XFX HD 4770

Full Review

At the very outset, what makes the XFX HD 4770 special is that it is the world’s first card manufactured on a 40nm process. This means that as per ATI’s design, the card runs on lesser power and is cheaper to manufacture. If you take our word, we believe this is the way for graphics cards in the near future.

Out of the box, we noticed that XFX has taken cooling seriously and as a result we have a large silent-running fan over the core. The card still requires an additional power input but heating and noise was hardly an issue. Like the other cards in our Top 5, the HD 4770 also has dual DVI ports and a single Video-Out port. Along with the card, you get a bundle that consists of DVI-VGA and DVI-HDMI adaptors, Video-Out cables, a driver CD and a manual.

With the 4770, XFX has taken cooling seriously and as a result you have a large silent-running fan over the core.

In our performance tests we started off with the 3D Mark suite of benchmarks. In 3D Mark ’06, the card scored 13,279 while in Vantage, it scored 4929 in High mode. In comparison, the HD 4850 scored almost exact numbers. This trend was carried forward in our gaming benchmarks, there was nothing to separate the two cards. In fact, in many of the games, the XFX was neck-in-neck with the Zotac GTS 250. For e.g. in Crysis at 1680x1050, with 4xAA and all settings at High, the HD 4770 managed the exact frame-rates (26) as the GTS 250.

The XFX HD 4770 is priced at Rs. 7,500 and is equivalent to the HD 4850 in terms of both price and performance. It does however run cooler and quieter and emerges as the best mid-range ATI card in the market.

Bottom Line

The best ATI card under Rs. 10,000, the XFX HD 4770 does not compromise on performance.