Product: Sapphire Radeon HD 4770 Companies: Sapphire Published: 21/07/2009 Author: Manuel González Fernández Translated by: Ed Winograd Spanish Version Summary: AMD’s mid-range graphics cards are having great success. The AMD Sapphire Radeon HD 4770 is an example of this. It’s an excellent graphics card with a very inviting price.

INTRODUCTION

It’s been awhile since we’ve had the chance to take a look at a graphics card. So, we thought it was time now to end that drought and examine one of the new models that have flooded the market in recent months.

Sapphire looked favorably upon our request and sent us one of today’s mid-range models with the best price/performance ratio: the HD 4770. AMD is doing well with its powerful HD 4000 series. After launching high-range and mid-range cards, it has introduced various intermediate models, starting with the HD 4830 and then the HD 4770. This completes a well-populated range of cards and makes it harder for buyers to choose a particular model.

The main difference between the HD 4770 and other models just above and below it on the performance scale (the HD 4850, HD 4830, and HD 4670 respectively), is that this card uses GDDR5 (Graphics Double Data Rate 5) memory to provide better bandwidth. This should let the HD 4770 obtain excellent results without having a wider bus, which would make it much more expensive. It also doesn’t need to operate at stratospheric speeds, which allows for better temperature control. Here’s a summary of the card’s technical specs:

Admittedly, the HD 4770 doesn’t have any really new feature that we haven’t already seen in other cards in the HD 4000 range. Its most interesting point is something we pointed out earlier, its good price/performance ratio. But maybe we’ve gotten a little ahead of ourselves. So we’ll need to see what it can offer in our tests.