HIS Radeon HD 7770 iCooler Video Card

Manufacturer: Hightech Information System Limited
Product Name: HIS 7770 iCooler 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E DVI/HDMI/2xMiniDP
Model Number: H777F1G2M
Price As Tested: $129.99 (Amazon / NewEgg)

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by HIS.

If the you have read the reviews of the AMD Radeon HD 79xx series of video cards here at benchmark reviews you will know that owning the fastest single GPU video card will hurt your wallet. While we can all aspire to (or dream of) owning one or more of these high end video cards, the simple fact is that not everyone can afford such luxuries. In this article we take a look at the more moderately priced HIS Radeon HD 7770 iCooler 1GB video card armed with AMD's Cape Verde 28nm GPU Core. Sure enough it won't run your favorite games maxed out at 1080p but with an msrp of $129.99 you might be pleasantly surprised at its power to weight ratio. Benchmark Reviews aims to provide you with an unbiased review of the HIS Radeon HD 7770 iCooler 1GB video card and report back our findings, keeping you informed on the latest technologies available on the market today.

HIS' iCooler technology has come a long way since the Radeon X700Pro days, back then it was comparable to the size of a southbridge cooler of today's standards but the principals have always been the same; cooler and quieter than the reference design. This coupled with the 28nm Cape Verde GPU means that we get respectable frame rates and very low power draw in a very small compact video card, probably best suited to an HTPC environment but still good for a mid range gaming PC.

For this review we have a comparative range of video cards in our usual mixture of DX10 / DX11 synthetic benchmarks and current games to get a good idea where it fits in performance and price wise. We also intend to overclock the HIS HD 7770 iCooler to its limits and see if the 'iCooler' really has what it takes to cool the GPU and other components effectively, so without further delay let's move on and get stuck in.

Closer Look: HIS Radeon HD 7770 iCooler

In this section we will have a good tour of the HIS HD 7770 iCooler 1GB video card and discuss its main features. The HIS HD 7770 iCooler is packed in a relatively small package, about the size and shape of a shoe box only a little thinner. Accessories wise there is only a DVI to VGA adapter included, there are no power adapter cables or crossfire bridges although this model does support crossfire.

The HIS HD 7770 iCooler video card is fairly small, measuring 11cm tall x 21cm long and is also a double slot design. The iCooler HSF assembly features a 75mm fan that effectively cools the 28nm Cape Verde HD 7770 GPU while remaining virtually silent, even at 100%. The small compact design is probably best suited to an HTPC environment where space really matters, and the cooling ability coupled with the low power draw of the HD 7770 GPU re-enforces this line of thought.

The shroud of HIS Radeon HD 7770 iCooler HSF assembly does not completely enclose the heatsink and as such some warm air will be exhausted inside your case. The design of the shroud ensures some airflow will reach the power delivery section of the PCB and will let incoming air also cool here unrestricted.

Looking at the end view here we spy a 6-pin PCI-E power connector, HIS recommend a 450W or greater power supply.

For output we have two mini display port connectors, a full size HDMI port and one dual-link DVI-I connector. Bundled with the card you get a DVI to D-SUB adapter, so as far as connectors go HIS have really covered all the bases here.

HIS 7770 iCooler Detailed Features

In this section we shall take an in depth look at the HIS HD 7770 iCooler video card and see what makes it tick.

With the fan and shroud removed we can get a better look at the aluminum heatsink. There isn't really much to it but as you will see later in the article it performs very well indeed.

With the cooler assembly fully removed we can get a better look at the board, The overall layout of all the components is a little different than what we are used to on high end video cards. The compact layout has moved the power phase/VRM section to the left of the PCB. Advances in nano-scale manufacturing technologies mean that 1GB of memory can be squeezed into a much smaller package, here we have only four memory modules whereas only last year or so 1GB video cards would have needed eight. All in all the PCB looks good with no real waste of space and the soldering quality is of a very high standard

The back of the PCB is utilised mainly for resistors and the soldering quality is excellent for such tiny components. Man loses the war to the machine when it comes to detailed work like this. These days you don't generally see RAM on the reverse side of a 1GB video card design thanks to the smaller manufacturing process that allows more density in a smaller package.

The HIS HD 7770 iCooler uses 1GB of hynix H5GQ2H24MFR-TC2 memory divided between four modules, rated at 2.5GHz (5GHz effective) at 1.5V.

In the next section we will look at the main features and specifications of the HIS HD 7770 iCooler 1GB video card.

HIS Radeon HD 7770 iCooler Features

AMD Radeon HD 7770 Key Features

• PCI Express 3.0 x16 bus interface
• DirectX 11 capable graphics
• OpenGL 4.2 support
• Image quality enhancement technology
• AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology
• AMD App Acceleration
• AMD HD3D technology
• AMD CrossFire multi-GPU technology
• Cutting-edge integrated display support
• Display port 1.2
  • Max resolution: 4096x2160 per display
  • Multi-Stream support
  • 21.6 Gbps bandwidth
  • High bit-rate audio
  • Quad HD/4k video support
• 3GHz HDMI 1.4a with stereoscopic 3D frame packing format, Deep color, xvYCC Wide gamut support, High bit-rate audio
  • Max resolution: 4069x3112
  • 1080p60 Strereoescopic 3D
  • Quad HD/4K video support
• Dual-link DVI with HDCP - Max resolution 2560x1600
• VGA - Max resolution: 2048x1536
• Integrated HD audio controller
• AMD PowerPlay power management technology
• AMD PowerTune technology
• AMD Catalyst graphics and HD video configuration software

iCooler Cooling Technology

Source: hisdigital.com.

HIS H775F1GD Specifications

Source: HIS Reviewers Guide.

VGA Testing Methodology

The Microsoft DirectX-11 graphics API is native to the Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System, and will be the primary O/S for our test platform. DX11 is also available as a Microsoft Update for the Windows Vista O/S, so our test results apply to both versions of the Operating System. The majority of benchmark tests used in this article are comparative to DX11 performance, however some high-demand DX10 tests have also been included.

According to the Steam Hardware Survey published for the month ending January 2012, the most popular gaming resolution is 1920x1080 with 1680x1050 hot on its heels, our benchmark performance tests concentrate on these higher-demand resolutions: 1.76MP 1680x1050 and 2.07MP 1920x1080 (22-24" widescreen LCD monitors), as they are more likely to be used by high-end graphics solutions, such as those tested in this article.

In each benchmark test there is one 'cache run' that is conducted, followed by five recorded test runs. Results are collected at each setting with the highest and lowest results discarded. The remaining three results are averaged, and displayed in the performance charts on the following pages.

A combination of synthetic and video game benchmark tests have been used in this article to illustrate relative performance among graphics solutions. Our benchmark frame rate results are not intended to represent real-world graphics performance, as this experience would change based on supporting hardware and the perception of individuals playing the video game.

Intel Z68 Test System

• Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V Pro
• System Memory: 8GB Corsair LP CL9 1600MHz
• Processor: Core i7 2600K @ 4.2GHz
• Disk Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB
• Enclosure: Lancool PC-K63
• PSU: Corsair HX750W 750 watt Modular
• Monitor: HKC 22" Widescreen (1920x1080)
• Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (SP1)

DirectX-10 Benchmark Applications

• 3DMark Vantage v1.02
  • Extreme Settings: (Extreme Quality, 8x Multisample Anti-Aliasing, 16x Anisotropic Filtering, 1:2 Scale)
• Street Fighter IV Benchmark
  • Extreme Settings: (Very High Quality, 8x AA, 16x AF, Parallel rendering On, Shadows High)

DirectX-11 Benchmark Applications

• Aliens vs Predator
  • Extreme Settings: (Very High Quality, 4x AA, 16x AF, SSAO, Tessellation, Advanced Shadows)
• BattleField: Bad Company 2
  • Extreme Settings: (Highest Quality, HBAO, 8x AA, 16x AF, 180s Fraps Single-Player Intro Scene)
• BattleField 3
  • High Settings: (High Quality, 2x MSAA, AA Post High, 8x AF, SSAO, 120s Fraps 'Operation Swordbreaker' action scene)
• Lost Planet 2
  • Extreme Settings: (2x AA, Low Shadow Detail, High Texture, High Render, High DirectX 11 Features)
• Tom Clancy's HAWX 2 Benchmark 1.0.4
  • Extreme Settings: (Maximum Quality, 8x AA, 16x AF, DX11 Terrain Tessellation)
• Metro 2033
  • Extreme Settings: (Very-High Quality, AAA, 16x AF, Advanced DoF, Tessellation, 180s Fraps Chase Scene)
• Unigine Heaven Benchmark 2.1
  • Extreme Settings: (High Quality, Normal Tessellation, 16x AF, 4x AA)

Video Card Test Products

• AMD HIS Radeon iCooler HD 7770 1GB (1000 MHz GPU/1125 MHz vRAM - AMD Cape Verde 8.932.2 win7)
• NVIDIA MSI GeForce GTX 550Ti (950 MHz GPU/1900 MHz Shader/1075 MHz vRAM - Forceware 285.62)
• AMD HIS Radeon HD6850 X Turbo (820 MHz GPU/1100 MHz vRAM - AMD Catalyst Driver 11.9)
• NVIDIA Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 OC (715 MHz GPU/1430 MHz Shader/900 MHz vRAM - Forceware 285.62)
• AMD HIS Radeon HD7750 iCooler (800 MHz GPU/1125 MHz vRAM - AMD Catalyst Driver 11.9)
• AMD HIS Radeon HD6870 X Turbo X (975 MHz GPU/1150 MHz vRAM - AMD Catalyst Driver 11.9)

DX10: 3DMark Vantage

3DMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed to test the DirectX10 graphics card performance. FutureMark 3DMark Vantage is the latest addition the 3DMark benchmark series built by FutureMark corporation. Although 3DMark Vantage requires NVIDIA PhysX to be installed for program operation, only the CPU/Physics test relies on this technology.

3DMark Vantage offers benchmark tests focusing on GPU, CPU, and Physics performance. Benchmark Reviews uses the two GPU-specific tests for grading video card performance: Jane Nash and New Calico. These tests isolate graphical performance, and remove processor dependence from the benchmark results.

3DMark Vantage GPU Test: Jane Nash

Of the two GPU tests 3DMark Vantage offers, the Jane Nash performance benchmark is slightly less demanding. In a short video scene the special agent escapes a secret lair by water, nearly losing her shirt in the process. Benchmark Reviews tests this DirectX-10 scene at 1680x1050 and 1920x1080 resolutions, and uses Extreme quality settings with 8x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering. The 1:2 scale is utilized, and is the highest this test allows. By maximizing the processing levels of this test, the scene creates the highest level of graphical demand possible and sorts the strong from the weak.

Cost Analysis: Jane Nash (1680x1050)

3DMark Vantage GPU Test: New Calico

New Calico is the second GPU test in the 3DMark Vantage test suite. Of the two GPU tests, New Calico is the most demanding. In a short video scene featuring a galactic battleground, there is a massive display of busy objects across the screen. Benchmark Reviews tests this DirectX-10 scene at 1680x1050 and 1920x1080 resolutions, and uses Extreme quality settings with 8x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering. The 1:2 scale is utilized, and is the highest this test allows. Using the highest graphics processing level available allows our test products to separate themselves and stand out (if possible).

Cost Analysis: New Calico (1680x1050)

Video Card Test Products

DX10: Street Fighter IV

Capcom's Street Fighter IV is part of the now-famous Street Fighter series that began in 1987. The 2D Street Fighter II was one of the most popular fighting games of the 1990s, and now gets a 3D face-lift to become Street Fighter 4. The Street Fighter 4 benchmark utility was released as a novel way to test your system's ability to run the game. It uses a few dressed-up fight scenes where combatants fight against each other using various martial arts disciplines. Feet, fists and magic fill the screen with a flurry of activity. Due to the rapid pace, varied lighting and the use of music this is one of the more enjoyable benchmarks. Street Fighter IV uses a proprietary Capcom SF4 game engine, which is enhanced over previous versions of the game.

Using the highest quality DirectX-10 settings with 8x AA and 16x AF, a mid to high end card will ace this test, but it will still weed out the slower cards out there.

• Street Fighter IV Benchmark
  • Extreme Settings: (Very High Quality, 8x AA, 16x AF, Parallel rendering On, Shadows High)

Cost Analysis: Street Fighter IV (1680x1050)

Video Card Test Products

DX11: Aliens vs Predator

Aliens vs. Predator is a science fiction first-person shooter video game, developed by Rebellion, and published by Sega for Microsoft Windows, Sony PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Xbox 360. Aliens vs. Predator utilizes Rebellion's proprietary Asura game engine, which had previously found its way into Call of Duty: World at War and Rogue Warrior. The self-contained benchmark tool is used for our DirectX-11 tests, which push the Asura game engine to its limit.

In our benchmark tests, Aliens vs. Predator was configured to use the highest quality settings with 4x AA and 16x AF. DirectX-11 features such as Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) and tessellation have also been included, along with advanced shadows.

• Aliens vs Predator
  • Extreme Settings: (Very High Quality, 4x AA, 16x AF, SSAO, Tessellation, Advanced Shadows)

Cost Analysis: Aliens vs Predator (1680x1050)

Video Card Test Products

DX11: Battlefield Bad Company 2

The Battlefield franchise has been known to demand a lot from PC graphics hardware. DICE (Digital Illusions CE) has incorporated their Frostbite-1.5 game engine with Destruction-2.0 feature set with Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 features destructible environments using Frostbit Destruction-2.0, and adds gravitational bullet drop effects for projectiles shot from weapons at a long distance. The Frostbite-1.5 game engine used on Battlefield: Bad Company 2 consists of DirectX-10 primary graphics, with improved performance and softened dynamic shadows added for DirectX-11 users.

At the time Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was published, DICE was also working on the Frostbite-2.0 game engine. This upcoming engine will include native support for DirectX-10.1 and DirectX-11, as well as parallelized processing support for 2-8 parallel threads. This will improve performance for users with an Intel Core-i7 processor. Unfortunately, the Extreme Edition Intel Core i7-980X six-core CPU with twelve threads will not see full utilization.

In our benchmark tests of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the first three minutes of action in the single-player raft night scene are captured with FRAPS. Relative to the online multiplayer action, these frame rate results are nearly identical to daytime maps with the same video settings. The Frostbite-1.5 game engine in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 appears to equalize our test set of video cards, and despite AMD's sponsorship of the game it still plays well using any brand of graphics card.

• BattleField: Bad Company 2
  • Extreme Settings: (Highest Quality, HBAO, 8x AA, 16x AF, 180s Fraps Single-Player Intro Scene)

Cost Analysis: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (1680x1050)

Video Card Test Products

DX11: BattleField 3

Battlefield 3 is leaps ahead of its time with the power of Frostbite 2, DICE's new cutting-edge game engine. This state-of-the-art technology is the foundation on which Battlefield 3 is built - delivering enhanced visual quality, a grand sense of scale, massive destruction, dynamic audio and character animation utilizing ANT technology as seen in the latest EA SPORTS games. Battlefield 3 also delivers all-out vehicle warfare with an incredible Array of vehicles to control, including Jets, tanks, jeeps and helicopters.

In our benchmark tests of Battlefield 3, the first two minutes of action in the single-player mission 'Operation swordbreaker' (after skipping the interview scene) are captured with FRAPS. Relative to the online multiplayer action, these frame rate results are nearly identical to daytime maps with the same video settings. The Frostbite 2 game engine in Battlefield 3 can strain even the most powerful video cards when all the settings are on max, so for these mid range video cards more moderate settings are used.

• BattleField 3
  • High Settings: (High Quality, 2x MSAA, AA Post High, 8x AF, SSAO)

Cost Analysis: Battlefield 3 (1680x1050)

Video Card Test Products

DX11: Lost Planet 2

Lost Planet 2 is the second instalment in the saga of the planet E.D.N. III, ten years after the story of Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. The snow has melted and the lush jungle life of the planet has emerged with angry and luscious flora and fauna. With the new environment comes the addition of DirectX-11 technology to the game.

Lost Planet 2 takes advantage of DX11 features including tessellation and displacement mapping on water, level bosses, and player characters. In addition, soft body compute shaders are used on 'Boss' characters, and wave simulation is performed using DirectCompute. These cutting edge features make for an excellent benchmark for top-of-the-line consumer GPUs.

The Lost Planet 2 benchmark offers two different tests, which serve different purposes. This article uses tests conducted on benchmark B, which is designed to be a deterministic and effective benchmark tool featuring DirectX 11 elements.

• Lost Planet 2 Benchmark 1.0
  • Moderate Settings: (2x AA, Low Shadow Detail, High Texture, High Render, High DirectX 11 Features)

Cost Analysis: Lost Planet 2 (1680x1050)

Video Card Test Products

DX11: Tom Clancy's HAWX 2

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.2 has been optimized for DX11 enabled GPUs and has a number of enhancements to not only improve performance with DX11 enabled GPUs, but also greatly improve the visual experience while taking to the skies. The game uses a hardware terrain tessellation method that allows a high number of detailed triangles to be rendered entirely on the GPU when near the terrain in question. This allows for a very low memory footprint and relies on the GPU power alone to expand the low resolution data to highly realistic detail.

The Tom Clancy's HAWX2 benchmark uses normal game content in the same conditions a player will find in the game, and allows users to evaluate the enhanced visuals that DirectX-11 tessellation adds into the game. The Tom Clancy's HAWX2 benchmark is built from exactly the same source code that's included with the retail version of the game. HAWX2's tessellation scheme uses a metric based on the length in pixels of the triangle edges. This value is currently set to 6 pixels per triangle edge, which provides an average triangle size of 18 pixels.

The end result is perhaps the best tessellation implementation seen in a game yet, providing a dramatic improvement in image quality over the non-tessellated case, and running at playable frame rates across a wide range of graphics hardware.

• Tom Clancy's HAWX 2 Benchmark 1.0.4
  • Extreme Settings: (Maximum Quality, 8x AA, 16x AF, DX11 Terrain Tessellation)

Cost Analysis: HAWX 2 (1680x1050)

Video Card Test Products

DX11: Metro 2033

Metro 2033 is an action-oriented video game with a combination of survival horror, and first-person shooter elements. The game is based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. It was developed by 4A Games in Ukraine and released in March 2010 for Microsoft Windows. Metro 2033 uses the 4A game engine, developed by 4A Games. The 4A Engine supports DirectX-9, 10, and 11, along with NVIDIA PhysX and GeForce 3D Vision.

The 4A engine is multi-threaded in such that only PhysX had a dedicated thread, and uses a task-model without any pre-conditioning or pre/post-synchronizing, allowing tasks to be done in parallel. The 4A game engine can utilize a deferred shading pipeline, and uses tessellation for greater performance, and also has HDR (complete with blue shift), real-time reflections, color correction, film grain and noise, and the engine also supports multi-core rendering.

Metro 2033 featured superior volumetric fog, double PhysX precision, object blur, sub-surface scattering for skin shaders, parallax mapping on all surfaces and greater geometric detail with a less aggressive LODs. Using PhysX, the engine uses many features such as destructible environments, and cloth and water simulations, and particles that can be fully affected by environmental factors.

NVIDIA has been diligently working to promote Metro 2033, and for good reason: it's one of the most demanding PC video games we've ever tested. When their flagship GeForce GTX 480 struggles to produce 27 FPS with DirectX-11 anti-aliasing turned to to its lowest setting, you know that only the strongest graphics processors will generate playable frame rates. All of our tests enable Advanced Depth of Field and Tessellation effects, but disable advanced PhysX options.

• Metro 2033
  • Moderate Settings: (Very-High Quality, AAA, 16x AF, Advanced DoF, Tessellation, 180s Fraps Chase Scene)

Cost Analysis: Metro 2033 (1680x1050)

Video Card Test Products

DX11: Unigine Heaven 2.1

The Unigine Heaven 2.1 benchmark is a free publicly available tool that grants the power to unleash the graphics capabilities in DirectX-11 for Windows 7 or updated Vista Operating Systems. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode, emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.

The distinguishing feature in the Unigine Heaven benchmark is a hardware tessellation that is a scalable technology aimed for automatic subdivision of polygons into smaller and finer pieces, so that developers can gain a more detailed look of their games almost free of charge in terms of performance. Thanks to this procedure, the elaboration of the rendered image finally approaches the boundary of veridical visual perception: the virtual reality transcends conjured by your hand.

Although Heaven-2.1 was recently released and used for our DirectX-11 tests, the benchmark results were extremely close to those obtained with Heaven-1.0 testing. Since only DX11-compliant video cards will properly test on the Heaven benchmark, only those products that meet the requirements have been included.

• Unigine Heaven Benchmark 2.1
  • Extreme Settings: (High Quality, Normal Tessellation, 16x AF, 4x AA)

Cost Analysis: Unigine Heaven (1680x1050)

Video Card Test Products

HIS 7770 iCooler Temperatures

Benchmark tests are always nice, so long as you care about comparing one product to another. But when you're an overclocker, gamer, or merely a PC hardware enthusiast who likes to tweak things on occasion, there's no substitute for good information. Benchmark Reviews has a very popular guide written on Overclocking Video Cards, which gives detailed instruction on how to tweak a graphics cards for better performance. Of course, not every video card has overclocking head room. Some products run so hot that they can't suffer any higher temperatures than they already do. This is why we measure the operating temperature of the video card products we test.

To begin my testing, I use GPU-Z to measure the temperature at idle as reported by the GPU. Next I use FurMark's "Torture Test" to generate maximum thermal load and record GPU temperatures at high-power 3D mode. The ambient room temperature remained at a stable 22°C throughout testing. FurMark does two things extremely well: drive the thermal output of any graphics processor higher than applications of video games realistically could, and it does so with consistency every time. Furmark works great for testing the stability of a GPU as the temperature rises to the highest possible output. The temperatures discussed below are absolute maximum values, and not representative of real-world performance.

As previously stated my ambient temperature remained at a stable 22°C throughout the testing procedure, the cooler is very efficient and a heavy load from FurMark raises the temperature from 32°C (20% fan speed) idle, to 56°C load with an automatic fan speed of just 24%. Putting the fan on manual and cranking it up to 100% saw the temperature drop to 47°C and the fan didn't seem to make any extra noise, remaining virtually silent while giving us an impressive 9°C reduction in load temperature.

In the next section we will look at power consumption figures, let's go.

VGA Power Consumption

Life is not as affordable as it used to be, and items such as gasoline, natural gas, and electricity all top the list of resources which have exploded in price over the past few years. Add to this the limit of non-renewable resources compared to current demands, and you can see that the prices are only going to get worse. Planet Earth is needs our help, and needs it badly. With forests becoming barren of vegetation and snow capped poles quickly turning brown, the technology industry has a new attitude towards turning "green". I'll spare you the powerful marketing hype that gets sent from various manufacturers every day, and get right to the point: your computer hasn't been doing much to help save energy... at least up until now.

For power consumption tests, Benchmark Reviews utilizes an 80-Plus Gold rated Corsair HX750w (model: CMPSU-750HX) This power supply unit has been tested to provide over 90% typical efficiency by Ecos Plug Load Solutions. To measure isolated video card power consumption, I used the energenie ENER007 power meter made by Sandal Plc (UK).

A baseline test is taken without a video card installed inside our test computer system, which is allowed to boot into Windows-7 and rest idle at the login screen before power consumption is recorded. Once the baseline reading has been taken, the graphics card is installed and the system is again booted into Windows and left idle at the login screen. Our final loaded power consumption reading is taken with the video card running a stress test using FurMark. Below is a chart with the isolated video card power consumption (not system total) displayed in Watts for each specified test product:

The HIS HD 7770 iCooler consumes 10 (76-66) watts at idle and 78 (144-66) watts when running full load using the test method outlined above. As we can see in the GPU-Z screenshot below the HIS HD 7770 iCooler uses 0.825v when idle, when under load it uses 1.20v.

In the next section we will be discussing our overclocking with the HIS HD 7770 iCooler 1GB video card.

HIS 7770 iCooler Overclocking

Before I start overclocking I like to get a little bit of information, firstly I like to establish operating temperatures and since we know these are nice and the iCooler is very capable we can quickly move on. Next I like to know what the voltage and clock limits are, so I fired up the HIS iTurbo overclocking utility. I wasn't able to adjust the vCore due to hardware limitations. Clock speeds had a seemingly infinite range of adjustment (as with the HIS HD 7950 IceQ) and I suspect that this is a feature limited to the HIS iTurbo v1.1.1 utility as I couldn't achieve the same result with MSI Afterburner. Since my only limitation was running at stock voltage this overclock run was just a case of bumping clocks and testing stability.

Without being able to raise the vCore I was able to push the GPU core clock to 1120MHz (+120MHz) and the memory to 1600MHz (+475MHz - 6.4GHz effective) which required very little effort at all. I am impressed by the capabilities of the HIS HD 7770 iCooler 1GB video card. I did manage to clock the core clock higher but it was only at this speed that it could pass through every benchmark without crashing.

Armed with a 120MHz GPU core overclock and a staggering 475MHz memory overclock, we went back to the bench and ran through the entire test suite. Overall we saw an average 22.35% increase in scores (at 1920x1080 resolution), with performance on par with and mostly beating 1680x1050 scores. This is very good considering we couldn't adjust the voltage any, which suggests there is more headroom yet to be had for those who like to void warranties with volt mods and such.

We also re-ran temperature tests at the overclocked speeds at a slightly higher ambient temperature of 25°C. The iCooler on the HIS HD 7770 once again did not fail to please, pushing the temperature up with FurMark saw the GPU load temperature rise to 63°C (30% fan speed). Next I tested at 100% fan speed and the temperature dropped to 55°C, chopping 8°C off the top. Cracking little cooler, or Advanced Micro Device? You decide.

That's all of the testing over, in the next section I will deliver my final thoughts and conclusion.

HIS iCooler Final Thoughts

When I looked at the HIS HD 7770 iCooler video card for the first time after taking it out of its box I really didn't hold out much hope for it, and since I hadn't seen any marketing material before I had received it I really didn't know what to expect. After completing all of the tests I was pleasantly surprised that such a little video card could perform as well as it did, but the performance of this card means nothing until you put it into perspective. When you consider the fact that it doesn't really require any additional power as the actual power draw is so low, coupled with the really low operating temperature we are starting to really see what this generation of graphics technology has in store for us.

The HIS HD 7770 iCooler consumes 10 watts at idle and 78 watts when running full load, temperatures are 32°C idle and 56°C load. Putting the fan on manual and cranking it up to 100% saw the temperature drop to 47°C, if those vital stats don't impress you then I don't know what will. This video card overclocked really well considering that there wasn't any voltage adjustment headroom on the GPU core or memory, and gave an average 22.35% increase in scores across the range of benchmark tests. With some control over voltage adjustments I'm sure this card will do more, the cooler can definitely handle it.

HIS Radeon HD 7770 Conclusion

Important: In this section I am going to write a brief five point summary on the following categories; Performance, Appearance, Construction, Functionality and Value. These views are my own and help me to give the HIS HD 7770 iCooler Video Card a rating out of 10. A high or low score does not necessarily mean that it is better or worse than a similar video card that has been reviewed by another writer here at Benchmark Reviews, which may have got a higher or lower score. It is however a good indicator of whether the HIS HD 7770 iCooler video card is good or not. I would strongly urge you to read the entire review, if you have not already, so that you can make an educated decision for yourself.

The graphics performance of the HIS HD 7770 iCooler is good enough for playing most games at 1920x1080 resolution with lower settings but there are obviously some games that will struggle, then again this card isn't aimed at the high end price bracket. It does however deliver fair price to performance out of the box, and then some more when you overclock it. The HIS HD 7770 iCooler sits nicely between the GTX 550-Ti and HD6850 and does so at a lower temperature and requiring much less power.

The appearance rating of the HIS HD 7770 iCooler is up for debate. There is not a lot I can say about a discrete graphics card that will get installed and then be out of sight, other than that it is quite plain. When we consider looking up close at the PCB cleanliness and the soldering quality then it does deserve a high rating. There are some that will surely disagree but thanks to the graphic nature of this review you can easily make your mind up for yourself.

Construction is excellent as you would expect from a company with a good reputation like HIS, despite the use of plastic for the fan shroud the whole package feels quite solid. Taking the card to pieces and reconstructing it was a breeze and everything lined up perfectly, the iCooler HSF assembly is solid and is well made which reassures you that it is no fragile piece of hardware.

Functionality is very good, I can't help but keep singing praise for the HIS iCooler HSF, it really is so good. To maintain a load temperature of 56C with a automatic fan speed of 24% is no easy feat, and to do it while remaining virtually silent is something that all AIB partners need to aspire to. There was some overclocking headroom but the lack of voltage control has me thinking that we haven't fully seen the true potential of this little video card.

The HIS Radeon HD 7770 iCooler 1GB video card model H777F1G2M will cost you $129.99 (Amazon / NewEgg). On average the HIS Radeon HD 7770 iCooler costs $4.13/FPS in our benchmark tests based on the current price above, and I believe this to be very reasonable for a video card like this.

For single-card needs, I have no problems recommending this card to anyone who is in the market for a card that can deliver really low power consumption, low heat and low noise while still performing very well.

Pros:

+ iCooler HSF assembly is excellent
+ Fan at 100% is virtually silent
+ Excellent build quality
+ Good performance
+ Fair value for money
+ Overclocked well without extra voltage
+ Variety of outputs: Display Port, DVI-I and HDMI
+ Low power - requires little external power
+ Really compact design
+ CrossFire support

Cons:

- No voltage control
- Very plain
- No CrossFire bridge supplied

Ratings:

Final Score: 8.85 out of 10.

Quality Recognition: Benchmark Reviews Silver Tachometer Award.

Benchmark Reviews invites you to leave constructive feedback below, or ask questions in our Discussion Forum.

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