In mid-February of this year, AMD released the HD 7770 on 28nm featuring their new GCN architecture complete with Eyefinity Technology 2.0 and DX11.1. It’s based on AMD’s GPU named “Cape Verde” and its stock core clock is 1GHz. We evaluated the Sapphire HD 7770 GHz Overclocked edition a month later and we awarded it an ABT Editor’s Choice with the caveat that it appeared to be priced a little optimistically at $169.95 because it competed with AMD’s own strongly discounted and discontinued – and faster – HD 6800 series.
Overall, the Sapphire HD 7770 GHz OverClocked Edition performed very well as it is factory overclocked to 1150/1250MHz and warrantied by Sapphire, and we found out that it could be overclocked even further. We did suggest that market pricing would soon take effect. And now you can find this same OverClocked edtion at Newegg for $149 featuring a free game download, and it is still priced only about ten to twenty dollars more than a standard HD 7770 making it a good value.
Enter the new SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X HD 7770 GHz EDITION OC 1GB GDDR5 at $149
The names keep getting longer. This week, Sapphire added a new Vapor-X version to their HD 7770 GHz OC line-up. The family is HD 7770. The GHz Edition stands for the reference 1000MHz core clock speed, while OverClock or OC denotes that it is factory overclocked further from reference, just as 1GB GDDR5 describes the super-fast vRAM on this card.
This is the first model in the HD 7000 series to come with their exclusive Vapor-X technology – the Sapphire Vapor-X HD 7770 GHz Edition OC 1GB GDDR5 model. The Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X OC Edition is factory overclocked with core clocks of 1100MHz and memory clocks of 1300MHz (5.2 GB/s effective) to also deliver excellent performance.
Compared to the Sapphire GHz Overclocked editon (below right), the Vapor-X editon (below left) is factory clocked -50Hz less on the core and +50MHz more on the memory. It is going to be interesting to compare their performance, but the biggest difference will come from the cooling used for each card. Two fans tend to cool better and they also tend to be quieter than a single fan.
Sapphire Technology is the first company to implement cooling for PC graphics cards based on Vapor Chamber Technology and they have implemented it successfully in previous products. Vapor-X cooling was first introduced in 2007 with the Sapphire HD 3870 ATOMIC Edition graphics card and it has just been introduced on new video cards in the HD 7000 series by this card. Of course, Vapor-X® is Sapphire’s exclusive name for this technology.
We are going to focus on the performance of this HD 7770 Vapor-X OC edition agaist the Sapphire GHz OverClocked edition of the HD 7770. We have already compared it to stock HD 7770 performance and it was significantly faster.
To fully round out this performance evaluation, we shall also attempt to overclock the Vapor-X edition further to see if additional gains are possible or if they will even continue to be linear from overclocking to beyond Sapphire’s factory overclock as the GHz SuperOverclock edition did. It will be interesting to see the performance differences from overclocking the memory versus overclocking the core as these two cards are clocked differently from each other.
Is the Sapphire HD 7770 GHz Overclock Edition and the Vapor-X edition worth about the same price?
–Performance vs. Pricing
The feature set of Sapphire’s HD 7770 Vapor-X Edition is very impressive as listed on Sapphire’s chart at the bottom of this page. However, we also need to compare its $149 pricing versus performance and we shall use our last evaluation of the Sapphire GHz Overclock edition as the standard.
In the last couple of months, higher performing cards such as AMD’s HD 6870 have reached their end of life and have been discounted to clear the retail channels. They are now much harder to find than when we published our HD 7770 evaluation two months ago. We will attempt to give you a snapshot of today’s market and where the Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X edition sits in regards to performance and value especially regarding the GHz OverClocked edition.
We put our Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X editon through its paces last week with the very latest Catalyst 12.4 drivers. This driver mostly brought some very minor performance increases over the last WHQL Catalyst driver set. In the past two months, we have also upgraded our Intel CPU platform from Core i7-920/X58 at 4.2GHz to Core i7-3770K/Z77 at stock clocks of 3.5GHz (3.9GHz with Turbo Boost), so the two CPU platforms are approximately equal.
We now bench with 18 modern games and with 3 synthetic benchmarks, and we generally use 1920×1200 and 1680×1050 resolutions with an emphasis on DX11 games – 2 DX9, 5 DX10, and 11 DX11 games. Since we are comparing two entry- to mid-level enthusiast GPU video cards, it makes sense to test them at their highest playable resolutions and with the most demanding playable settings that they can handle. We will attempt to find playable settings bearing in mind that the cards that we are testing are aimed approximately at 1920×1080 resolution and are priced around $150.
Specifications and System Requirements
From Sapphire’s website:
As you can see, the system requirements are modest. What is not mentioned is that a 550W PSU might be a good idea to power two HD 7770s in CrossFire.
Features:
Here are the Sapphire HD 7770 GHz Vapor-X Edition’s features as found on Sapphire’s web site:
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Dual-Link DVIEquipped with the most popular Dual Link DVI (Digital Visual Interface), this card is able to display ultra high resolutions of up to 2560 x 1600 at 60Hz. |
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HDMI (with 3D) Support for Deep Color, 7.1 High Bitrate Audio, and 3D Stereoscopic, ensuring the highest quality Blu-ray and video experience possible from your PC. |
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DisplayPortEnjoy the benefits of the latest generation display interface, DisplayPort. With the ultra high HD resolution, the graphics card ensures that you are able to support the latest generation of LCD monitors. |
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DisplayPort 1.2Doubling the effective bandwidth of previous DisplayPort implementations, DisplayPort 1.2 now includes support for Multi-Stream, allowing you to drive up to four separate monitors from a single DisplayPort 1.2 connector (requires DP1.2 monitors or Multi-Stream compatible hub), Stereoscopic 3D monitor support and adds support for high quality, lossless, 7.1 channel audio formats. |
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Advanced GDDR5 Memory TechnologyGDDR5 memory provides twice the bandwidth per pin of GDDR3 memory, delivering more speed and higher bandwidth. |
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Vapor-X Technology SAPPHIRE’s innovative Vapor-X cooling technology allows products to run not only cooler but also much quieter. A Vapor-X product means a virtually silent gaming experience and more headroom to explore performance tweaking .jpg?resize=495%2C223) |
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Black Diamond Choke & Full Solid Cap DesignChoke is an important component of the graphics card. By working with the component engineer, Sapphire’s patent pending choke is 10% cooler and offers 25% more power efficiency than a normal choke. The graphics card will be more reliable and save energy.Improved reliability and better overclocking are possible by using only high-polymer, aluminum capacitors which posses far superior characteristics than regular aluminum capacitor for a longer product life. When operational temperatures drop by 20°C, the product life span is extended by a factor of ten, when the operational temperature increases by 20°C, the product life span only decreases by 10%. |
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AMD HD3D TechnologyEnjoy the most immersive experience possible with full support for High Definition Stereoscopic 3D, a technique that presents 2D images (movies, games, photos) in a format that creates the illusion of three-dimensional depth when using compatible 3D displays / glasses / software. |
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28 nm GCN (Graphic Core Next) ArchitectureThe new and 28nm GCN Architecture with more efficient process technology puts more transistors in less space, enabling a dramatic increase in Processing Power. Crank the settings, devastate your enemies and bear witness to absurdly high frame rates with AMD Radeon HD7000 series graphics card-DirectX 11 has never looked this good. Maximum setting and crazy performance shouldn’t be a compromise. The AMD Radeon HD7900 Series with the new 28 nm GCN Architecture assures that it’s not. |
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PCI Express 3.0PCI-Express 3.0 delivers double the bandwidth per lane of PCIe Gen 2 for faster GPU (GPU communication-up to 16GB/sec in each direction), maximizing the performance from your GPU when paired with the latest platforms. |
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AMD Eyefinity 2.0The next generation of AMD Eyefinity technology is here, featuring all-new support for stereo 3D, universal bezel compensation and brand new display configurations. Face it: the best just got better: The enhancements for AMD Radeon HD7000 series include: Stereo 3D-multi-display stereoscopic 3D support via DisplayPort 16K X 16K maximum display group resolution-output up to 268 megapixels per GPU. *To support 3 displays, one of the monitors has to support DisplayPort **When running Microsoft Windows XP, Eyefinity technlogy supports a maximum of 2 displays. |
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Enhanced Multi-GPU CapabilitiesTriple or quadruple gaming power with AMD CrossFireX Multi-GPU technology. Increase your gaming performance up to 2x with AMD CrossFire technology, 2.75x for TriFire configurations, or with QuadFire configurations. With AMD ZeroCore Power Technology, the graphics card in slave modes will be switched off in idle to maximize the power saving. |
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Discrete Digital Multi-Point AudioThe AMD Redeon HD 7900 Series is the first GPU that can simultaneously output multiple and discrete audio streams via HDMI and DisplayPort Output. |
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GHz EditionThe gigahertz barrier has been broken. Armed with a stunning 1GHz GPU based on the revolutionary GCN Architecture, the AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 GHz Edition (Selected model) is quite simply engineered to annihilate. |
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Shader Model 5.0Supports the latest Shader Model 5.0 feature set including VTF (Vertex Texture Fetch) which is a key feature used extensively in many of the games that ship today. Without support for this feature the game will fall back to a lesser shader path resulting in the loss of cool, lifelike effects made possible by Shader Model 5.0 |
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OpenGL 4.2OpenGL 4.2 improves the GPU efficiency by improving the shader process operation and capturing GPU tessellated geometry. The process of modifying an arbitrary subset of compress texture is also simplified. The memory management in handling shaders is more efficient as well. |
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Best Microsoft DirectX11 SupportThe tessellation performance on AMD Radeon HD7000 is up to 2X faster than the previous generation, and DirectCompute performance is also faster to accelerate advanced post-processing, filtering, and anti-aliasing techniques. Direct X11 games has never looked this good. |
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AMD Catalyst Control Center™The AMD Catalyst Control Center™ software application gives you complete control over the performance and visual quality of your SAPPHIRE AMD Radeon™ based graphics card allowing for the best experience on your PC. |
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Dolby® TrueHD and DTSHD Master Audio™ SupportSupport for copy protected, high bandwidth, 7.1 channel surround sound over HDMI. Get a fully immersive, high definition audio experience with the latest Blu-ray movies. (Requires a DVI to HDMI dongle on some models, an HD capable monitor and a Blu-ray drive) |
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Display FlexibilityOffers an incredible choice of the latest display connectivity options natively on the board, including dual-link DVI-I, DisplayPort and HDMIalong with adapters to ensure compatibility with your legacy analogue VGA monitor. |
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Microsoft Office 2010Take advantage of improved picture and media editing capabilities in Office 2010 as well as edit and share your content in real time.See more, and get more done. Enhanced productivity with accelerated GPU processing for Office applications. |
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Windows® 7 supportWHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Labs) Certified drivers and logos are available for all SAPPHIRE HD2000, HD3000, HD4000 and HD5000 series cards ensuring compatibility and reliability with Microsoft Windows 7. |
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AMD PowerPlay with ZeroCore Power TechnologyAMD PowerPlay is a power management technology in response to the GPU loading, AMD PowerPlay automatically manages the power consumption. AMD RADEON HD7000 Series with AMD ZeroCore Power Technology, the power consumption can be as low as less than 3 Watt when idle, making the best use of power. |
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Accelerated Internet Applications RenderingThe new AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series accelerates the rendering performance with the latest web browsers (IE10, Firefox 6) and programming interfaces (Direct2D, HTML5, WebGL, Flash 11 / Molehill). |
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AMD HD Media AcceleratorAMD HD Media Accelerator has been designed to help optimize and dramatically improve video playback on your computer by taking advantage of hardware video acceleration from your AMD Radeon GPU. With full 3D stereoscopic decode you can enjoy it all in 3D. AMD HD Media Accelerator speeds up the decode of one 1080p and one 1080i HD video streams simultaneously by hardware, and the new hardware encodes/transcoder processes your media content faster than ever! |
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Cutting-edge Quad HD display support (4K Support)The display resolution on AMD Radeon HD7000 series is quadrupled to the resolution of 4KX2K( 4096X2160 ) from the outputs of DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI. |
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Here is what stands out that may differentiate this product from the other HD 7770s and even Sapphire’s own GHz OverClock edition.
SAPPHIRE’s innovative Vapor-X cooling technology allows products to run not only cooler but also much quieter. A Vapor-X product means a virtually silent gaming experience and more headroom to explore performance tweaking !
We see awesome features and we are eager to get to benching the Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X Edition. First, let’s unbox it.
