Overclocking

As RivaTuner still didn't support the HD 4770, we employed the modified hex codes that we used to overclock the Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB and the reference Radeon HD 4770. These can be found in our initial Radeon HD 4770 overclocking blog post here. We expected big things from the XFX ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB and like the previous two HD 4770s we've looked at, it achieved some stellar overclocks.

We managed to increase the core from 750MHz to 880MHz but the quad-pumped GDDR5 memory went all the way to 1GHz (4GHz effective) - 25MHz faster than the reference HD 4770 which managed 985MHz and 110MHz faster than the Gigabyte ATI HD Radeon 4770 512MB. This is a surprising result as the RAM isn't in direct contact with the cooler but either the cooler is directing some of its airflow at the GDDR5 memory on the PCB or the memory simply doesn't need that much cooling. Either way a 25 per cent overclock on the memory is a substantial bonus.



While Crysis remained out of reach for the XFX ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB even after its lofty overclock was applied, the minimum frame rate at 1,680 x 1,050 4xAA 16xAF was boosted by 4fps which actually equates to 25 per cent. The difference at 1,920 x 1,200 2xAA 16xAF was slightly less - just 1fps but this is still in the 10 per cent territory. It won't make the XFX ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB into a £200 graphics card, but it should provide a noticeable increase in most games and you'll also be left feeling pretty chuffed if you get the GDDR5 to 1GHz.

Conclusions

If you're in the market for a sub £100 graphics card then you've probably spotted the fact that new cards are appearing in this price bracket all the time. New releases and price drops on older but still capable models are flooding the market at the moment and this can make things a bit of a nightmare as far as choosing something goes. As many games are borderline playable, especially at higher resolutions, the choice of graphics card here is critical too. There can be quite a big difference in performance due to driver optimisations so sub £100 Nvidia graphics cards can outperform ATI's offerings in one game, and get trounced by them in the next.

As such it's worth first considering what games you play or are likely to play and base your decision on this. We've seen the XFX ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB is capable at low resolutions in Fallout 3 and can cope with higher resolutions in Far Cry 2 and Call of Duty: World at War so long as you don't ramp up the AA.


In older games such as Race Driver: GRID, performance is great even at high resolutions with plenty of AA so if you're a die hard GRID driver or maybe a Battlefield 2 or Half-Life 2 fan and you're looking for a graphics upgrade to go with your shiny new widescreen monitor then the XFX ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB could well be what you're after.

The Nvidia GeForce GTS 250 512MB is perhaps the piece of hardware that spoils the HD 4770's day. It beats it most of the benchmarks, sometimes by quite a margin especially in Folding and Crysis. What's more, at time of writing we found several GTS 250s on sale for just £96 (inc. VAT) which is just £16 more than the XFX ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB. We'd probably argue that you see the extra performance for this additional outlay too although the Nvidia card didn't perform too well in comparison in Far Cry 2.

If anything, the HD 4770 has served to drag prices down as Nvidia compensates to hold on to its market share in this area. However the XFX ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB is worthy of your cash if £80 is your absolute limit and unlike the Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB, we'd actually recommend buying the XFX as it's cooler is quiet and performs very well. Just make sure you opt for the HD-477A-YDFC standard box or HD-477A-YDF7 X-shaped box versions.

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