Legit Video Card Reviews

AMD Radeon HD 7770 and 7750 Video Card Reviews

Manufacturer: XFX
Product: Cape Verde Graphics Cards
Date: Tue, Feb 14, 2012 - 11:00 PM
Written By: Nathan Kirsch -
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XFX Radeon HD 7770 Black Edition

XFX was kind enough to send us over a retail card prior to the Radeon HD 7770 NDA lift, so we'll also be looking at their card today. The card that XFX sent over is the Radeon HD 7770 Black Super Overclocked Edition featuring Double Dissipation!  This graphics card has the longest product name of any that we have ever seen before!  

XFX R7770 Black Edition

XFX Radeon HD 7770 Series Video Cards:

XFX offers five AMD Radeon HD 7770 cards and the card that we were sent just happens to be the flagship model.

  • Core Edition (FX-777A-ZNF4 & FX-777A-ZNFC) - 1000MHz Core Clock
  • Double Dissipation Edition (FX-777A-ZDF4 & FX-777A-ZDFC) - 1000MHz Core Clock
  • Black Edition (FX-777A-ZNB4 & FX-777A-ZNBC) - 1095MHz Core Cock
  • Back Edition Double Dissipation (FX-777A-ZDB4 & FX-777A-ZDBC) - 1095MHz Core Clock
  • Black Super Overclocked Edition w/ Double Dissipation (FX-777A-ZDSC) - 1120MHz Core Clock

The XFX R7770 Black Super Overclocked Edition featuring Double Dissipation will cost $179 or $20 more than the standard clocked cards. Asking for $20 more than the reference design isn't too bad considering you get a better cooler and a much higher memory and core clock.

XFX R7950 Black Edition Card Retail Box

Inside the colorful outside box we found a smaller box.

XFX R7950 Black Edition Card Retail Box
Inside the inner box you'll find a ton of fliers for other XFX products, a quick install guide, the driver disc and, of course, the famous XFX 'do not disturb' door hanger that has been included for years. Under the paper work you'll find the card itself, the CrossFireX bridge interconnect, HDMI to DVI cable, DVI to VGA adapter, and a very large metal case badge that looks pretty cool.
XFX R7770 Black Edition

The XFX Radeon HD 7770 Black Super Overclocked Edition featuring Double Dissipation is a factory overclocked card that we are looking at today and has an 1120MHz core clock and a memory clock of 1300MHz (5200MHz effective). This is a 12% overclock on the core clock, so we should see a nice performance bump in the benchmarks with this video card.

XFX R7770 Black Edition Back

Turning the XFX Radeon HD 7770 over we don't find too many interesting things as the card doesn't have a back plate or any of the GDDR5 memory chips on the back of the PCB. The AMD Radeon HD 7770 reference design used a small GPU heatsink support on the back of the card, but XFX is not using it. The measurements are identical to the AMD reference design. 

XFX

XFX is using PCB model number is 109-C44157-00P, which is a newer revision of the AMD reference design.

XFX R7950 Video Card Warranty

We noticed that the GPU cooler screws have stickers on them and if you remove them or break the seal to get to the screws it will terminate the two year warranty that XFX places on all Radeon HD 7000 series cards. 

XFX R7950 Video Card DVI Connectors

The XFX Radeon HD 7770 has a pair of mini-DisplayPort 1.2 connectors, a full size HDMI 1.4a, and a dual-link DVI-I when it comes to video outputs just like the reference design. The only difference here is that XFX placed their logo in the exhaust fan as you can see in the image above.

XFX R7770 Black Edition

Since the XFX Radeon HD 7770 uses the AMD reference PCB the main differentiating factor is the custom GPU cooler that they are using on the card.  The GPU cooler design has two fans with Ghost Thermal Technology for improved cooling performance.

XFX R7770 Black Edition

The XFX R770 has a single 6-pin PCIe power connector located along at the end of the PCB that need to be hooked up just like the reference design as it uses the same PCB.

XFX R7770 Black Edition

Looking across the top of the card you can see the copper base plate on the GPU cooler and a large set of aluminum cooling fins that help keep it cool.  The PCB have some sag to it, so a PCB stiffening solution might not have been a bad idea here as this is what you'll see when it is installed and you are looking at the card.

Next Page - AMD Radeon HD 7750


Review Index
Page 1 - AMD Introduces Cape Verde - 7700 Series
Page 2 - AMD Radeon HD 7770
Page 3 - XFX Radeon HD 7770 Black Edition
Page 4 - AMD Radeon HD 7750
Page 5 - The Test System
Page 6 - Batman: Arkham City
Page 7 - Battlefield 3
Page 8 - Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Page 9 - DiRT 3
Page 10 - H.A.W.X. 2
Page 11 - Just Cause 2
Page 12 - Metro 2033
Page 13 - 3DMark 11
Page 14 - Power Consumption
Page 15 - Temperature & Noise Testing
Page 16 - Overclocking The Radeon HD 7750
Page 17 - Overclocking The Radeon HD 7770
Page 18 - Final Thoughts & Conclusions