discussion ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB GDDR5 Review

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Crysis: Warhead (DX10)

Crysis: Warhead (DX10)

To benchmark Warhead, we recorded a 5 minute timedemo on the Ice level which included ranged and hand to hand combat. The sequence was then played back using the Crysis Benchmarking Tool from HOC

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Crysis Warhead DX10 is very tough on GPUs and that really shows in this test where we are comparing mid-range offerings instead of the ultra high end products. Here the HD 4770 stays ahead of both the 9800 GT and HD 4830 and at some points comes within 10% of the 9800 GTX+.

 

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Fallout 3

Fallout 3

For these Fallout 3 benchmarks we decided to use one of the more graphically intensive portions of the game: a gameplay session which starts at the exit from Vault 101, through Springvale, over a small hill towards Washington and then back towards Megaton. Within this session two ants were fought near Springvale. All in all, the gameplay time is about 6 minutes.

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With their latest driver revision, Nvidia promised some performance increases in Fallout 3 and this proves to be their saving grace. Here the HD 4770 narrowly edges out the 9800 GT in most of the tests (with the exception of the 4x/1680 test) and gets beaten by the Nvidia card with 4xAA enabled at 1920 resolution.

 

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Far Cry 2 (DX9)

Far Cry 2 (DX9)

Even though Far Cry 2 has its own built-in benchmarking tool with some flythroughs and “action scenes”, we decided to record our own timedemo consisting of about 7 minutes of game time. It involves everything from run-and-gun fights to fire effects. The built-in benchmarking too was then set up to replay the timedemo and record framerates

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The HD 4770's performance in this game seems to be all over the place. At one point it displays massive potential in combating the 9800 GTX+ while at other points it is barely ahead of the HD 4830. Nonetheless, its performance is extremely good all across the board.

 

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Far Cry 2 (DX10)

Far Cry 2 (DX10)

Even though Far Cry 2 has its own built-in benchmarking tool with some flythroughs and “action scenes”, we decided to record our own timedemo consisting of about 7 minutes of game time. It involves everything from run-and-gun fights to fire effects. The built-in benchmarking too was then set up to replay the timedemo and record framerates

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If you thought that the Far Cry DX9 results were odd, check these bad boys out. It seems like the DX10 version of this game loves high memory clocks when AA is disabled but the GPU itself becomes a bottleneck when AA is turned on. This is why the GDDR5 equipped HD 4770 can move up in the rankings during certain tests but drops like a stone in others.

 

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Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto IV

Due to the limitations the game puts on the graphics presets and how they can be adjusted, we decided to tweak our install. To do this we added a .txt file within the main game install folder with the command parameters –norestrictions and –nomemrestrict. In addition to this, we added a command line to effectively fool the game into thinking 512MB cards were in fact able to access 1GB of memory. Unfortunately, this means a 512MB card will in fact be accessing slower system memory to make up for the discrepancy but that is a necessary evil to get comparable results. Finally, view distance was limited to 65%.

In this test we used a typical didn’t use the built-in benchmark but rather used a 10 minute gameplay sequence of which approximately 6 minutes were spent on foot while the remainder was spent driving. All results were recorded with FRAPS.

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Here the HD 4770 is able to stay far ahead of the HD 4830 and actually gets very close in performance to the HD 4850 even though its minimum framerates can't compete at higher resolutions.

 

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Left 4 Dead: Survival Pack

Left 4 Dead: Survival Pack

For benching Left 4 Dead, we used a pre-recorded timedemo taken on the No Mercy campaign during The Rooftop Finale mission. Framerates were captured with FRAPS.

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The HD 4770's performance proves to be a bit of a mixed bag in Left 4 Dead. It is unfortunate that it seems to be edged out by the HD 4830 when AA is turned on but this could be a driver issue considering this card's performance in other games.

 

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Tom Clancy’s Hawx (DX9)

Tom Clancy’s Hawx (DX9)

Even though HawX has a built-in benchmarking tool, we found that it did not provide accurate enough results needed to reflect what actual in-game performance would be. Thus, we played through the first 6 minutes of a mission and recorded the results with FRAPS.

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Nvidia's drivers do wonders with this game in DX9 mode so the ATI cards just can't compete.

 

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Tom Clancy’s Hawx (DX10)

Tom Clancy’s Hawx (DX10)

Even though HawX has a built-in benchmarking tool, we found that it did not provide accurate enough results needed to reflect what actual in-game performance would be. Thus, we played through the first 6 minutes of a mission and recorded the results with FRAPS.

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Once again the memory speeds of the HD 4770 benefit it in certain circumstances but in other cases, the overall performance is slightly above that of the 9800 GT.

 

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Heat & Acoustics / Power Consumption

Heat & Acoustics

For the heat test, all cards are set up on an open test bench in a room with a controlled ambient temperature of 22°C.

* HD4850 1GB is a custom cooled card from Gigabyte​

The temperatures seen with this new 40nm core look very good upon first glance. Indeed, for a card that performs like the HD 4770, these temperatures are downright amazing and almost put it in line with the non-reference Gigabyte HD 4850 1GB. The one little stumbling block is that the idle results are very similar to those we recorded on a HD 4830. Remember, the HD 4830 has a very compact single slot cooler and its core uses the (supposedly) less efficient 55nm manufacturing process. Meanwhile, the HD 4770 uses a large dual slot cooler sporting an aluminum fin assembly many other cards would be jealous of but maintains an idle temperature that is only 1°C better than the HD 4830. This could be due to any number of scenarios from heatsink base quality to mounting pressure to the fact that our HD 4830 is one of the cooler-running samples but we still needed to bring this up.

All the way at the beginning of this review we stated that in many cases a 2-pin fan header raises red flags when it comes to noise. However, the HD 4770 bucks this trend by being near-silent most of the time with its fan spinning at a mere 30% of its rated output. We say most of the time because every now and then the fan will increase its speed significantly for about two to three seconds which was distracting. However, the fan speed was completely adjustable through the Catalyst Control Center.

Power Consumption

For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption while letting the card sit at a stable Windows desktop for 30 minutes to determine the peak idle power consumption. We have also included several other tests as well. Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.

* HD4850 1GB is a custom card from Gigabyte​

At load, the HD 4770 proves itself to be very efficient even when compared to some lower performing cards which proves that ATI is striding to have the best of both worlds: gaming power and efficiency.

While ATI can celebrate all they want when it comes to overall full load efficiency, idle power consumption is still something that needs to be worked on. There has been some talk floating around regarding the power consumption of GDDR5 memory and we wouldn’t doubt this is one of the contributing factors here. Nonetheless, the HD 4770 remains one of the most efficient products we have tested and a few watts more or less when idling isn’t going to completely blow your electricity bill.

 

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Overclocking Results

Overclocking Results

It seems like everyone is hoping that the new 40nm core will result in some amazing overclocking results for this little card. Even though we have already determined that the cooler is more than up to the task of keeping temperatures under control, approaching overclocking of a new card is never an easy thing.

Final Core Overclock: 830Mhz
Final Memory Overclock: 3400Mhz

Unfortunately, we were once again foiled by the limits imposed by the Catalyst Control Center. Nonetheless, 200Mhz more on the memory and a bump of 80Mhz on the core is nothing to scoff at. The problem is that it was more than obvious that the card had much more left in the tank. I am already anxious to see what kind of results can be achieved once aftermarket software begins supporting the HD 4770.