PowerColor Radeon HD 7730 1GB Graphics Card Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

In the UK we are seeing pricing of £48.93 for the Powercolor 1GB DDR3 HD 7730, £51.50 for the 2GB Powercolor DDR3 HD 7730 and £53.21 for the 1GB GDDR5 Powercolor HD 7730 – that’s the one we’ve tested here today and this one is the fastest model available as GDDR5 is much faster than DDR3 even when there is less of it, I’d say there is very little point of even buying the DDR3 version – both the 1GB and 2GB models will be slower. If we compare the HD 7730 to the main competitors which are the AMD HD 6670 and Nvidia GT 640 then we can see it is priced very favourably. The 1GB HD 6670 costs about £50~ and the 1GB GT 640 costs around £65-75 depending on whether you choose DDR3 or GDDR5. Of course the GT 630 can be had for a similar price as AMD’s HD 7730 but with the GT 640 being almost blown away by the HD 7730 in our testing that would almost certainly be a bad option for most budget gamers. In the USA we could only see one HD 7730 using DDR3 and that costs around $74.99 – highly uncompetitive as you can pick up HD 7750s for as low as $80/85.

Conclusion

The HD 7730, here in the UK at least, is the successor to the HD 6670 that everyone was looking for. While the end of the market that the HD 7730 sits in is hardly exciting, it does appeal to a wide audience. Not many people want to spend loads of money on discrete graphics when integrated graphics “do the job” but for around £50 AMD are doing something that Nvidia simply do not do. They are offering a level of performance you will not get if you buy any other graphics card. The current budget favourites that can be had at the £50 price point or lower are the GT 630, HD 5450, HD 6570 and HD 6670. So it is already an AMD dominated segment but let’s just categorically state that the HD 7730 buries Nvidia at this price point. In fact the HD 7730 is capable of taking on the GT 640 and winning, which costs around £65. The HD 7730 is exciting for budget gamers because it is super-cheap and with overclocking you can get to a level of performance most people probably didn’t realise was possible at the £50 price point. Even without overclocking, because let’s face it – that isn’t what this card is aimed at, the HD 7730 is an amazing value for money card. Our testing shows that the card would be capable of powering all modern games at medium detail levels and is capable of running Eyefinity but doesn’t really have the horsepower for intense gaming at that resolution. Of course for the price you’re unlikely to be using more than one display but it is great to know the HD 7730 is so versatile.

In terms of what Powercolor have done, well there is very little to comment on. This card, being marketed at the pure budget segment, is more or less entirely reference and makes us of a very budget cooling solution with mediocre cooling capabilities though it is reasonably quiet due to the small fan and relatively low heat output of the card. That said we could still overclock this card to the CCC maximum and have it stay within acceptable temperatures so it again comes back to the question of do you want a better performing or better looking cooler or do you just want the most bang for your buck, this is clearly the latter.

Pros

• Has the best price to performance ratio of its market segment
• Overclocks to near-HD 7750 levels
• No additional power required, very low power
• Compact, discrete and relatively quiet

Cons

• Cooling solution leaves a lot to be desired
• In the USA the HD 7730 costs almost as much as the HD 7750
• Pricing and availability needs to be unified in all markets at the pricing set by Powercolor in the UK, this card must be priced within 10% of the HD 6670 to be competitive

eTeknix says: “The Powercolor HD 7730 is by no means a glamorous graphics card. However, it offers a never-before-seen level of performance for its modest price point and brings a fresh lease of life to an otherwise stagnant and neglected market segment. Providing vendors follow Powercolor’s lead and price competitively, the HD 7730 will be the graphics card of choice for many budget gaming systems in the future.”

Thank you to Powercolor for providing this review sample.