Radeon HD 4770

TI often rolls out technological innovations on relatively inexpensive solutions, and the Radeon HD 4770 is no exception to this rule: it uses the RV740, the world's first graphics processor manufactured using 40nm manufacturing standards. It is also the first budget video adapter to use GDDR5 memory. From all points of view, the new product promises to be very promising, so in today's review we will try to find out whether the Radeon HD 4770 is really capable of revolutionizing the sector of cheap gaming cards.

Compared to the RV730, the complexity of the RV740 has increased by 312 million transistors. This resulted in twice the processing power (640 ALUs versus 320) and the performance of the raster operations subsystem (16 RBEs versus 8). At the same time, the new 130 million transistor chip is simpler than the RV770 core. Considering that the core configurations of the Radeon HD 4830 and Radeon HD 4770 are the same (640 ALUs, 32 TMUs, 16 RBEs), we can calculate the theoretical "cost" of two disabled SIMD cores for the first one. As it is easy to calculate, 160 ALUs (32 superscalar processors) and 8 texture processors occupy 130 million transistors, and one, respectively, 65 million transistors.

The RV740 and the graphic adapter based on it, the Radeon HD 4770, look both predictable and promising - the first because the novelty, in fact, is the Radeon HD 4830 at a new technological level, and the second because at a core frequency of 750 MHz this graphics the adapter should not only overtake the Radeon HD 4830, but also not be too inferior to its older brother, the Radeon HD 4850.

Due to the use of a 40-nm process technology, the crystal area was significantly reduced. It immediately catches the eye that the RV740 is noticeably smaller than the RV730, despite the fact that it contains 826 million transistors, 312 million more than the RV730. There is also a similarity - the crystal is mounted in the package at an angle of 45 degrees, and the package itself is devoid of a protective frame.

adeon HD 4770 boasts very advanced technical characteristics. It includes 128 superscalar computing units with 5 ALUs each (total 640 ALUs, twice as many as in RV670) organized into 8 SIMD cores. Each of these cores is in turn serviced by 4 texture processors for a total of 32 TMUs. The raster operations subsystem is represented by four large processors, the so-called Render Back-Ends (RBE), equivalent to 16 regular ROPs. Thus, from the point of view of the configuration of functional blocks, the Radeon HD 4770 core is equivalent to the Radeon HD 4830 core, but it operates at a significantly higher frequency - 750 MHz versus 575 MHz, which gives us reason to expect a significantly higher level of gaming performance from the new product. Compared to the Radeon HD 4670, this is a real leap forward.

Specifications ATI Radeon HD 4770

The Radeon HD 4770 is truly a game-changer, as it can offer amazing levels of performance that only $200+ solutions could offer just over $100 a year ago, and in some cases less than that. In addition, the new ATI graphics adapter is compact, quiet and economical despite the relatively high complexity of the GPU. Last but not least, this is the merit of the 40-nm process technology. In addition to everything, it, like all other representatives of the ATI Radeon HD 4000 family, is endowed with advanced multimedia capabilities, including the presence of a full-fledged hardware high-definition video decoder and an integrated HDMI audio core.

One way or another, there is currently nothing in the arsenal of Nvidia that could be opposed to the Radeon HD 4770: with the GeForce 9800 GT, not to mention the GeForce 9600 GT, it cracks down without much difficulty, and the GeForce GTS 250 belongs to the higher price category, even in the version equipped with 512 MB of local video memory.

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