Sapphire HD 7770 FleX edition brings inexpensive Eyefinity to gaming and productivity

Conclusion

This has been quite a short 1-day exploration for us in evaluating the Sapphire FleX GHz edition. We always like more overclocked performance especially for DX11 gaming and we see that these sub-$150 cards also offer great features for a similar price to the HD 5770s at their own launch and we have already seen pricing adjustments and game bundles as incentives.  In the case of the FleX – including the adapter for the ability to use DVI connectors out of the box for 3-panel Eyefinity – is a great money saving feature for most end users.

In general, the HD 7770 has become a better value recently when you consider AMD’s own current midrange HD 6870 and 6850 are much harder to find and less disconted than when we performed our original evaluation. And as replacement for the HD 5770/HD6770, it affords a decent level of performance especially in the case of an overclocked Sapphire.  For $150, you can have a productivity multi-display video card that also can manage light Eyefinity gaming and when overclocked matches the more expensive overclocked 7770s like the Sapphire GHz OverClock and Vapor-X editions.

Overclocking is the HD 7770’s saving grace regarding performance and this appears to be true with the entire 7000 series. The HD 7770 is a decent light DX11 gaming choice with the Sapphire GHz OverClock editions leading the way at the $150 price point and especially with the FleX GHz edition able to match the Sapphire factory overclocks using TriXX.

Of course looking a bit further into the future, we will have to see what Nvidia will bring to the table with their own 28nm new architecture at this price point since Kepler GPUs can also support 3-panel Surround from a single card. At this point, the HD 7700 series is unchallenged at 28nm at the 150 dollar price point.

We see that AMD’s partners and especially Sapphire, are working on features and unique capabilities to put cool and quiet overclocked HD 7770s on the market to give us great choice and flexibility. We see quiet cards that can also play DX11.1 games at 1080P and the HD 7770 would also be a very good choice for a HTPC. So let’s look at the Pros and Cons of Sapphire’s FleX edition:

Pros

• The Sapphire HD 7770 FleX GHz edition is a versatile card that can be used for moderate DX11 1080p gaming or even as a HTPC card – “all-in-one”.
• The FleX edition supports 3-panel Eyefinity out of the box using two DVI connectors and an included HDMI to DVI adapter.  The included 6-foot HDMI cable may also be useful.
• Sapphire’s Flex GHz edition keeps up in gaming performance with the factory overclocked Sapphire HD 7770 GHz OC and Vapor-X editions by overclocking using TriXX.

Cons

• The HD 7770 is weak in performance for 3-panel Eyefinity gaming.
• A DisplayPort adapter is needed for the 4th display if the end user does not have a native DP display

The Verdict:

• If you are buying a $150 video card right now and require 3-Panel Eyefinity for productivity and perhaps light gaming, the Sapphire Flex GHz edition is a unique choice for an excellent out of the box Eyefinity experience.

We do not know what the future will bring, but the Sapphire HD 7770 FleX GHz edition brings good gaming performance to the Radeon HD 7770 family along with 3-panel Eyefinity out of the box, right now. This editor believes that AMD, and especially Sapphire, bring very full-featured DX11.1 videocards to the market that will find good acceptance among customers and their fans alike. As a good performer in the HD 7770 series coupled with the ability to use 4-panels for productivity, the Sapphire HD 7770 Flex GHz edition deserves our ABT Editor’s Innovation Award.

If you currently game on an older generation video card, you will do yourself a big favor by upgrading. The move to a Sapphire HD 7770 FleX GHz edition will give you better visuals on the DX11.1 pathway and you are no doubt thinking of CrossFire-X if you want to get even higher performance. We will test out HD 7770 CrossFire in an upcoming evaluation. Power draw is excellent and the card is quiet.   FleX is a unique card that takes full advantage of AMD’s Eyefinity without requiring the user to buy additional adapters.

The competition is hot as the prices on even the new video cards have softened and Nvidia offers their own set of features including PhysX, CUDA and 3D Vision with their competing GTX 550 Ti and GTX 560. Their own new entry-level 28nm line up is also due to launch relatively soon. Stay tuned, there is a lot coming from us at ABT!

Mark Poppin

ABT Senior Editor

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