Home / AMD / AMD Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition: Performance and Specs

AMD Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition

AMD Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition: A Retrospective and Relevance in 2025

Introduction

The AMD Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition, released in 2012, became a symbol of affordable gaming in its time. By 2025, it is seen more as a relic but still finds application in specific scenarios. In this article, we will explore its features, performance, and place in the modern market.

Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: The HD 7770 GHz Edition is built on the first generation of Graphics Core Next (GCN 1.0). This is AMD's first architecture focused on general-purpose computing and improved energy efficiency.

- Process technology: 28 nm (TSMC).

- Compute units: 640 stream processors, 40 texture units, and 16 ROP units.

- Base/Turbo clock speed: 1000 MHz (no dynamic overclocking).

Unique Features:

- Support for DirectX 11.1 and OpenGL 4.2.

- AMD App Acceleration technologies to enhance performance in multimedia tasks.

- Lack of modern features: Ray tracing, FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution), or DLSS equivalents are not supported.

Memory: Specifications and Impact on Performance

- Memory type: GDDR5.

- Capacity: 1 GB.

- Bus: 128-bit.

- Bandwidth: 72 GB/s.

Impact on Performance:

The limited capacity and bus width became the main bottlenecks for the card even in 2012. By 2025, 1 GB of memory is insufficient for most games and applications—high-resolution textures and complex scenes cause FPS drops due to a lack of VRAM.

Gaming Performance: Nostalgia in Pixels

The HD 7770 GHz Edition was designed for 1080p gaming at medium settings. Here are examples of FPS in games from its prime (tests conducted from 2012 to 2015):

- Skyrim (2011): ~45 FPS on high settings.

- GTA V (2015): ~30 FPS on medium settings.

- CS:GO: ~100 FPS on maximum settings.

Modern Projects (2020-2025):

Even at low settings in games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Starfield, the card shows less than 15 FPS. Support for resolutions above 1080p (1440p, 4K) is impossible due to a lack of resources.

Ray Tracing:

Hardware support is absent. Software solutions (e.g., via DirectX Raytracing) are unrealistic due to insufficient computational power.

Professional Tasks: Modest Capabilities

- Video Editing: Suitable only for basic editing at resolutions up to 1080p. Programs like DaVinci Resolve will operate with delays due to the small memory capacity.

- 3D Modeling: Blender or Maya will run, but rendering on OpenCL will take significantly longer than on modern GPUs.

- Scientific Computing: Lack of support for modern APIs (CUDA is unavailable) makes the card impractical for serious tasks.

Power Consumption and Heat Output

- TDP: 80 W—modest even for 2025.

- Cooling: Standard cooler with an aluminum heatsink and fan. Noise levels between 28-32 dB, which is acceptable for office builds.

- Case Recommendations: Due to its compact size (length ~210 mm), the card will fit into small form factor cases. At least one ventilation system is recommended for heat dissipation.

Comparison with Competitors

Analogues from 2012-2013:

- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti: Comparable performance but with 2 GB of GDDR5. In games with high-resolution textures, the GTX 650 Ti outperformed the HD 7770 due to the larger memory capacity.

- AMD Radeon HD 7850: A more powerful option (1024 stream processors, 2 GB) but at a higher price.

In 2025:

The HD 7770 falls behind even budget newcomers like the Intel Arc A380 or AMD Radeon RX 6400, which offer 4-6 GB of memory and support for modern APIs.

Practical Usage Tips

- Power Supply: A 400 W supply with an 80+ Bronze certification is sufficient. The card does not require additional connectors—power is supplied via PCIe x16.

- Compatibility: Operates on PCIe 2.0 x16 and is compatible with PCIe 3.0/4.0, but with limited bandwidth.

- Drivers: The last official drivers are Adrenalin 2015. Modified community drivers can be used for Windows 10/11, but stability is not guaranteed.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Energy efficiency (ideal for HTPC or office PCs).

- Quiet operation.

- Low price on the second-hand market (in 2025—$20-30).

Cons:

- Outdated architecture.

- 1 GB of memory is critical for modern tasks.

- Lack of support for new technologies (DirectX 12 Ultimate, FSR).

Final Conclusion: Who is the HD 7770 Suitable for in 2025?

This graphics card is a choice for:

1. Retro gaming enthusiasts, wanting to run old projects from the 2000s to early 2010s.

2. Office PC owners needing to output to multiple monitors.

3. Budget media center builders for watching videos at 1080p.

The HD 7770 GHz Edition is a prime example of "digital archaeology." It is not suited for modern games or professional tasks but remains a monument to an era when 1 GB of memory and 28 nm were seen as breakthroughs. In 2025, it should be viewed only as a temporary solution or a nostalgic build component.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

February 2012

Model Name

Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition

Generation

Southern Islands

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

Transistors

1,500 million

Compute Units

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

28 nm

Architecture

GCN 1.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

1024MB

Memory Type

GDDR5

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

128bit

Memory Clock

1125MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

72.00 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

16.00 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

40.00 GTexel/s

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

80.00 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

1.306 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

640

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

256KB

TDP

80W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.2

OpenCL Version

1.2

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 (11_1)

Power Connectors

1x 6-pin

Shader Model

5.1

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Suggested PSU

250W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

1.306 TFLOPS

OpenCL

Score

14263

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon HD 6790

1.371 +5%

Xbox One GPU

1.336 +2.3%

Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition

1.306

Radeon R9 M375X

1.273 -2.5%

Radeon HD 6990M Rebrand

1.254 -4%

OpenCL

Radeon RX 6700S

62821 +340.4%

Radeon Pro 5300

38843 +172.3%

Radeon R9 M290X

21442 +50.3%

Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition

14263

Radeon HD 5750

884 -93.8%