XFX R7770 Black Edition 'S' Review

We’ve already seen what the HD7770 had to offer. Today we cling our hopes to the super overclocked R7770 Black Edition from XFX to set the record straight…

Product on Review: XFX Black Edition S R7770
Manufacturer and Sponsor: XFX
Street Price: £144.98

The AMD HD 7770 was, for the most part, disappointing. Not because it was an under performer as we never expected it to set the world on fire but because it wasn’t as fast as everyone had hoped. It set out to beat it’s competitors in the same weight division (GTS450/GTX550) which it soundly does. However many, myself included, expected this card to take on the GTX560. Unfortunately, the HD7770 bit off more than it could chew which sadly meant the latest GPU from AMD was met with a mixed response from a very demanding audience.

One of the biggest criticisms of the HD7770 was the speed of the card. While the reference clockspeed was a ‘worlds first’ 1GHz, the end result was that the performance was similar to that of previous generations. The good news was that it used less power to do so yet despite this and a number of improvements such as improved tesselation, the HD7770 proved to be an ‘average card in the greater scheme of things.

Enter the XFX Black Edition. With an improved over stock clockspeed of 1120MHz on the core (120MHz faster than reference HD7770) and a huge boost on the memory clockspeed to 1300MHz (5200MHz effective), the Black Edition ‘S’ (Super Overclock) arrives pre-overclocked which should give the card a fair boost in performance. Couple this with XFX’s fantastic Double Dissipation cooler complete with GHOST thermal technology and the XFX may just make the successor to the HD5770/6770 a worthwhile purchase. Being a custom cooled, pre-overclocked card, the XFX R7770 Black Edition does carry a premium over reference cards as you would expect but for a $20 increase in price, the R7770 just became all the more appealing.

So if you are on the lookout for an entry level graphics card that has many of the features a high end card holds, read on…

About XFX
XFX dares to go where the competition would like to, but can’t. That’s because, at XFX, we don’t just create great digital video components—we build all-out, mind-blowing, performance-crushing, competition-obliterating video cards and motherboards. And, not only are they amazing, you don’t have to live on dry noodles and peanut butter to afford them.

XFX is a division of PINE Technology Holdings Limited, a leading manufacturer and marketer of innovative solutions for the worldwide gaming technologies market. Founded in 1989, PINE designs, develops, manufactures and distributes high-performance video graphics technology and computer peripherals. The company’s dedicated research and development team are continually pushing the limits to meet the demands of the ever-growing and performance-driven community. Headquartered in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong SAR), PINE has more than 1,000 employees worldwide with 16 offices around the globe. PINE also maintains four state-of-the-art research and development facilities in the Asia Pacific region and two factories in Mainland China. To learn more about PINE, please visit www.pinegroup.com.

Specification

The AMD HD7700 series of graphics cards, codenamed Cape Verde are the third addition to the HD7000 series product line.

Prices for the R7770 start around the £115 mark so the current price tag of £144 for the XFX R7770 which is pre-overclocked and arrives complete with a customised cooler is none to bad because for the extra £30 you get a fully warranted, pre-overclocked, custom cooled example that not only looks better, but will perform better in terms of FPS and cooling.

Cape Verde

Based on the new 28nm manufacturing process, AMD have managed to cram in 1.5 billion transistors. The 640 stream processors afford 1.28 TFLOPS of computational power. The cores reference clockspeed is a blistering 1GHz and coupled with a gigabyte of GDDR5 clocked at 1125MHz gives a texture fillrate of 40 GT/s and a pixel fillrate of 16 GP/s.

The Cape Verde Core features 640 stream processors for the HD7770 and 512 for the HD7750, each has 512KB of L2 read-write cache but sadly we see the new core doesn’t have the same 320-bit memory interface like we saw with the Tahiti but makes do with 128-bit. Regardless, the HD7770 produces up to 72 GB/s of bandwidth which is still impressive.

The new GCN architecture of the HD7770 comprises of 10 computational units with each one having 4 Vector Units. Drilling down further, each of the Vector units has 16 Stream processors which equates to an overall processor count of 640 – 4×16(10).

Clearly, the AMD HD7770 is aimed at the entry level end of the market but that said, these specifications should dictate the card being quite capable of playing at a resolution of 1920×1080 which is why we decided to test todays sample at this resolution.

It is worth noting too that the typical board power consumption is reported to be around 80W with an idle power consumption of less than 3W thanks to AMD ZeroCore power technology.

The XFX R7770 Black Edition goes beyond the clockspeed of the reference HD7770 in the chart above by some 120Mhz and the big overclock on the memory to 1300MHz (5200 effective) should equate to a significant bump in performance. Performance enhancements, usually translate to an increase in heat production but thankfully XFX have this are well and truly covered with the Double Dissipation GHOST cooler.

How this all translates to in-game performance we will have to wait and see but on paper at least, the XFX R7770 Black Edition looks to be an interesting proposition by the Pine Group company.

Let’s take a look at the features of today’s review sample…

Features

‘X’ Features

Xpertise – Ultra Realistic 3D Gaming with Direct X 11 Technology

Xformance – Next Generation Performance. A Quantum leap in archetecture and processing power, double the bandwidth.

Xcelerate – Workstation grade performance accelerating your professional applications.

Xfactor – See the XFX difference with quality components giving greater durability.

Xperience – MAximise your gaming experience through multi-monitor and stereoscopic 3D.

GHOST Thermal Technology – maximizes airflow for exceptional venting through the card.

Double Dissipation Technology – XFX’s unique dual fan design allows air to cool everything including GPU, heatsinks, components and the PCB board.

Standard HD7770 features

AMD CrossFire™ Technology
The AMD Radeon™ HD 7770 GPU supports AMD CrossFire™ Technology and provides excellent multi GPU scaling. With the introduction of the AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 Series Graphics, AMD began delivering improved AMD CrossFire™ Technology scaling when using two GPUs. AMD is proud to continue to offer that amazing performance with its newest AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 series graphics products.

AMD Eyefinity Technology
AMD Eyefinity Technology provides advanced multiple monitor technology enabling an incredibly immersive graphic and computing experience with innovative display capabilities, supporting massive desktop workspaces and super-high resolution gaming environments. AMD Eyefinity technology with DisplayPort connectivity enables a single GPU to support up to six independent display outputs simultaneously, depending on the OEM implementation.
AMD Eyefinity technology works with games that support non-standard aspect ratios, which is required for panning across multiple displays. To enable more than two displays, one of two cases must be satisfied:

1) Additional panels with native DisplayPort™ connectors are used;
2) Certified DisplayPort™ adapters to convert your monitor’s native input to your cards

DisplayPort™ or Mini-DisplayPort™ connector(s) are used.
With the introduction and wide availability of DisplayPort™ to single-link DVI dongles, option 2 above is a low cost way to convert a set of already-owned monitors into an AMD Eyefinity technology ready display configuration.

Unlike a similar multi monitor gaming solution offered by NVIDIA, AMD Eyefinity technology does not require two graphics cards to work. Therefore, AMD offers a multi monitor gaming solution with potential for a lower setup cost. A single AMD Radeon™ 7770 GPUs can employ AMD Eyefinity technology and AMD CrossFire™ technology to provide an outstanding multi monitor gaming experience.

Improved Tessellation
The latest iteration of architecture in the AMD Radeon™ HD 7770 GPU features a brand new Generation of Tesselator (Gen 9) in its Geometry Engine. This features optimizations such as; Increased vertex re-use, Off-chip buffering improvements and larger parameter caches. This helps Improve performance at all tessellation factors at up to 4x the throughput of AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series graphics (Gen 8 ).

AMD HD3D Technology
AMD HD3D Technology is supported by an advanced and open ecosystem that, in conjunction with specific AMD hardware and software technologies, enables 3D display capabilities for many PC applications and experiences.

Your PC has evolved, offering unprecedented amount of games, photos and movies for you to play, watch, design, create, share and download in 3D. With the arrival of the latest in 3D technology you can now enjoy an enhanced visual experience on Stereo 3D-capable desktops and notebooks powered by AMD HD3D Technology.

HDMI 1.4a
More bandwith than standard HDMI allows full implementation of 60Hz Stereo 3D. Standard HDMI ports do not have adequate bandwidth for more than 3D 1080p at 24fps.

Ultra-high resolution (4k Panels)
– Current implementations currently use 4*DVI or 2*DP 1.1, which is expensive and unwieldy.
– AMD will move to a single-connector output for 4k via DP 1.2 HBR2 and HDMI 1.4a 3GHz mode.

AMD Quad Buffer SDK
– Native 3D support for Developers.
– functions with Dx9, 10 and 11
– Native support scheduled for Windows 8
Nearly 600 games support AMD’s implementation of 3D either natively or through middleware partners. Also support for many 3D displays already on the market including Samsung and LG’s proprietry implementation.

Video Codec Engine (VCE)
– H.264 HD Encoder
– Power efficient
– Variable Compression Quality
– Multiple Input Options:- (1) Frame Buffer, (2) GPU Display. (2) is useful for wireless displays.

AMD ZeroCore Power

When a discrete GPU is in a static screen state it works to minimize idle power by enabling a host of active power saving functions including (but not limited to); clock gating, power gating, memory compression, and a host of other features. However, GPUs with AMD’s exclusive ZeroCore Power technology can take energy savings to entirely new heights by completely powering down the core GPU while the rest of the system remains active.

Nearly all PCs can be configured to turn off their displays after a long period of inactivity. This is known as the long idle state; where the screen is blanked but the rest of the system remains in an active and working power state (ACPI G0/S0). As soon as the system goes into long idle state and applications are not actively changing the screen contents, the GPU enters the ZeroCore power state. In the ZeroCore power state, the GPU core (including the 3D engine / compute units, multimedia and audio engines, displays, memory interfaces, etc.) is completely powered down.

However, one cannot simply remove the GPU and its associated device context completely; particularly when it is the only GPU in the system as is the case in many enthusiast platforms. The operating system and SBIOS must still be aware that a GPU is still present in the system. For this reason, the ZeroCore Power state maintains a very small bus control block to ensure that GPU context is still visible to the operating system and SBIOS. The ZeroCore power state also manages the power sequencing of the GPU to ensure that the power up/down mechanism is self-contained and independent of the rest of the system.

The enablement of the ZeroCore Power feature is controlled by the driver. The driver monitors the display contents and allows the GPU to enter the ZeroCore Power in the condition that the GPU enters long idle and subsequent work requests are no longer being submitted to the engine. If any applications update the screen contents, ZeroCore Power technology can periodically wake the GPU to update the framebuffer contents and put the GPU back into the ZeroCore Power state. Furthermore, applications such as Windows 7 desktop gadgets are architected to minimize activity and save power in the long idle state. These applications are active during screen-on mode to display dynamic content such as weather, RSS feeds, stock symbols, system status, etc. but also have the intelligence to suspend any updates and activity when the system enters long idle. These applications will not wake the GPU from the ZeroCore Power state in long idle.

AMD ZeroCore Power technology delivers tremendous energy savings. Many PCs remain in the long idle state for a variety of use cases that are highly relevant to everyday consumers, enthusiasts and professionals. In ZeroCore Power mode, users can still enjoy non-graphics activities such as file serving/streaming, motherboard audio and music, and remote access while the GPU core is essentially powered off.

ZeroCore Power technology also scales with AMD CrossFire™ technology. With an AMD CrossFire platform, all non-primary GPUs are in the ZeroCore Power state when not in use. For AMD CrossFire workloads, the driver will engage the non-primary GPUs to deliver full performance on-demand. The primary GPU can also enter the ZeroCore Power state during long idle as well. This delivers scalable benefits for the enthusiast. First, it effectively removes the power increase for users of AMD CrossFire under idle and light (single GPU) workloads. Second, it removes the noise penalty multiGPU users have always had to endure since the GPU fans are off in ZeroCore Power mode.

Packaging & Accessories

Box Front

The front of the package is dominated with the ‘BE’ emblem signifying that this is a Black Edition (overclocked) graphics card. I you were not already aware then XFX have also taken the liberty of sticking a product label to the bottom of the package which also describes on of the main features of the graphics card, Double Dissipation cooling.

Box Rear

The rear of the package is identical to previous XFX AMD cards we have reviewed in that it goes into great detail regarding it’s ‘X’ features. Xpertise, Xfactor, Xformance et al are the order of the day and it is nice to see a company going into detail over it’s feature list rather than just giving a list with no explanation.

Inner Package

After removing the outer sleeve we are greeted with a sleek black obelisk with the XFX monikor uppermost. Opening the lid we find a compartmentalised affair which has a tray containing the accessories and paraphernalia atop of the graphics card itself.

Accessories

XFX never cease to impress in this area and thus I am happy to report that even though this card is classed as a budget entrant, XFX have shown the same attention to detail as with their flagship models. For your money you get a variety of product documentation along with driver CD, VGA adaptor, mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort adaptor, Crossfire bridge, an attractive metal ‘Black Edition’ Case badge and even a ‘Do not disturb’ door hanger. MY only regret is that there were no molex to 6pin adaptors present but considering most PSUs today have at least a single 6pin PCIe power cable this isn’t so much of an issue as it once was.

Let’s move on to the graphics card itself…

First Look

Card Top

Here we see the card’s cooler which is almost identical to the one used in the high end 7900 series. The XFX Double Dissipation cooler which uses GHOST technology is perhaps the best looking design we have seen to date. Improving on AMD’s already improved reference cooler, the DD cooler is an all aluminium affair that has a very attractive brushed effect with black insert shrouding two fans, each having eleven angled blades with aluminium effect decal centres.

Card Bottom

The base of the card is fairly standard with 4 memory solder points signifying this card, like the reference card has 4x256MB GDDR5 modules.

Card Side

The graphics card will look great in most any pc setup and the view above shows just how much the XFX R7770 gives off the air of quality. The anodised Red aluminium insert that runs along the full length of the card certainly looks the part and will no doubt be the first thing geeks see when peering through your case window.

I/O Area

The input/output area features a signle dual link DVI port, full size HDMI port and twin mini-DisplayPorts. The card is capable of HDMI 1.4a including HD audio support, perfect for Blue-Ray playback. The HDMI and Displayports are 4K ready and are capable of displaying huge resolutions of 4096×3112 and 4096×2160 respectively. I like the red DVI port as it shows an attention to detail although other than looks, it operates like any other DVI dual-link port.

Crossfire

The card is Crossfire capable thanks to the single Crossfire tab. Unfortunately, dual card configuration is as far as it goes though due to this physical limitation.

PCIe Power

The XFX R7770 will require a single 6pin PCIe power port with a PSU capable of delivering
around 500w. The while the HD7750 makes do without an additional power port, the R7770 requires this port due to the estimated 100w power consumption under load and so because the PCIe slot is only specified to 75W, AMD saw fit to allow an additional 75w by the implementation of a 6pin PCIe power power.

Let’s delve a little deeper and remove the cooler…

Closer Look

Warranty Seals

Something we are not used to seeing on a graphics card are the warranty seals XFX apply to the screws holding the GPU bracket to the PCB ensuring that the seals will be broken by placing a screwdriver into the screw. Removing the cooler will therefore void the warranty on XFX cards so please bare this in mind should you wish to replace the thermal paste. It should be noted however that the need to do this is defunct simply because the paste used and the contact to the core, as we will see, is excellent as is and a manually application is completely unnecessary.

Double Dissipation Cooler

The Cooler used on the XFX R7770 Black Edition is near identical to that used in the flagship models save for being slightly shorter. The aluminium shroud covers an aluminium finned array, itself soldered to a copper baseplate. The aluminium fins are longitudinal so the majority of cool air passing over them will be exhausted towards the front and rear of the card rather than the sides. The copper baseplate has four rubber spacers to ensure the cooler sits stable on the core which in our example made perfect contact to the core.

R7770 Naked

Removing the cooler was very easy thanks to the card havinng just four spring loaded screws holding the cooler to the PCB. Unlike flagship models, the card layout is a little different in that the VRM is set furthest away from the PCIe power port. As suspected earlier in the review, the Cape Verde 7770 core is partially framed by four 256MB memory modules.

Voltage Regulation

The XFX R7770 is 3 phase VRM design equipped to handle the 100W TDP. XFX tout their power design as Duratec which favours Solid (12) capacitors in favour of traditional electrolytic versions along with MOSFET drivers and a combination of iron coil and Ferrite core chokes.

Hynix Memory

The memory used on the XFX R7770 hails from HYNIX with a product code of H5GQ2H24MFA T2C which are specified to run at 5GHz (effective) but are clocked on the R7770 over spec at 5200MHz so it remains to be seen how much headroom is left with this component.

Cape Verde Core

The core is measured at 123mm² which is most impressive when you consider the 1.5 billion transistors AMD have managed to cram into it. Unlike the reference version, XFX have added a surround to the core, presumably to offer more stability and protection due to the heavier cooler.

Let’s now take a look at today’s test setup…

Test Setup

With the latest Intel chipset release we decided to update our ageing X58 setup to the new X79 chipset. Not only that but we will be using the flagship Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition processor clocked to 4.5GHz to ensure we have no CPU bottlenecks. With 16GB of ram on board there should be minimal paging so the benchmarks we run today will hopefully give a true reflection of the graphics card’s performance.

Some of the components for our test bench were kindly donated by CORSAIR who provided the majority of components without whom we would not have been able to bring you this review so a big thanks to them.

Graphics cards on test:

XFX R7770 Black Edition ‘S’

AMD HD7750
AMD HD7770
HIS HD7970 3GB GDDR5
XFX DD Radeon R7950 3072MB GDDR5
PowerColor PCS+ Radeon HD7950 3072MB GDDR5
AMD Radeon HD7950 3072MB GDDR5
AMD Radeon HD7970 3072MB GDDR5
ZOTAC GTX570 AMP! 1280MB GDDR5
NVIDIA GTX570 1280MB GDDR5
MSI GTX560Ti-448 Twin Frozr III 1280MB GDDR5
MSI GTX560Ti-384 Twin Frozr III 2GB GDDR5
AMD HD6990 4GB GDDR5

For this review we will be using the very latest CAT 11.12 drivers.

Motherboard: ASRock X79 Extreme4-M
CPU: Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition @ 4.5GHz
RAM – 16GB (4x4GB) Corsair Vengeance (Red) DDR3 @ 1866MHz 9-10-9-27
Power Supply – ANTEC High Current Pro 1200W
Hard Drive – Hitachi SATA II 250GB
Samsung F3 1TB
Cooler – Corsair H100

Benchmarks
We have also updated our range of benchmarks to include the following games which will give the graphics cards a challenge and sort the wheat from the chaff. Each benchmark will be run at both stock and maximum overclock settings and utilise 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 resolutions along with AA at various levels (application dependent):

Battlefield 3
Crysis 2
Crysis Warhead
Metro 2033
Batman: Arkham City
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
DiRT 3
Futuremark 3DMark 2011
Unigine: Heaven 2.5

Let’s see how today’s test sample performed…

Overclocking, Temperature & Power Consumption Analysis

As with all of our GPU cards, we like to push things to the maximum and to do this we use the latest version of MSI’s great Afterburner utility.

The XFX R7770 builds on an already fast clockpeed of 1GHz so to increase that speed any further is a feat in iteself, however XFX have managed just that and added a further 12% to the core along with increasing the memory clockspeed to a quite frankly ridiculously fast 1300MHz(5200Mhz effective). With these speeds pre-configured I had my doubts that the card would overclock any higher – how wrong I was!

Throwing caution to the wind and increasing the voltage to the maximum available I managed to crank up the clockspeed to an extra-ordinary 1318MHz!!! I did go a little higher but started encountering lock-ups and instability so dropped it down to the clockspeed you see above which surprisingly was 100% stable throughout our suite of benchmarks.

Power Consumption
To test for power consumption we do not use anything to technical, just a wall meter which measures the total system power draw minus the monitor.

The XFX card was among the top performers in this category but due to it being a pre-overclocked graphics card, fell short of beating the reference design.

Temperature

To test temperatures we measured idle temperatures after booting windows, letting all applications finish loading and ran a few benchmarks. Once the benchmarks were complete we left the card to reach a cooling plateau where we then took the idle temperatures. For the load tests, we ran Furmark for 20 minutes, taking the absolute maximum temperature attained.

Thanks to the Double Dissipation cooler, the XFX graphics card ran very cool at both idle and load. Even the blistering overclock we achieved did not phase the cooling and even better, the fan speed hardly increased past audible levels such is the performance of the GHOST technology.

Let’s move on to our suite of benchmarks…

Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3 leaps ahead of its time with the power of Frostbite™ 2, the next instalment of DICE’s cutting-edge game engine. This state-of-the-art technology is the foundation on which Battlefield 3 is built, delivering enhanced visual quality, a grand sense of scale, massive destruction, dynamic audio and incredibly lifelike character animations. As bullets whiz by, walls crumble, and explosions throw you to the ground, the battlefield feels more alive and interactive than ever before. In Battlefield 3, players step into the role of the elite U.S. Marines where they will experience heart-pounding missions across diverse locations including Paris, Tehran and New York.

Average and minimum frames per second were measured using Fraps during the parking lot scene on Operation Sword Breaker. High and Ultra presets were loaded at both resolutions.

Crysis 2

Crytek took an internet beating from its loyal fans due to the fact that they pandered to the console masses and dumbed down the graphics to DirectX 9. Fortunately, fans of the PC version of Crysis managed to force Cryteks hand and they have since developed a DX11 patch and have also enhanced the textures with added tesselation. It is for this reason that we have decided to include it in our suite of benchmarks.

To test the cards we used the Crysis 2 benchmark courtesy of Adrenaline with both the 1.9 patch, DX11 update and Hi-res texture pack. Settings were manually placed to Ultra, DX11 and tessellation enabled with the Central Park map being run 3 times per resolution benchmark test.

Crysis Warhead

Following the success of Crysis, the stand alone expansion “Warhead” was hotly anticipated to bring more game play, more weapons, improved visuals whilst maintaining better performance, the latter being what gamers wanted most. After all how many people upgraded their rigs just to play this game… In the game, you play as the upbeat Brit Sergeant “Psycho” Sykes, chasing down a Korean nuclear warhead. Throw in some ice shooting aliens and we’re bound to have a great game. It sure delivered.

Testing was done using Framebuffer’s Crysis Warhead benchmarking tool. The tests were configured to DirectX 10 at Enthusiast levels. Each test on the Ambush map was looped three times from which the average FPS was recorded.

Metro 2033

Based on the novel by the same name, Metro 2033 is a first person shooter with elements of survival horror. As Artyom, you trawl through the mutant infested metro systems of post-apocalyptic Moscow. The game delivers presents a grim ambience that reflects on the overall atmosphere of the underground setting. Metro 2033 uses the setting as a back drop to showcase some of the best visuals of any games out now, making it the ideal benchmark for those looking for the best graphics card.

The bundled benchmarking tool was used on Metro 2033, configuring the settings to High and making use of DirectX 11. The frontline scene was looped 3 times for each configuration. The average FPS was recorded at the end.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Skyrim is not a direct successor to the very popular Oblivion. Instead it takes place 200 years after the events of Oblivion. The non-linear playing that made the Elder Scrolls such a popular series does however make a return along with the beautiful scenery the encompasses the world of Skyrim.

Average and minimum frames per second were measured using Fraps during the drop down passage to Riverwood. V-sync was disabled to allow fluctuating (higher the 60) FPS for these runs. It is however recommended that v-sync is left enabled during normal gameplay due to the games dynamics.

Batman: Arkham City

Batman: Arkham City builds upon the intense, atmospheric foundation of Batman: Arkham Asylum, sending players soaring into Arkham City, the new maximum security “home” for all of Gotham City’s thugs, gangsters and insane criminal masterminds. Set inside the heavily fortified walls of a sprawling district in the heart of Gotham City, this highly anticipated sequel introduces a brand-new story that draws together a new all-star cast of classic characters and murderous villains from the Batman universe, as well as a vast range of new and enhanced gameplay features to deliver the ultimate experience as the Dark Knight.

The results below were obtained from the builtin benchmark utility from the game. All the settings were set to

DiRT 3

As players race to elevate their global standing, DiRT 3 is back delivering mud, sweat and gears world over: from the intense weather-beaten rally stages of Europe, Africa and the US, to executing performance driving showcases and career challenges where car control is pushed to spectacular limits.

The in-game benchmarking tool was used to test performance. All the display settings were set to the maximum available and DirectX 11 was applied. The average FPS was recorded at the end.

Futuremark: 3DMark 2011

3DMark 11 is the latest version of the world’s most popular benchmark. Designed to measure your PC’s gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. The benchmark was run in both Performance and Extreme presets.

Unigine: Heaven 2.5

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine™ engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Conclusion

The XFX R7770 makes an average card better. While HD7770 can game at 1920×1080 (just), the R7770 Black Edition enhances this experience a little thanks to the pre-overclocks applied to the card and of course, the custom cooler which not only runs pretty much silent but also has the minerals to keep the graphics card’s temperatures well under control, even when placed under the highest stress.

The packaging and presentation of the XFX R7770 Black Edition is second to none. While the exterior may seem diminiutive compared to some of the oversized boxes used by some manufacturers, the product is crammed full of near everything you could want from a graphics card package. Perhaps the only additional item I would have liked to have seen would be a 6pin PCIe to twin Molex connector for those who still have an older PSU.

Aesthetically, the card is a stunner of that there can be no doubt. The Double Dissipation cooler is not over the top nor is it discreet, instead it oozes quality and craftmanship most graphics card manufacturers can only dream of. Think of this as the LianLi of GPU’s and you won’t be too far off the mark.

The one issue I take with the XFX R7770 Black Edition is the price. Much the same as the reference HD7770, the pricing of the XFX card is too high. Compared to the HD7770 it is most certainly worth the extra money but when the HD7770 is overpriced to begin with, the additional cost of the XFX R7770 Black Edition only compounds the issue. For a similar price you could buy a last generation HD6850 which will out strip todays review sample in terms of raw performance. The Cape Verde technology cannot compete with the green teams GTX560 so despite how much polish and glamour your add to the HD7770, it still will not offer good value for money because bang per buck, there are better solutions available. If AMD drop the prices of Cape Verde by some £30, then I forsee the HD7770’s popularity will begin to rise somewhat however, at its current price, I fear people may look elsewhere for their performance hit which is a shame as despite mediocre FPS figures, the Cape Verde has some great features.

This of course is not a fault of XFX for they can only work with what they are given and in the R7770 Black Edition, they have truly done a fantastic job. It’s great looking, cool running, it overclocks extremely well (despite the already large overclocks present) and is presented in a class leading package so for that they should be applauded. So if you can see past the inflated price and you are in the market for a HD7770 then look no further than the XFX card as you won’t be disappointed in what it has to offer.

Pros:
+ Class leading packaging
+ Great GPU overclocking
+ Excellent cooling performance and looks
+ Very Quiet
+ Black PCB

Cons:
– Expensive at this performance level
– Barely playable framerates above 1920×1080 with filters applied
– 1GB GDDR5 may not be enough for some