The Card
AMD's new card is a little bit shorter than their HD 4850/4870/4890. From left to right: HD 4770, HD 4870, HD 4870 X2.
The cooler uses two slots and does look quite different to the one we have seen on the various leaks. Where the heatsink on the leaks looked very weak, this cooler looks like a very capable solution that can properly cool the whole card. We asked AMD to clarify why there was a discrepancy between our cooler and the one we saw on the leaked images and it seems that AIBs were given a choice which cooler to use. All AIBs went for the cheaper one, so initially there will be no HD 4770s on store shelves that use the same cooler as our review sample.
The card has two DVI ports, the most common output configuration today. If you want to use the card with your big TV screen you can use the included HDMI adapter. In case you need an analog port you can also use the included DVI adapter.
For HDMI Audio, NVIDIA requires you to feed an external audio source, for example from your motherboard's on-board audio, to the card via SPDIF cable. AMD on the other hand has integrated a sound device inside their GPUs which is the easier solution for most users.
The HD 4770 supports CrossFire configurations with two cards. I did confirm with AMD that there is no support for CrossFire triple or quad. It wouldn't make sense on such a product anyway.
Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (
front,
back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.