In mid-February of this year, AMD released the HD 7750 and HD 7770 on 28nm featuring their new GCN architecture complete with Eyefinity Technology 2.0 and DX11.1. They are based on AMD’s GPU named “Cape Verde” and their stock core clock is 800GHz, and they are now priced generally below $150. We evaluated the Sapphire HD 7770 GHz Overclocked edition a month later and we awarded it an ABT Editor’s Choice.
In May, Sapphire added a new Vapor-X version to their HD 7770 GHz OC line-up which had about the same performance. The HD 7750 is a more cut down version of Cape Verde and it’s pricing was originally $119. Now we see many SKUs based on this original chip and one of the most interesting is the fully-featured Sapphire Low Profile HD 7750 Edition which promises to be perfect for Home Theater PC (HTPC) as well as for light DX11 gaming.
Enter the new Sapphire Low Profile HD 7750 edition at $119
The Sapphire HD 7750 1GB Low Profile edition retains all the features of the HD 7700 series but in a low profile format. Many low profile cards use a cooler that is actually larger than the PCB format, and cannot be used in the smallest cases. The Sapphire’s low profile solution uses a single-slot cooler with a quiet fan and compact heatsink design that makes it ideally suited to applications like HTPCs or installation in even the slimmest mini-ITX cases.
The Sapphire HD 7750 Low Profile’s performance should be the same as other reference HD 7750s with a core clock speed of 800MHz and 1GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 4500MHz (effective; 1125MHz Quad Data rate). The outputs include multi-monitor support for AMD Eyefinity with three different outputs mounted within the low-profile backplate using DVI, mini-DP and micro-HDMI sockets. The necessary adapters are included in the box as well as standard height and low profile backplates for maximum flexibility.
Pricing and competition
You can find the Sapphire 7750 Low Profile edition at Newegg for 114.99 plus $6.98 shipping. You can find many other HD 7750s for about $100 after mail-in-rebate, so there is only a $15 premium for this low profile card. Here is a size comparison with a standard-sized Sapphire HD 7770 and an EVGA GTX 550 Ti:
As the reader will note, the low-profile HD 7750 is tiny compared to full-sized similarly performing cards such as the Sapphire HD 7770 GHz OC or VaporX edition and the EVGA GeForce GTX 550 Ti. This low profile compact design alone makes it nearly unique for use in mini-ITX cases as well as for small HTPCs. Best of all, it is a HD 7750 which promises decent DX11 light gaming performance.
Nvidia has not released their 28nm GTX 650 yet and the main card that competes on price and performance with the HD 7750 is the 40nm GTX 550 Ti which is also priced about the same $119 at Newegg; perhaps a bit less with rebates on the lower-priced models.
Besides comparing gaming performance against the HD 7770s, we will also compare the stock and overclocked Sapphire HD 7750 Low Profile edition with the GTX 550 Ti at its reference clocks. We put our Sapphire HD 7750 Low Profile editon through its paces last week with the very latest Catalyst 12.8 drivers. This driver generally brought some very decent performance increases over the last WHQL Catalyst driver set, 12.4, from a few months ago.
In the past few months, we have also upgraded our Intel CPU platform from Core i7-920/X58 at 4.2GHz to Core i7-3770K/Z77 at 4.8GHz and now game with 8GB of system RAM, up from 4GB. Having a CPU so highly clocked removes all chances of the CPU bottlenecking most video cards.
We now bench with 22 modern games and with 3 synthetic benchmarks, and we generally use 1920×1200 and 1680×1050 resolutions with an emphasis on DX11 games – 3 DX9, 5 DX10, and 15 DX11 games. Since we are comparing entry-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 up to 1920×1080 resolution and are priced around $110-$150.
Features, Specifications and System Requirements
From Sapphire’s website:
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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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Mini-DisplayPort Enjoy 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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Dual-Link DVI-I Equipped 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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AMD EyefinityAMD Eyefinity technology maximises your field of view across up to three displays, fully engaging your peripheral vision. For gamers this puts you right IN the game and for other applications it helps to increase productivity by maximising your visual workspace so that you can see more windows simultaneously. AMD Eyefinity technology is also ideal for multimedia applications as it allows you to keep several ‘palettes’ or ‘panels’ open over a larger workspace whist you edit your images or videos.*
Eyefinity Demo
*To support 3 displays, one of the monitors has to support DisplayPort
*With Sapphire Flex Technology, this requirement will be no necessory
Learn more about Sapphire Flex Technology?http://www.sapphiretech.com/Flex/FleX_Eng_home.html
**When running Microsoft Windows XP, Eyefinity technlogy supports a maximum of 2 displays.
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Advanced GDDR5 Memory Technology GDDR5 memory provides twice the bandwidth per pin of GDDR3 memory, delivering more speed and higher bandwidth. |
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AMD Stream Technology Accelerate the most demanding applications with AMD Stream technology and do more with your PC. AMD Stream Technology allows you to use the teraflops of compute power locked up in your graphics processer on tasks other than traditional graphics such as video encoding, at which the graphics processor is many, many times faster than using the CPU alone. |
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AMD CrossFireX™ Multi-GPU Technology Triple or Quadruple gaming power with AMD CrossFireX™ Multi-GPU Technology.AMD CrossFireX technology supports up to four graphics cards to be used in a single system.
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AMD HD3D Technology Enjoy 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) Architecture The 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 3.0 PCI-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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Microsoft DirectX® 11 Get intense gaming performance and unrivalled image quality with stunning 3D visual effects, realistic lighting and lifelike imagery with SAPPHIRE graphics cards supporting DirectX®11. New features in DirectX®11 such as Hardware Tesselation, HDR Texture Compression, Multi-threading support and DirectCompute bring lifelike gaming and an experience never possible on a PC before. |
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OpenGL 4.2 OpenGL 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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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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Windows® Vista support Integrate with Windows Vista to deliver the best 3D graphics control. |
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AMD PowerTune™ Technology AMD PowerTune is a breakthrough technology that sets an entirely new direction for maximum performance at TDP. It allows the GPU to be designed with higher engine clock speeds which can be applied on the broad set of applications that have thermal headroom.
In HD 7900 series, AMD PowerTune technology enables intelligent power monitoring to enable higher clock speeds and better performance in your favorite games |
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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 support WHQL (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 App Acceleration AMD App Acceleration is a set of technologies designed to improve video quality and enhance application performance. Full enablement of some features requires support for OpenCL, DirectCompute or DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA). |
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AMD PowerPlay with ZeroCore Power Technology AMD 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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AMD HD Media Accelerator AMD 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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As you can see below, the Sapphire HD 7750 Low Profile Edition is a fully-featured stock-clocked HD 7750.
The system requirements are modest.
Low Profile is what stands out that may differentiate this product from the other HD 7750s.
However, we are also interested in gaming performance. We see awesome features and we are eager to get to benching the Sapphire HD 7750 Low Profile card against the GTX 550 Ti and against the stock and overclocked HD 7770. First, let’s unbox it.
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