Sapphire Radeon HD 6770 fleX 1GB Graphics Card Review

Video Cards are an expensive part of the system building process and/or can be a large expense in the upgrade budget. With E3 2011 going on this weekend a lot of earth shattering titles are being shown and most computer enthusiasts want to be able to play the games in their full technological glory, including AMD's immersive Eyefinity technology, however the largest part of the video card consumers will simply be ecstatic if they can even get the game to run on their machine.This is where Sapphire comes in, they have done a wonderful job in catering to all different types of consumers in the graphic market segments, be it productivity, low to high range gaming enthusiasts or home user who would like to be able to dabble in both. There is no wonder with this type of commitment to all levels of consumers that they are indeed the worlds #1 manufacturer of ATI Radeon Graphics, they've proven time and time again they are willing not only to release standard editions of their cards like other ATI Radeon Manufacturers, but go above and beyond adding value and features like fleX technology that are unique to their brand. Sapphire has done it again with its newest release to the Sapphire fleX family, making Eyefinity an easily affordable and hassle free solution with the Sapphire HD6770 fleX edition. Sapphire's HD6770 fleX is based on the Juniper XT chipset and has been released at a price point that will make most consumers eyes nearly pop out of their sockets when they realize what performance they can achieve for such a low investment. The Sapphire 6770 fleX compared to the 5770 fleX of old offers lower voltages and temperatures, and as we see the older 5000 series cards fade off into the distance, we see this card as a proud successor to the AMD line. The 6770 fleX offers new features such as AMD HD3D support with a HDMI 1.4a output port, OpenGL 4.1 support, Enhanced support for Internet browser applications and Microsoft office 2010, and AMD app acceleration, AMD App acceleration has proven itself to contend with its competitors by using the power of the AMD Radeon GPU to speed up everyday tasks when watching blu ray movies, web browsing, or streaming video and other HD content online, helping to ensure a smooth high quality experience in most of today's important tasks. Specifications[HR][/HR]Bus Interface PCI-E x16 (PCI-E 2.1)Memory 1GB / 128-bit GDDR5Clock Speed 850 MHz Eclk / Effective 4800 MHz MclkCooling System Dual slot Fan with active cooling fanBracket Full HeightDisplay Support[LIST]DL-DVI-ISL-DVI-IHDMIDisplay PortVGA (via adaptor)[/list]HDCP Yes Maximum Display Resolution:D-Dub(VGA): 2048 x 1536DL-DVI-I: 2560 x 1600SL-DVI-I: 1920 x1200HDMI: 1920 x 1200Display Port: 2560 x 16003D Graphics Resolution: 4x 1920 x 1200Power Draw:18-108 Watts Packaging The Sapphire 6770 comes in a blue and purple box with its name, memory size and primary features listed on the front, including the added features of a flex edition card, supporting 3 monitors in Eyefinity, 4 monitors with a display port or adapter, has AMD's accelerated processing technology, and its inclusion in the AMD Black Vision lineup. The Black Vision label means it is part of AMD's Solution for cutting edge processing, expanded field of view Eyefinity gaming, and enough power for serious multi-tasking. It also has a picture of Sapphire's version of Ruby in a double fisted punch pose, flexing for action. The back of the box includes highlights of the card, including a small paragraph about the rich feature set it includes without the prohibitive price tag. It is also decorated with multiple icons of the highlights and brief sentence of each including items about , Advanced memory, DX 11 and Parallel processing, Eyfinity/Multi-Display abilities, and HDMI support. The back of the box also has a small area in the bottom right telling about the over 2500 awards sapphire has received from different review sites since 2002. The right hand side of the back includes information about the minimum system, OS, and monitor requirements, while also listing the display port out features. The left hand side have Sapphire listed with the Sapphire logo and Radeon HD 6770 written with it. The top is very similar too. The packaging of the card itself contains a cardboard box with a flip top lid. Opening top part of the crate packaging reveals the internal paperwork, parts and of the course the graphics card itself cushioned by a small piece of Styrofoam to keep it safe during transport. Bundle The card was wrapped in an anti-static bag with bubble air cushioning to keep the card safe and secure in shipping, as well as a warning sticker on the bag to let users know this card does require an external power supply connector. The package contains:HD 6770 Video CardDriver CD with Sapphire Badge StickerUser ManualSapphire Select Club FlierDVI to VGA Adaptor x 14 Pin Molex to 6Pin power adapter x 1HDMI to SL-DVI Adapter (for use with flex) x 1 The Sapphire select club flier allows customers to register online and join in the club to receive special offers and discounts from Sapphire including things such as 30% off at THQ's website, receive the fusion media player and/or Trixx Overclocking utility, as well as join in on contests and giveaways exclusive to members who register their products. A Closer Look The card itself is dual slot card with a black plastic cover and stickers to with rivet patterns to give it a tough appearance, the black fan on top has a Sapphire logo sticker with and iridescent background, it also has another iridescent sticker on the display port cap. A lot of the circuit board is covered in this model, with heat fins and heat pipes covering most of it to allow for significant cooling for hardcore performance usage. There is a 6 pin power requirement for this card and it has crossfire bridge connectors to allow for easy scaling of multiple GPU solutions. This card as mentioned in the specification can draw anywhere from 18 Watts to 108 watts under full load. Sapphire has gone with the Jade (Greenish/Blue) colored printed circuit board. The dual slot cooling fan takes up most of the circuit board. It has an exhaust out like most higher end performance cards, which helps to keep card cool while drawing hot air out of the inside of your case. Connections include HDMI 1.4a , Display Port 1.2, a Dual Link DVI connector, and a Single Link DVI connector. Test SystemOur test system in the US is a bit different then our test system in the UK, we do our best to keep the components identical throughout the different video card tests to ensure our results are accurate when comparing to other components.Test system:Sapphire Radeon HD 6770 fleX 1GbIntel I7 875k Processor (O.C. to 3.5 Ghz)ASUS P7p55DE Pro MotherBoard4gb of Kingston HyperX 1600Mhz DDR3 RamIntel 40gb SSD drive for OS1TB Hitachi Hard Drive for game installsWindows 7 HP 64Bit OSCooler Master Silent Pro M 1000 Watt Power Supply Games used:Battlefield Bad Company 2Call of Duty: Black OpsDirt 2Dragon Age 2Lost Planet 2Metro 2033Need for Speed: Hot PursuitSoftware used:3DMark 113DMark VantageHWMonitorWindows 7 Home PremiumMSI AfterburnerFurMarkGPUZ 3DMark 113DMark 11 is the latest offering from Futuremark, taking full advantage of DirectX 11 by utilising tessellation features and volumetric lighting. It takes your graphics and CPU hardware to the edge to simulate the most extreme conditions whilst working as a stand point to compare results with other users online. 3D Mark 11 tested using performance settings at 1280x720(720p), as you can see the 6770 Flex scores lower then its competitors that I have tested, but it still does quite well when you consider its about half the price and you could almost buy 2 of these cards for the price of most of the cards its compared with. 3DMark Vantage3DMark Vantage is the industry standard performance benchmark for DirectX 10 gaming PCs. It includes two graphics tests, two CPU tests and six feature tests. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark Vantage is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 10 under game-like loads. 3D Mark Vantage tested using performance settings at 1280x1024. Once Again even though half the price of the most of the competitor cards it performs quite well giving it a great cost per performance ratio. COD Black OpsCall of Duty Black Ops is one of the most actively played first person shooters since its release on November 9th of 2010. It is one of years top selling games with sales over $1 billion, and is one of Steam's current top 10 games as categorized by online player counts with an average of 35,000 players per day. Call of Duty: Black Ops was tested at 1920x1080, with Anti-Aliasing at 4x and textures on "Extra High" settings, Scores are recorded with fraps on the single player level of Vorkuta for the first 5 minutes of play. The Sapphire 6770 fleX edition was only outperformed by 8-10 FPS by its top cards it was compared to, hardly even noticeable, and showing exceptional value considering some of the others are at almost double the price point. Lost Planet 2The physics engine from Lost Planet 2 is a more oriented towards physX Testing, but is a good test in regards to rendering capabilities with fine details such as plant and shot effects. The non-interactive benchmark for Lost Planet 2 tests graphical performance under a variety of different settings, including DirectX 11. Lost Planet 2 tested with "Test A" benchmark in DX 11 at 1920x1080 resolutions with both 8X MSAA and No MSAA filtering. The Sapphire HD6770 fleX struggled a little with this game, but not surprising since its more tailored toward Nvidia PhysX cards. Metro 2033Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter game based in the Russian metro system. Metro 2033 is very similar to the much loved game STALKER as it is developed by the same programmers. The game utilizes DirectX 11 and relies heavily on tessellation features and is considered to be one of the most graphics intense games on the market. Metro 2033 benchmark was done with DX 11, 1920x1080, Frontline Scene on high quality with Anisotropic Filtering at 4X And with antialiasing in AAA and 4XAA mode. The Sapphire HD 6770 fleX performed amazingly well in these benchmarks, outperforming cards at double its price point, and only really being trumped by its bigger fleX brother the 6950. Multiplayer TestingOne of the biggest interactions and continued playing of games lies in the multiplayer action of games vs other players online. We wanted to test the top two FPS games that are the most technological demanding today. We played both Call of Duty (High textures with 4xAA and Battlefield Bad Company 2 with settings on both medium and high (2xMSAA and 4x Anisotropic filtering). Both of these games were easily playable online with no stuttering or lag effects caused by a low powered video card. These games show a definite true real world test of what the average gamer would be playing online and in games where FPS (Frames Per Second) can be critical between living and dying.Eyefinity BenchmarksOne of the most touted features of the flex edition cards from Sapphire is the ability to run Eyefinity setups with ease and less hassle and not requiring you to purchase an additional £20/$30 Display adapter. We ran tests on some of the hottest and most played Eyefinity games out there to give you good idea of the performance to expect out of this card. All Eyefinity play was done in 5040X1050 resolution with different settings for different games described in further detail below:Dirt 2 4XAA High SettingsCOD Black Ops: MP 8xAA Textures = High SettingCOD Black Ops: SP 8xAA Textures = Extra High SettingNeed For Speed: Hot Pursuit High Settings Inc Textures No AnisotropicDragons Age 2 High Settings Inc High Res Texture Pack, no AABattlefield Bad Company MP Medium Settings 1x Anisotropic 1xMSAA HBAO OffBattlefield Bad Company MP Medium Settings 4x Anisotropic 2xMSAA HBAO Off As you can see all games were playable with minimum sacrifice to quality, and well worth any sacrifices made to enjoy such an experience as to make you feel like so much a part of the game, coupled with a good sounding system you could literally forget you were in the comfort of your own home. Here are some quality screenshots you can see of the experiance you can expect when you get a chance to immerse yourself in your AMD eyefinity gaming. Call of Duty Black Ops was the only game that didn't support Eyefinity, but not to fear as there are third party solutions for most every game that doesn't support Eyefinity out of the box, most of which can be easily found by a simple google search for "Eyefinity" and the game title. Overclocking The Sapphire HD6770 stock clock speeds have the GPU (Eclk) settings at 850MHz and the Memory (Mclk) clocked at 1200 MHz for a total combined effective memory clock of 4800MHz or 4.8Gbps. The Sapphire HD6770 was ran to find the maximum overclock we could achieve by incrementing the clock speeds by 10MHz at a time, relying on GPU-Z for clarification of the speeds and Furmark to test stability.We were able to obtain stable overclocks of 930 MHz for the GPU clock and 1355 Mhz for the Memory Clock, resulting in an effective memory clock of over 5.4Ghz, (5420 Mhz to be exact). This shows a total increase of 9.41% for the GPU clock and 12.92% for the Memory clock, which is nice little boost considering the price tag of this card.Keep in mind overclocking is more of a guideline as to what the card can achieve, actual results can and will vary based on an individual core performance. TemperaturesWe wanted to give you a comparison of the idle, load and overclocked temperatures, so you have an idea of the cooling capabilities of the 6770 flex and what type of temperatures to expect while overclocking. These were the results after running a single benchmark test under FurMark. As you can see from the data the Sapphire HD 6770 fleX runs much cooler then its bigger brother the 6950 fleX, its temperatures barely increased even when loaded and overclocked. it might be also interesting for users to note that I ran the card under load for a half hour during stability testing in overclocking the temperature never exceeded the 63/64 degree mark and the fan never really topped out above the 60% mark. Truly having to worry about temperature will not be a factor when considering this card. Final Thoughts The 6770 performed well and above the level I was expecting especially given the price point of a £105/$139. I was able to play most of my enjoyable games at high definition (1920x1080 resolutions) and was able to keep most games at high settings (minus anti alias settings). The 6770 is such an excellent deal, it's hard to pass on a card that can not only perform well in a single monitor solution, but also does exceptionally well for its price in Eyefinity gaming. The Sapphire HD6770 fleX also has the added value of Eyefinity out of the box without the need for a display port adapter, this fleX technology by itself is worth an extra £20/$30, which in effect really brings the card cost more closer to the £85/$109 range since you don't have to spend the extra cash on the adapter, which you would with other cards. This cards value, performance and price point is ideal for an incoming computer gamer, and is most handy for any person who does large amount of application usage and video watching. Sapphire has always done a great job in bringing affordability back into game system building, and have astounded me by offering the 6770 at such a low price point that it's impossible not to see this as being a great value graphics card that is very rich in features and very capable of delivering an adequate gaming experience. This card is another notch in the belt loop for Sapphire in its continued dominance of being AMD's number one manufacturer of Radeon products. Pros: Awesome low pricePacked with a lot of features of higher end cards (HD3D, Eyefinity, AMD Parallel Processing).fleX technology results in easy Eyefinity setup without need for spending more on an display port adapter. Performs well, able to run most games in 1920x1080 with minimal sacrifices to quality settings, even competitive first person shooters in 30-60 FPS range. Cons:Slightly low synthetic benchmark scores, worries me with upcoming action titles like BF3, COD:MW3, might need to use additional card in crossfire for ultimate performance. a few features and improvement over the 5770, but not quite enough to warrant a new card purchase unless you don't have a powerful enough solution, (in which case the purchase is a win/win scenario). We would like to thank Sapphire for supplying this sampleYou can purchase this item in the US from NewEgg or from Ebuyer.com in the UK Attached files 3DMark11.jpg (43.7 KB) 3DMarkVantage.jpg (46.1 KB) 6770flex.jpg (38.9 KB) 6770FlexAcc.jpg (131.9 KB) 6770FlexBackBox.jpg (106.2 KB) 6770FlexBoxCard.jpg (108.5 KB) 6770FlexBoxOpen.jpg (70.2 KB) 6770FlexCloseLook1.jpg (124.9 KB) 6770FlexCloseLook2.jpg (177.8 KB) 6770FlexCloseLook3.jpg (70.6 KB) 6770FlexCloseLook4.jpg (73.4 KB) 6770FlexFrontBox.jpg (90 KB) 6770FlexOC.jpg (89.4 KB) 6770FlexPackaging.jpg (147.7 KB) 6770FlexPorts.jpg (89.5 KB) 6770FlexPwr.jpg (44.4 KB) 6770FlexSide.jpg (136 KB) 6770FlexSide2.jpg (153.5 KB) 6770FlexTopBox.jpg (99.4 KB) BlackOpsEyefinity.jpg (71.7 KB) Codblops.jpg (37.6 KB) DA2Eyefinity.jpg (68.2 KB) dirt2Eyefinity.jpg (88.8 KB) Eyefinity.jpg (43.9 KB) Eyefinity2.jpg (50.3 KB) gold.jpg (14 KB) Lost-Planet-2.jpg (47.1 KB) Metro.jpg (42.7 KB) Multiplayer.jpg (33.8 KB) NFS11Eyefinity.jpg (91.1 KB) Temperatures.jpg (53.6 KB) Temperatures.jpg (29.9 KB)