XFX Radeon R7770 Black Edition Video Card

Written by David Ramsey

Tuesday, 14 February 2012

Table of Contents: Page Index
XFX Radeon R7770 Black Edition Video Card
AMD Southern Islands GPU
Closer Look: XFX Radeon HD 7770
FX-777A-ZDSC Detailed Features
Features and Specifications
Video Card Testing Methodology
DX11: 3DMark11
DX11: Crysis 2
DX11: Batman: Arkham City
DX11: Aliens vs Predator
DX11: Lost Planet 2
DX11: Metro 2033
DX11: Unigine Heaven 2.5
XFX 7770 Super OC Temperatures
Power Consumption and Overclocking
XFX Radeon 7770 Final Thoughts
XFX R7770 Black Edition Conclusion

Page 1 of 17

XFX R7770 Black Super Overclocked Edition

Manufacturer: XFX Creation, Inc.
Product Name: R7770 Black Super Overclocked Edition with Double Dissipation
Part Number: FX-777A-ZDSC
Suggested Retail Price: $179.99 MSRP

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by XFX.

AMD might have trouble keeping up with the competition in the CPU arena, but their acquisition of ATI allowed them to become a major player in the graphics world. AMD and NVIDIA regularly trade places in the "fastest video card" rankings, and while NVIDIA's been good holding down the title with its current high-end, the Fermi-based GTX 580, AMD's new "Tahiti" GPU decisively stole the performance crown in its 7970 form.

In recent weeks Benchmark Reviews has had the privilege of testing XFX' top-end overclocked versions of cards based on the Radeon 7970 and Radeon 7950 GPUs. We were very impressed with their performance, low noise levels, and "ZeroPower" technology. However, at $600 and $500, respectively, they're out of the price range of most enthusiasts. Cards based on AMD's Pitcairn and Cape Verde GPUs should be much less expensive. Today we have XFX' factory-overclocked version of the Cape Verde-based Radeon 7770 GPU. At $179.99, it's much less expensive than the Tahiti-based cards, but how will its performance compare?

Although it's much smaller, the XFX 7770 Black Super Overclocked Edition with Double Dissipation is visually very similar to its big brother cards.

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Comments

# RE: XFX Radeon R7770 Black Edition Video Card — Ali 2012-02-16 02:32

People please wait again for another 3 or 4 months to get this product come to its true place ... i m getting frustrated with such high pricing strategy from AMD

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# Voltage Control — Chris 2012-02-16 08:11

I might be wrong, but I did not see if this card allows control of the vCore. This is a must have option IMHO. Not all cards allow this. For Example, the VisionTek 6850's are not able to up the voltage. Not even flashing the BIOS with a custom profile will work.

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# RE: Voltage Control — David Ramseyd 2012-02-16 08:17

Right now the various hacking tools (MSI Afterburner) for the AMD GCN graphics cards are in a pretty primitive state. I wasn't able to get voltage control working for the 7970 and 7950 cards, and didn't even try with the 7770. I'm sure this will change in the future, though.

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# No physx a con? — Pat 2012-02-16 10:09

I don't understand why bmr keeps giving AMD cards a negative because they have no physx. It's not like they even have a choice since physx is proprietary. It's like holding nVidia cards responsible because they don't support eyefinity. I respect your opinion on including this, I just would be interested why you choose to include that.

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# RE: No physx a con? — David Ramseyd 2012-02-16 10:20

According to NVIDIA, PhysX is an open standard anyone can write to. They were saying this as early as 2008. There are doubtless behind-the-scenes reasons nobody else has implemented it; and there are competing physics engines like Havok and Bullet, but it all begs the point: it's a significant advantage to NVIDIA cards since so many games use it. Your Eyefinity example isn't a good one since NVIDIA provides equivalent functionality with their "Surround" feature. I tend not to weight either of these too heavily since only a tiny fraction of users run triple monitor setups.

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# RE: XFX Radeon R7770 Black Edition Video Card — Pat 2012-02-16 10:40

I know you don't push it too much which I appreciate because there are enough people that don't understand what it means exactly. I don't begrudge nVidia for owning physx but as far as I know it will only run on nVidia hardware. Sure, the software may be open for development but if it isn't able to run on anything but nVidia cards doesn't that make it being an open standard kind of pointless? As for the eyefinity example. I realize it's not the clearest example but my point was that it's an AMD technology that nVidia doesn't have. You bring up that nVidia has surround however surround isn't exactly equivalent considering anything I can find about says it supports a max of three monitors whereas eyefinity supports 6. I'm not saying one or the other is better just that they're different in functionality. I can see your point though and the more I think about it, the more I see the reason for including physx. I just haven't seen it come up as a topic on here before. It would be interesting to see a review on physx, not in pure numbers but rather simply did it look/feel much better with physx? Hey, maybe with enough pressure AMD would pick it up and use it. I can dream huh?

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# RE: RE: XFX Radeon R7770 Black Edition Video Card — David Ramseyd 2012-02-16 10:46

How much of a difference PhysX makes depends of course on how well the developer uses it in a game. Probably the best showcases for the technology are the Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City titles. The games are perfectly playable without PhysX but it really adds to the atmosphere when it's enabled.

You're right about Surround being limited to 3 monitors, which is probably why AMD has been showing off 5-monitor setups of late. I know one or two people with triple monitor setups, but the only 5-monitor setup I've ever seen was an an AMD press event. Impressive, yes; real-world utility, well...

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# RE: XFX Radeon R7770 Black Edition Video Card — Pat 2012-02-16 11:25

Well I like the battle that's shaping up with this gen of cards. nVidia has their advantages, AMD has theirs (primarily first strike). I just hope nVidia punches back hard enough that they force AMD to drop prices. This HD 7770 would be just what I need to replace the 8800GT that recently died in my spare computer. Unless you know something about the next nVidia cards you'd like to share ;)

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# RE: RE: XFX Radeon R7770 Black Edition Video Card — David Ramseyd 2012-02-16 12:12

If you Google "Kepler", you'll know everything about the forthcoming NVIDIA cards that I do...

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# RE: RE: RE: XFX Radeon R7770 Black Edition Video Card — Pat 2012-02-16 12:13

Just teasing. I look forward to a review on one as soon as you get it though! bmr is my go to!

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# Good and bad,... — realneil 2012-02-16 11:35

I like the looks of this card. It's striking.
But the price turns all of that off immediately. If the price were to fall a ~good~ bit, I could see running a pair of them in my A8-3850 Vision PC. The low power usage and lower heat appeal to me.

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# RE: Good and bad,... — Pat 2012-02-16 12:07

Yeah I think if they can get down to $130-$140 that'd be great. I mean, yeah I'd like it to drop more but I don't see that happening unless nVidia REALLY kicks their butt in this segment

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# amd is overpriced — AMD Radeon 2012-02-16 21:10

yes, amd is now selling high price vga card

you know, it is still have driver issue with crossfire
check this AMD Radeon 7970 Crossfire Skyrim Benchmark

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# Debating... — Professor Oak 2012-07-05 19:20

I read through all the reviews, and I found one of these cards used for $110, would that be a good price for it?

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# RE: Debating... — David Ramsey 2012-07-05 21:24

New, the cards are currently $144 at Newegg. So you could save $30 with the used one, I suppose.

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