Meet the $100 HD 4770

Peter G. 14 Apr, 2009 at 6:08pm ET Article published in Tech

Slides from AMD’s presentation for the upcoming Radeon HD 4770 have surfaced on the net today. It appears that PcPop.com got them first, but we’ll be buggered if we can find them on their site. Thanks to the kind folks at VR-Zone and TheInq, they’re up for all to see. Say hi to the first 40nm graphics chip that’s set to give NVIDIA’s 9800 GT a run for the money, literally. This is the first of ATI’s upcoming high performance, low cost GPUs thanks to the new RV740 chip.

With a $100 MSRP, it’ll probably hit shelves costing $20 under what its rival GeForce costs. It’s widely thought that ATI is leveraging the prices of GPUs down through competition and that NVIDIA may be selling cards at a loss to stay in the game. With the $100 video card market being the highest volume consumer area, by the looks of things the HD 4770 could really lay the hurt on NVIDIA, but that’s the way this game is meant to be played.

Comments

14 Apr 2009 ~ 6:16pm Gate28 Planning to put 2 of these guys guys in my new rig
14 Apr 2009 ~ 6:17pm GnomeWizardd hope they are as good as they are talked to be, Ill sell my 9800GTX and pick up 2 of these
14 Apr 2009 ~ 6:25pm mas0n sexy.
14 Apr 2009 ~ 6:44pm Cliff_Forster Get this, all that pixel pushing potential and only 80 watts maximum draw,

Kids with awful OEM system PSU's will be able to upgrade to this thing.
14 Apr 2009 ~ 7:01pm Thrax want benchmarks
14 Apr 2009 ~ 8:37pm BuddyJ Good point Cliff.
14 Apr 2009 ~ 8:50pm Komete

, but thatâ€™s the way this game is meant to be played.

LOL good one. Looks like another winner.
14 Apr 2009 ~ 8:53pm GnomeWizardd I really rather have one even th its a bit less than my 9800GTX but less power consumption, Thats what I am looking at
14 Apr 2009 ~ 9:32pm MAGIC need benches, think it will be worth dropping my 8800gt for?
14 Apr 2009 ~ 11:20pm Komete

' wrote:

[v][AGIC']need benches, think it will be worth dropping my 8800gt for?

Looking at the AMD promo slides on the links posted at the end of the article, performance is anywhere from 10% to 50% more depending on the game and the resolution. Without any real numbers it could mean anything from 3 fps to 20 fps in games or more. So it's too early to tell. I do know my 8800gt is still playing all the games I throw at it. I plan to get another year out of it.
14 Apr 2009 ~ 11:21pm BuddyJ Check the links and you'll see ATI's promo benches. You can take it from there, albeit with a grain of PR salt. I'll do my best to get one here for the release.
15 Apr 2009 ~ 3:14am Mt_Goat I don't see it as all that great except for the benefits of being a 40nm part with less heat and current draw. Otherwise its specs look like the 4830 which has a 256 bit memory bus and the new 4770 is only a 128 bit memory bus. So in the end it should not even equal the 4830/4850 or 9800GT on the NVidia side. Also cost wise the 4830 cards are currently running $90 to $130 and the 4850 cards are as low as $130 and likey to get cheaper soon. So as far as performance for the dollar goes I am not so impressed. As for debuting a 40nm GPU, I am very interested as well as impressed!
15 Apr 2009 ~ 7:46am Zuntar Man I love a good battle!

I definitely want to see some real benches though.
15 Apr 2009 ~ 11:49am Cliff_Forster I don't know that I would tell someone to switch from a current 8800/9800 card, and like others have said, a 4850 is not much more and outperforms them.

Where I think this card is a winner application wise is as a true gamer step up for OEM systems that have an open PCIE slot, and a less than desirable power supply (these systems are common).

At 80 watts maximum draw, you should be able to run this off the lousy 300 watt PSU many of OEM's use. For guys like us, we have options, swapping out the PSU does not scare us, so it may not be the best option for us, but if marketed as a real bump up for OEM systems, this is going to be a major upgrade for allot of people who thought they could never have really good 3D acceleration.

I'm already thinking about the upgrade potential for my customers. I see allot of Dell machines running the board graphics with a 350 watt PSU and open PCIE slot. The 4770 looks like the right upgrade for that scenario.
16 Apr 2009 ~ 6:22pm Garg I've been planning to get a 9800 forever, but at so much less power usage, this may finally bring me back to ATI. Looking forward to getting some OpenCL on, too.
17 Apr 2009 ~ 5:17am DrLiam Aww I already got my 4870, this could have been a real choice for me. :[ Nice card though and good to see ATi kicking arse.