AMD Radeon HD 7750 1GB Review

Performance Analysis

In Arma II at 1,920 x 1,080, the HD 7750 1GB just about managed to post a playable minimum frame rate, of 25fps, which was also a tiny bit faster than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB. Unfortunately, the HD 5770 1GB posted a very similar result and was a little faster when we pushed the resolution up a notch, while the HD 6850 1GB and HD 7770 1GB were significantly faster.

Battlefield 3 is a touch nut to crack for a budget graphics card, and the first to post a reasonable result was the HD 6870 1GB with a minimum frame rate of 27fps. The HD 7770 1GB could only muster 23fps - not really smooth enough for our liking, while the poor old HD 7750 1GB could only manage a minimum frame rate of 17fps. Clear if you're a Battlefield 3 fan, the HD 7750 1GB isn't going to cut the mustard unless you game below 1,920 x 1,080 and use more modest settings.

Dirt 3 was an easier test to run, however the HD 7750 1GB was the slowest card on test with a minimum frame rate of 35fps - a solid result on its own, but the HD 7770 1GB, which costs less than £20 more was streaks ahead with a minimum frame rate of 47fps. The HD 5770 1GB was noticeably faster too - not a great result given it's two generations old now. Needless to say there's little point upgrading to an HD 7750 1GB to play Dirt 3 if you already have an HD 5770 1GB or GTX 550 Ti 1GB.

The result was a little more in favour of AMD's new budget card in Skyrim, where it posted a minimum frame rate of 30fps, but this was identical to the HD 5770 1GB and only a fraction faster than the GTX 550 Ti 1GB. Thankfully, the power test was where the HD 7750 1GB really shined, posting the lowest load power consumption of anything else on test.

In fact the total system power consumption was 20W clear of the next best result, the HD 7770 1GB. At just 121W, this was 39W lower than the HD 5770 1GB too. The basic cooler proved to be enough to handle the paltry amount of heat generated by the HD 7750 1GB, with the delta T only rising to 42°C under load.

Overclocking yielded some improvement, where we managed to boost the GPU frequency to 875MHz and the memory to 5GHz effective using MSI Afterburner. This saw the minimum frame rate in Battlefield 3 rise to 19fps - still a little too slow for our liking.

Conclusion

The game test results the HD 7750 1GB posted are disappointing in that they in no way suggest AMD's new budget graphics card is a worth upgrade from other popular low end models such as the HD 5770 1GB or GTX 550 Ti 1GB. In fact, both bettered it in some of our tests. The HD 6850 1GB was significantly faster in all our tests, yet many etailers are still selling the 6800 series card for the same price, or lower - great news if you're in the market for such a graphics card, but a bit of an issue for AMD, at least amongst enthusiasts who are on the ball.

The HD 7770 1GB isn't really a much better buy, either, as it's outdone by the HD 6870 1GB, which currently costs the same. The only reason you should consider an HD 7750 1GB is if power consumption is a critical factor in your system; here it does well and doesn't even need a 6-pin power connector, while also maintaining single slot cooling. For every other situation, though, it's a let down when we'd hoped it might offer performance close to the HD 6850 1GB for a lot less. Sadly this isn't the case.