XFX Radeon HD 7770 Super Overclocked Edition Video Card Review
Introduction
Contents
The new Radeon HD 7770 (a.k.a. “Cape Verde XT”) is a mainstream graphics chip based on the latest graphics architecture from AMD, dubbed “Graphics Core Next” or simply “GCN,” which supports the new PCI Express 3.0 connection and the latest DirectX version (11.1). Let’s see how the Super Overclocked Edition from XFX fared in our tests.
For a detailed explanation of the new features present on this latest architecture, please read our Radeon HD 7970 review.
XFX released four different video cards based on the Radeon HD 7770. In the table below, we compare the differences between them. All of them have 1 GB of GDDR5 memory with a 128-bit interface. The “Core Edition” and the “Double Dissipation Edition” use the stock clocks, while the other two models come overclocked.
| Model | Part Number | Core Clock | Memory Clock (Effective) | Memory Transfer Rate | Cooler | Price |
| Core Edition | FX-777A-ZNF4 | 1 GHz | 4.5 GHz | 72 GB/s | One Fan | USD 160 |
| Double Dissipation | FX-777A-ZDF4 | 1 GHz | 4.5 GHz | 72 GB/s | Two Fans | USD 170 |
| Black Edition | FX-777A-ZDB4 | 1,095 MHz | 4.98 GHz | 79.68 GB/s | Two Fans | USD 180 |
| Super Overclocked | FX-777A-ZDSC | 1.12 GHz | 5.2 GHz | 83.2 GB/s | Two Fans | USD 185 |
In the table below, we compare the main specifications of the video cards included in our review. The prices listed below do not include rebates and are for the models with the clock and memory configurations listed below. Prices were researched at Newegg.com on the day we published this review, except for the Radeon HD 7770 and the XFX Radeon HD 7770 Super Overclocked, which are the prices advertised by AMD and XFX, respectively.
| Video Card | Core Clock | Shader Clock | Memory Clock (Effective) | Memory Interface | Memory Transfer Rate | Memory | Shaders | DirectX | Price |
| XFX Radeon HD 7770 Super Overclocked | 1.12 GHz | 1.12 GHz | 5.2 GHz | 128-bit | 83.2 GB/s | 1 GB GDDR5 | 640 | 11.1 | USD 185 |
| Radeon HD 7770 | 1 GHz | 1 GHz | 4.5 GHz | 128-bit | 72 GB/s | 1 GB GDDR5 | 640 | 11.1 | USD 150 |
| Radeon HD 6850 | 775 MHz | 775 MHz | 4 GHz | 256-bit | 128 GB/s | 1 GB GDDR5 | 960 | 11 | USD 140 – 170 |
| GeForce GTX 460 | 675 MHz | 1,350 MHz | 3.6 GHz | 256-bit | 115.2 GB/s | 1 GB GDDR5 | 336 | 11 | USD 140 – 150 |
You can compare the specs of these video cards with other video cards by taking a look at our “AMD ATI Chips Comparison Table” and “NVIDIA Chips Comparison Table” tutorials.
Today, only the LGA2011 Core i7 processors (“Sandy Bridge-E”) have a PCI Express 3.0 controller. In our Radeon HD 7970 review, we discovered that, at this time, there is no difference between using a PCI Express 2.0 or a PCI Express 3.0 connection. Since the reviewed video card is a mainstream product, we decided to use a different testing platform, based on a Core i5-2500K processor.
Now let’s take a complete look at the XFX Radeon HD 7770 Super Overclocked Edition.