-aliasing. This is a standard resolution without demanding display settings.
1280 x 1024, 2x Anti-aliasing. Common resolution for most smaller flatscreens today (17" - 19"). A bit of eye candy turned on in the drivers.
1680 x 1050, 4x Anti-aliasing. Most common widescreen resolution on larger displays (19" - 22"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.
1920 x 1200, 4x Anti-aliasing. Typical widescreen resolution for large displays (22" - 26"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.
2560 x 1600, 4x Anti-aliasing. Highest possible resolution for commonly available displays (30"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.

Aliens vs. Predator

Aliens vs. Predator is based on a merger of the Aliens and the Predators franchise: two legendary alien species that are in conflict with each other, fighting to the death with human marines caught in between. The first person shooter game was developed by Rebellion Studios, who also developed the first AVP PC title and released in February 2010. It is one of the first DirectX 11 games with support for new features like tesselation, which is why AMD heavily promoted it at the time of their DX 11 card launches. We use the AVP benchmark utility with tesselation and advanced DX11 shadows enabled.