ATI’s Radeon 4770 is a deceiving performer. When you first see its "4770" designation, you assume it’s been designed to slot in between the 4830 and ATI’s 4670. Its use of a 128-bit memory interface reinforces that assumption. But thanks to its blazing clock speeds and the use of the same 800MHz GDDR5 memory first adopted on the Radeon 4870, the 4770 is actually capable of outrunning ATI’s previous mainstream performance offering, the Radeon 4830.
ATI should’ve designated the card as the Radeon 4840.
But how does it fare against the competition? That’s ultimately going to depend on how prices shake out. Right now the card sells for $109.99. ATI says a $10 mail-in rebate will also be offered, knocking that price down to $100. For $100, the Radeon 4770 delivers an enormous amount of performance for the dollar, but we’re honestly getting tired of the rebate game both ATI and NVIDIA are playing nowadays: this author is still waiting for his mail-in rebate on a non-computer related purchase that was redeemed back in early February. Therefore we’re going to call a spade a spade and say that the Radeon 4770 is a $110 graphics card.
At $110, the card’s closest competitor is NVIDIA’s GeForce 9800 GT. When compared against the 9800 GT, the Radeon 4770 was a little faster overall, but it certainly wasn’t a blowout. Performance in games like Far Cry 2, Call of Duty 4, and to a lesser extent, Fallout 3 (only at 1920x1200 did the 9800 GT pull away from the 4770), was close for the most part. The 4770 was clearly the better performer in Crysis, World in Conflict, and Dawn of War 2 though.
The 4770’s greatest threat then is probably the GeForce 9800 GTX+/GeForce GTS 250. Prices on the GTS 250 start at $120 before rebates on Newegg – just $10 more than the 4770. EVGA even has a GTS 250 card that’s OC’ed slightly that is priced at $130. Even Sapphire’s own Radeon 4850 512MB can be found for $120 on Newegg right now.
Both of these GPUs deliver better overall performance than the Radeon 4770 for just a few bucks more than the 40-nm ATI offering. As a result, this is the route we’d suggest for most of our readers at this point in time. The Radeon 4770 is a really sweet offering for sure, but priced at $110 it’s just priced too close to these GPUs at this point in time.
That may change though once more 4770 boards hit the retail market. Once that occurs, ATI’s board partners will begin to compete with one another on price, which will lead to lower prices. Once the first wave of second generation cards with custom cooling and faster clocks arrive, the 4770 prices will fall even faster.
That’s probably going to be the time to pick up a 4770 in our opinion. With its 40-nm process and GDDR5 memory, the chip is begging to be overclocked, and by then RivaTuner should be up to speed with full support, opening the door to higher speeds than what we’re capped at today with Overdrive.
Yep. If you’re tempted by the 4770 today, our advice is to wait a month or so for things to mature a bit more. If you must buy today, the 4850 or GTS 250 will give you more bang for a similar amount of money but by mid to late May that could definitely change. Keep your eyes peeled to see how things ultimately end up panning out.
Batman: Arkham City PC Review Batman: Arkham City is the sequel to 2009’s smash-hit action game Batman: Arkham Asylum. As the name suggests, you will be reprising your role as the Caped Crusader and going against an even larger 'prison' filled with Gotham's criminals and villains. A textbook example on how to do a proper sequel, Arkham City takes what worked in the original, excised or improved upon what didn’t, and elevated everything to an even greater scope. The PC version suffered from a few months of delay, but in that time, Rocksteady worked closely to NVIDIA to implement some familiar technologies from the last game, such as PhysX and 3D Vision, along with new DirectX 11 optimizations. But how well was the whole package executed? Read on to find out!
Saints Row: The Third PC Review Saints Row is one of most unique series of games to build upon the open-world action template forged by Grand Theft Auto, and has met with plenty of critical and commercial success since it began on consoles back in 2006. This latest iteration, titled Saints Row: The Third promises the most outlandish fun and freedom of customization of them all, and in a much more PC-friendly package than its predecessor. Does it live up to those expectations and, more importantly, is it worth the price of admission? Find out in Will's latest review!
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim PC Review The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is Bethesda Softworks’ latest offering in their series of epic fantasy RPGs, as well as one of the most highly-anticipated PC titles of 2011. As the Dovahkiin, or Dragonborn, prepare to take the fight to the mythical beasts that have returned to the realm after centuries of slumber, all the while exploring a huge and highly-detailed open world.
The PC version of the game promises enhanced graphical fidelity, standard RPG trimmings such as hotkeys and quick-save, as well as unbridled mod support, something we’ll all be thankful for once they release that SDK. Skyrim has already sold millions of copies and set records for play-time on Steam... Find out why in today's review, which happens to be one of the biggest and most in-depth articles on the subject out there!
L.A. Noire Complete Edition PC Review L.A. Noire, as the name clearly states, is a video game built on the tropes of one of the greatest periods of American cinema: film noir. Developed by the now defunct Australian developer Team Bondi and published by Rockstar Games, this title has been out on consoles for a full six months before finally making its way to the PC. This “Complete Edition” of the game features improved graphics, keyboard/mouse controls, and every bit of previously-released DLC for free. But was it truly worth the wait? Read on and find out!
Intel Core i7-3960X Sandy Bridge-E Performance Review
Today marks the launch date for Intel’s Sandy Bridge-E line of processors, a new family of high-end Core i7 products based on the LGA 2011 platform. This new socket is poised to replace the existing LGA 1366 specification used by the more powerful Nehalem and Westmere parts from the past couple years, specifically Bloomfield and Gulftown, the Core i7-9xx+ line of CPUs.
With 6 cores, 15MB of cache, and support for quad-channel DDR3-1600 memory, the Core i7-3960X sounds like quite a catch. Want to know more about it and how it performs? Read on!
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Xbox 360 Review
The self-appointed "most anticipated game in history" launched worldwide this past Tuesday. Why, it's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, of course (of course), what else? Unsurprisingly, the military FPS debate between this and Battlefield 3 rages on, but now that both have been released, surely we can take a look and objectively evaluate them both? Luke's taken the Xbox version of MW3 for a spin this week, so to find out what he thinks of it in today's review!
Stronghold 3 Review
The latest sequel in the long-running real-time strategy franchise from FireFly Studios, Stronghold 3 is all about building your dream castle and defending it against sieging enemies. Almost exactly one decade after the first game was released, this new title promises a return to the classic and well-received gameplay that has been strayed so far from in more recent iterations. Does it live up to those expectations? Will (AKA Synchronous Failure) tells us all about it in his first official FiringSquad review, so read on!
Battlefield 3 PC Review - Single-player Impressions
One of the most highly-anticipated PC games of the year is upon us; Battlefield 3 is now available in North America! EA/DICE have finally delivered a sequel to the core Battlefield franchise, a proper follow-up to BF2. Having played through the game's single-player campaign already, ahead of the multiplayer festivities kicking off around midnight, I figured I'd share my impressions ASAP. Is it really a worthy addition to the core Battlefield series, or just another bullet point on the back of the box? Read on and find out!
Wrecked: Revenge Revisited Supersonic Software Interview
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Orcs Must Die! PC Review Orcs Must Die! is the first release from an independent developer named Robot Entertainment. Fans of classic real-time strategy games may have heard that name before, as the outfit is comprised of many veterans from Ensemble Studios, creators of the Age of Empires series.
Equal parts action and strategy, this is a tower defense game that not only puts you in command, but on the front lines of combat, as well. Slaughter thousands of orcs, ogres and other vile creatures of fantasy that invade your fortresses through 24 levels of the story-based campaign. With high levels of replayability thanks to its scoring and leaderboard functionality, multiple difficulty levels, and various styles of play, it sounds a steal at only $15. Does it deliver on all that’s promised, though? Read on and find out!
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