Thanks for the review. It looks nice! It's too bad about the 7750 and 7770 pricing though. Maybe the new nVidia cards coming out soon(?) will help push the prices down. Either way, I think the benefit of the power efficiency of these over the previous generation cards is worth the price. And actually it's cheaper than the PowerColor GoGreen 6750, the only passive 6750 card out there. That seems really overpriced now.

I've been contemplating an upgrade of my Sapphire HD4670 Ultimate recently. This card would definitely be at the top of my list. But I was also thinking of maybe stepping up to the 7770. So I'm hoping that PowerColor comes out with a GoGreen 7770. I think that would be ideal. Assuming the price is somewhat reasonable.

True, once nvidia releases their newer cards, these should come down in price. I too am disappointed in the 7K series pricing, but hey, they're being stingy because they can. So oh well, competition is what drives prices down. Maybe then this would be changed to an Editor's Choice =P. I myself find the performance on this at about bare minimum for solid gaming. Though it's perfect for light gaming. Haha. For a step up into casual gaming, I'd still go with a 6850 (7850 once prices come down). It can be cooled easily with some low speed fans and an aftermarket heatsink. That is for practically silent operation, otherwise some versions have very quiet stock coolers.

I was just thinking about this card.


Now Sapphire just needs to release a low-profile HD 7750 for some hot (slim) Mini-ITX action!

Thank you for the review. It looks like I'm gonna stick with my current 5750 passive from PowerColor, since the 7750 doesn't improve much in terms of performance...

Thanks for the review - it's nice to see some passive/aftermarket cooled cards right at product release instead of 3 months out. The idle and load power improvements are awesome. I'm impatiently waiting for the Kepler cards to come out so the 7850 price will drop

Will be curious about the quiet options for the 7770.

Can power consumption in zerocore power state be tested please? The ability of the 7 series cards to more or less turn themselves off in long idle is one of the biggest advantages over the previous generation. I hope this card has not shipped without this feature, that would be a shame.

Other than this card what are the options for a passive card that can drive threee monitors?

I hate to go a bit off-topic and feel free to push this elsewhere, but..

This has me thinking about the 2 monitor power tax and future reviews... is it about time to update the video card test platform? I hate to lose the accumulated data, but Rana + 785G is getting long in the tooth. An IVB platform would be great for testing power use with Virtu modes/2 monitors/using HD 7xxx for the gaming monitor and IGP for non-gaming monitor/etc as well as an opportunity to modernize the setup.

CA_Steve --

Yes, it's probably time for an upgrade. We'll see what we can do in the next little while. As for "losing" the data, it'll still be there, and for making comparisons, the only really relevant ones are with cards that are no more than perhaps a year old (given the short product life in the market), so we should be OK if just a few older cards are retested on the new platform.

cool beans

I'm currently looking to put one of these cards in a Silverstone GD06, but I'm a little concerned by the up and over the back shape of the heatsink. Anyone know if it fits?

Currently waiting for this card to arrive to put in a 22W idle system.  It's something I'm putting together on the cheap for a family member using an old EA-380 80 PLUS Bronze PSU with a H61M-D2/G530 combo & SSD.  Will be interesting to see if this all gets below 25W during long idle with these cheap parts.

Great review Lawrence, thx.

Didn't know about this card. Totally agree on the "recommended" rating.
I am considering this one for my next "near silent" allround-PC build.
Stepping up from a Saphire HD4850 in my current PC. I am doing some casual gaming alsoo.
And when i am going to game on a PC i want to outperform my Sons PS3 graphics

Keep up the good work guys,

Love your site!

I'm not sure if my card is going into full zerocore power state as the system idles at around 28.5W with the screen on, then with the screen off and all windows minimised it idles at around 24.2-26W, then settles at 25.3-25.5W after a while.

The official 12.2 drivers from ATI don't seem to support this card yet either, but seems to be fine with the 8.95RC driver on Sapphires website. I'll have to see if anything changes in the next official driver.

Review sites are showing a 4.5W-6W difference between idle and long idle for the reference build cards.

I've updated to 12.3 and I think the idle behaviour may have changed since the RC driver. These are my quick notes of what I've noticed:

GPU-Z indicates the Bus Interface is running at PCI-E x16 2.0 while Windows 7 boots.
Once boot has finished and system is at idle, Bus Interface changes to PCI-E x16 1.1 and system power is at around 31W.
When the screen turns off, the idle power drops to around 24.6-24.8W.
When I move the mouse and the screen wakes, the Bus is now at PCI-E x1 1.1 and idles from now on at around 25.6-25.8W
When I then enter a game, the Bus speed changes back to PCI-E x16 2.0.
After exiting the game, the Bus speed changes back to PCI-E x16 1.1 and idle power is around 31W.
Again, once the screen turns off the idle power drops to around 24.6-24.8W, and after screen wakes is at PCI-E x1 1.1 and 25.6-25.8W.

This behaviour isn't optimal. If the screen is set to never turn off then the idle power stays at around 31W and Bus at PCI-E x16 1.1

Summary:

Boot........ PCI-E x16 2.0
Boot Idle... PCI-E x16 1.1 - 31W
Screen Off.. Zerocore - 24.7W
Screen back on idle - PCI-E x1 1.1 - 25.7W

Hope this makes sense

Damn computers.

I've worked out why I was seeing 28.5W at idle before. This system will either idle at around 28.5W or 31W from boot with the screen on no matter what I do. More often than not, a cold boot will cause 28.5W idle and a reboot will cause 31W, but every now and then the reverse will even happen. System activity has been taken into account too, so I know it's not something that simple. Argh!

Other than this, everything I wrote above is correct.

Edit: Without the HD7750, the system idles at 24.2-24.5W with the screen on and 21.0-21.2W off. This doesn't seem to change. I wonder if the integrated GPU is sometimes still active with the HD7750 installed?

I just returned my copy of this card after a day of irritation. The thing worked fine when connected via DVI. However, the display flickered badly when connected via DisplayPort (yes, I tried more than one cable). Running 12.3. Anyone else run into problems when using DisplayPort?

Great review and very cool card. It's awesome that Sapphire continues to build these kinds of video cards. I might get this for my HTPC/Living Room Gaming PC but I already have a 5770 in it. This would definitely save some power but I have been keeping it off lately anyway to save money. It's also in the basement so noise isn't as important (though it is always important ).

Couldn't getting it zerocore working properly. Regular idle was 60W and was pretty much constant. When the display turned off, the power varied wildly, ranging between 52W and 86W! This is with the 12.2 RC drivers. I couldn't get the official drivers to work with this card.

I have the same experience with my card when I have a window open that isn't static. GPUZ indicates the card is frequently switching from zerocore state (0mhz clocks) and full clocks state so I'm willing to believe this is more a driver related issue that will be fixed in a future release.

On my H61 board (HD5670), IGP is disabled. However, HWMonitor shows a constant 0.06w IGP power consumption.

Checking the PowerColor Radeon 7xxx line...

http://www.powercolor.com/us/products_layer_2.asp?ByBus=PCI-E&ByClass=ByProducts&VGASeries=RADEON%20HD7000%20Series&IsView=0&Series=RADEON%20HD7700

...and I see a "Go Green" fanless 7750:

http://www.powercolor.com/us/products_features.asp?id=413

Any reason to think the PowerColor is better or worse than the Sapphire? The specs look identical. At a glance, the Sapphire heatsink looks more solid, and the wrap-around my be helpful for convection (i.e., better to have the hot spot over the card rather than under it). But looks don't always translate into real-world results. (Hmmm, I looked briefly and am not seeing these fanless PowerColors actually for sale. But they'll presumably show up sooner or later.)

Haven't seen any attempts at a fanless 7770 yet.

Hi Thanks for this great review.

I wonder if this Sapphire HD 7750 Ultimate card can be put in SilverStone SG07 or SG08.

Can anyone give it a try?

I got the 7750 fanless powercolor version. the HS sticks up from the top of the card slightly. Not an issue in most cases but might matter in a smaller case.

The Sapphire is longer and taller, again not an issue for most cases but can be an issue in smaller cases. It might handle high temps better though with the larger heatsink and the heatsinks on the other chips on the card.

If you aren't getting one for a really small PC case I'd buy on price between the two. The only difference between them other than the heatsinks will be the power circuitry and it'd only be a difference of a couple of watts so its almost a non issue.

Something not covered in the article is how you can change the maximum power draw +20% or -20% or anywhere in-between in 1% increments. Since I game I'll leave mine at +20% (or whatever percentage testing shows to give the best performance*) most of the time, it'll still idle just as efficiently but it won't throttle the GPU in heavy gaming.

Conversely if you were using a super small PSU or lived in a very hot environment or were using it as a server or HTPC video card you might be happy turning the power max down by 20% to reduce the heat inside the case or to prevent spiking over the maximum power draw of your PSU. I might do this on the hottest summer days but I haven't hit one since I got the card so I'm not sure yet.

I really should get the killawatt out and measure my system at idle and playing a game with the power settings at -20%, 0%, and +20% just to see how much of a difference it makes but that'd probably kill a few hours of my time so I'll save that for a warm day or some day when my internet goes down again.

At the time of the article the comparison was made about buying an old 5750 to save a few bucks. But the flexibility on the power settings and the modern driver support that the 7xxx cards will see going forward makes it worth going 7750 instead. Of course by now the 5750 is no longer cheaper as it is still a $150 card if you can find it and the 7750 has become an $85 to $120 card depending on the heatsink used. Personally I think it's worth the extra money for a heatsink that has no fans or at least one with more heat pipes and either one larger than stock fan or two fans.


edit * = On some cards turning the power above 0% will actually reduce performance, you have to test minimum and average framrates while monitoring temps to find out if you are making your card faster or slower in a specific application and Game A might run faster at +20 and Game B might run faster at +17% and benchmark X might run faster at +0% all on the same card. Not a fire and forget setting unless you are playing with the negative percentages which are always easier to predict the result of their use. And if you change your CPU and/or OS you have to retest the new combination.

Hi,

I have an old motherboard (Asus P5G41M-LE) which has a PCI next to the PCIe x16 (nowadays a PCIe x1 is put in that place). Obviously the PCI slots are a bit higher than PCIe.

I've never seen the card live. What is the distance between the edge of PCB and the heatpipes? Will it fit?

Yes, it will fit. Search google images for sapphire 7750 and you can see from the pictures that there's a bit of clearance between the pipes and the connector.

I'm interested in this card for use with CS5, primarily for Photoshop and Premier. How well does this card perform for large file photo editing and video processing? I currently have an XFX 6850 and the fan noise is driving me crazy... Looking to go ultra quiet..