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The HD 7770 at its heart carries all of the same features offered on the whole 7XXX series line from top to bottom just with minor changes to the CPU architecture which will undoubtedly change its performance a bit.
In the box we get to the accessory pack which assists with connectivity of the card. In the box we received the following:
- Quick install and user guide
- HDMI Cable
- Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort adapter
- DVI to VGA adapter
- Molex 4P to PCIe 6P adapter
- Crossfire Bridge
As you can see here the card comes with all of the connectivity cables and adapter’s necessary to get you up and running on any modern display type.
Unboxed and ready the HD 7770 Vapor-X Edition is a nice looking card with a clean simplistic appearance. Nothing jumps off the card and screams cheap which is a huge plus as many times we have seen companied throw on a cheap looking cooler or a cooler that covers only part of the card and makes the card look very bad. In this case the card just at a glance without the HD 7770 Label of course would be indistinguishable from a much higher end card which makes it just flat out look like a very nice card.
| Output | 2 x Dual-Link DVI 1 x HDMI (with 3D) 1 x DisplayPort DisplayPort 1.2 |
| GPU | 1100 MHz Core Clock 28 nm Chip 640 x Stream Processors |
| Memory | 1024 MB Size 128 -bit GDDR5 5200 MHz Effective |
| Dimension | 225(L)x110(W)x43(H) mm Size. |
| Software | Driver CD |
| Accessory | DVI to VGA Adapter 6 PIN to 4 PIN Power Cable |
Here are the specs as written by Sapphire and honestly they are quite impressive for a value driven card. Being a GHz edition card you know that the core clock is going to be a slight bit higher than 1GHz and Sapphire delivered that and then some with a core clock frequency of 1100MHz. Memory is not left in the cold here as it is 1GB of GDDR5 and is quite highly clocked out of the box with an operating frequency of 5200 MHz effective or 1300MHz. The GPU is a 28nm variant sporting 10 Compute cores supporting 640 stream processors, 40 texture units, 64 Z/Stencil ROP units and 16 color ROP units.
The outputs on the Sapphire HD 7770 GHz Edition are:
- 1X DVI (1x DVI-I)
- 1X HDMI Port
- 2X Mini DisplayPort
DVI Supports up to 2560 x 1600 at 60Hz refresh rate which should be more than enough for most gamers display choice even though market research does show that most gamers game at approximately 1920 x 1080 presently anyways so this will support your future display choice as well.
HDMI Supports up to Quad HD 4K (4096 x 2160) which some displays have just landed on the scene and are extremely expensive but if you’re looking for the highest resolution display it can easily be done here. Besides the 4K support which not many will run presently the HDMI also supports stereoscopic 3D modes for a more in-depth 3D video experience.
Mini DisplayPort also supports Quad HD 4K (4096 x 2160) while also still supporting the Stereoscopic 3D modes for excellent video playback as well. The Mini DisplayPort connections are version 1.2 which offers double the bandwidth of previous implementations which in turn allows for connection of up to 4 displays from a single DisplayPort 1.2 connector while also passing a full lossless 7.1 channel audio signal.
The cooler on the HD7770 GHz Edition card is a dual slot design with a center mounted fan. As we mentioned previously Sapphire did a great job with the cooler and shrouding to ensure that that the card looks quality and even has a quality feel to it as the shroud is a nice rigid plastic directing the airflow from the center mounted fan through the heatpipe coolers fin array.
Just like any HD 7770 card this model supports full crossfire capability but only up to 2 GPU’s. This being a mainstream model card is not really a surprise as the dual connector (4 way capable) models are usually the enthusiasts variety and once again upon studies most gamers utilize 1-2 GPU’s so this is not necessarily an omission n a bad way by AMD and more a sign of good sense from their engineering team.
The HD7770 by default carries a 6Pin power connector which means most decent 450-500W PSU will support the card with little issue unless of course you’re planning Crossfire or a large multitude of connected drives. At the end of the day this card adds up to be quite a value for budget gamers as it allows lowering of the cost of entry for a gaming card but also lower cost of entry for the PSU as well. Below you can see the system requirements for the card.
- PCI Express® based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard.
- 2X75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express power connector is required for CrossFireX™ system.
- 1X75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express power connector is required.
- Certified power supplies are recommended. Please refer to: http://support.amd.com/us/certified/power-supplies/Pages/listing.aspx
- 1024MBMinimum of system memory.
- Installation software requires CD-ROM drive.
- DVD playback requires DVD drive.
- Blu-ray™ / HD DVD playback requires Blu-ray / HD DVD drive.
- For an AMD CrossFireX™ system, a second same AMD Radeon™ graphics card, an AMD CrossFireX™ Ready motherboard and one AMD CrossFireX Bridge Interconnect cable per graphics card (optional) are required.
- To support 3 displays, one of the monitors has to support DisplayPort.
- 450 Watt Power Supply is required.
The HD7770 offers full support for PCIe Gen 3.0 spec which with a midrange card such as this is good but we know it will not be fully utilized but this definitely goes well for anyone going Ivy Bridge as now a dual slot or even mATX board with dual slots running x8 each will have a full x8 Gen 3.0 link to the card which is similar to x16 Gen 2.0 bandwidth. This means there would be very little to no bottleneck on a standard budget Ivy based gaming rig in a Crossfire configuration for an awesome budget gamer.
