Gigabyte HD 7770 OC GPU (1GB GDDR5) Review

Benchmarks Results

I installed the Gigabyte HD 7770 OC in my 24/7 system, it consists of:

For the first set of benchmarks I loaded BIOS defaults and applied the ram’s XMP profile.  For the second (overclocked) set I raised the CPU clock to a reasonable 4.2GHz overclock, this is attainable for 95% of the 2500k and 2600k CPUs in existence with an inexpensive cooler.  We’ll start with a pair of game benchmarks and finish with a few synthetics.

Street Fighter IV (DX 9)
Default Benchmark – 1680×1050, AA x16, AF x16, Ultra Detail

“Test whether your hardware is up to scratch for the PC release of Street Fighter 4. Capcom has released Street Fighter 4 PC benchmark tool, allowing you to test how well the fighter will run on your computer or if you simply want to oggle it in motion. The 397MB download contains several bouts, filled with hadoukens and kicks to the face. You can also rate your system the old-fashioned way — against the requirements. A tool which allows you to measure the performance for your PC.” Guru 3D.com

113FPS is far more than enough! Quite impressive, really.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Skyrim is the 5th game in Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series, it is also by far the most graphically demanding of the series and looks quite nice.  It lacks a built in benchmark so I used Fraps to record max/min/ave frame rates for the first 60 seconds of the introduction scene, starting when the game title shows up after hitting New Game.  I used a resolution of 1680×1050 and the “Ultra” graphical settings.

38FPS is quite playable, 45-55 is even better of course.  I am quite impressed that the 7770 OC did this well as Skyrim is a demanding game.

Unigine Heaven (DX9/DX11) (HWBot Edition)

“Unigine Corp announced its release of the first DirectX 11 benchmark “Heaven” that is based on its proprietary Unigine engine. The company has already made a name among the overclockers and gaming enthusiasts for uncovering the realm of true GPU capabilities with previously released “Sanctuary” and “Tropics” demos. Their benchmarking capabilities are coupled with striking visual integrity of the refined graphic art.” – Guru3D.com

The HWBot edition adds a wrapper on the basic benchmark to ensure the settings are set the same way for every run as well as to provide a proof file for submitting to HWBot.org.

Heaven DX9:

1667 is solid, better than I expected.

Heaven DX11:

DX11 adds tessellation, which slows things down a bit.  Still the 7770OC powers through and lays down a respectable score for its price range.

3D Mark Vantage
Performance Benchmark – 1280×1024 (Performance Preset)

“3DMark Vantage is a gamers’ benchmark for the DX10 platform. Its primary purpose is to help gamers evaluate their system performance for gaming use, and through online services relate the tested system to other available hardware. This should provide true value to gamers by enabling them to make better purchasing decisions, and to compete against each other in system performance. There are three guiding principles to  follow in determining the benchmark test mix, architecture, content and scoring. 3DMark Vantage focuses on the two areas most critical to gaming performance: the CPU and the GPU.” – Guru3D.com

Not bad at all!

3DMark11

“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. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.” —3dmark.com

3DMark11 is a truly brutal load designed to test cards like the 7970 to their limits, applying it to a mid range card like the 7770 OC almost felt cruel, but it powered through and laid down yet another respectable score.

At no time during the benchmarking did I hear the fan.