# Powercolor HD 4770 PCS 512 MB



## W1zzard (Aug 17, 2009)

Powercolor's new HD 4770 PCS comes with a cooling solution designed by Artic Cooling and a custom PCB design by Powercolor. This should result in improved thermal performance, less noise and better overclocking. Thanks to decisive product design, Powercolor manages to offer the card at no extra price over other HD 4770 cards.

*Show full review*


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## ShogoXT (Aug 18, 2009)

Thanks for the review. I wonder if these are going to have shortage problems like the other ones. Also so Clear Sky is without AA? Id be curious what system it would take to run it with the 4x AA.


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## js01 (Aug 18, 2009)

Faster then a 4850 for $50 less, sounds like a good deal.


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## erocker (Aug 18, 2009)

This card has got to be the best deal out there with it's overclocking potential. As simple as that cooler is, it does an excellent job. I believe I had the same cooler on a 4670 and I was surprised how well it worked.


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## Cuzza (Aug 19, 2009)

Very impressed by the performance/watt numbers. Actually I'm very impressed overall. I didn't know much about the 4770 before reading this, but now I think I want one. Actually, I want two in Crossfire, cool and quiet and plenty of power.


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## Easo (Aug 19, 2009)

Wow, this was intensive rewiev, by looking at number of benches 
And this has half-killed my 4850.


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## a_ump (Aug 19, 2009)

I haven't ever purchased a power color product until i got my HD 4870, which i'm selling this thursday to by the Powercolor PCS+ HD 4890. I personally find them a great brand even though they aren't as reputable as say Sapphire or HIS


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## tonyd223 (Aug 19, 2009)

love those power consumption figures compared to my HD4850 - save the planet!


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## swaaye (Aug 20, 2009)

I've seen 4870s for only a few $ more. 

I suppose the only way to see the value here is in the power consumption. 48x0 are really ugly in that respect, especially compared to the GTX 2xx series.

My 3850 and 4670 are quite a bit better on the idle power front than 4770 though. According to the funky "gaming performance per watt" charts, 4670 is superior there too hehe.


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## YinYang.ERROR (Aug 20, 2009)

It came as a surprise to me that this card beat out the 4850.


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## mdm-adph (Aug 20, 2009)

ShogoXT said:


> Thanks for the review. I wonder if these are going to have shortage problems like the other ones. Also so Clear Sky is without AA? Id be curious what system it would take to run it with the 4x AA.



Someone please check on this, but I had heard that Stalker and Clear Sky aren't played with AA because the engine doesn't use it -- it uses something else instead (weirdly enough).


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## ShogoXT (Aug 20, 2009)

mdm-adph said:


> Someone please check on this, but I had heard that Stalker and Clear Sky aren't played with AA because the engine doesn't use it -- it uses something else instead (weirdly enough).



The original stalker doesnt use AA yes, but Clear Sky does through DX10. Im not trying to be a nag about it, but I havent been able to find any decently new benchmark that includes Clear Sky and AA anywhere on the net. It has AA for both DX10 and DX10.1. Its real AA I have tested it, but my cards massively overheat in that sort of game or Crysis on max.


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## swaaye (Aug 20, 2009)

Original STALKER doesn't work with MSAA, yes. The game does have an option for "edge blurring" however, which is a sort of poor man's AA. Also, with at least NVIDIA, you can force MSAA in the driver control panel but it comes with a huge performance hit (probably doing multiple passes.)


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## swaaye (Aug 20, 2009)

YinYang.ERROR said:


> It came as a surprise to me that this card beat out the 4850.



Yah that is actually somewhat curious. 

4850:
19% greater memory bandwidth
17% lower GPU clock speed but 20% more shader units

higher clock speed will give 4770 17% more fillrate and triangle setup speed. Seems to indicate that these matter more.


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## Mussels (Aug 21, 2009)

it seems weird to look at a card and see bare PCB in front of the cooler... i guess i'm used to coolers that cover the full card.


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## Deleted member 67555 (Aug 21, 2009)

I sure would like to see some numbers from these OC'd cause I don't believe they can out do a 4830....Really..anybody



> It came as a surprise to me that this card beat out the 4850.


Me 2


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## Zubasa (Aug 21, 2009)

Well, great card it is.
But seeing it kicking the 4850's ass in basically every aspect makes me feel uneasy. :shadedshu
I should stay away from ATi's mid-range card for now certainly from the 5850. 

Given how my 4850 sucked big time.


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## SonDa5 (Aug 24, 2009)

Zubasa said:


> Well, great card it is.
> But seeing it kicking the 4850's ass in basically every aspect makes me feel uneasy. :shadedshu
> I should stay away from ATi's mid-range card for now certainly from the 5850.
> 
> Given how my 4850 sucked big time.




It's just normal progression of technology.


I've been "preaching" about the HD4770 since I upgraded from the HD4850. It's a great card.


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## mdm-adph (Aug 24, 2009)

SonDa5 said:


> It's just normal progression of technology.
> 
> 
> I've been "preaching" about the HD4770 since I upgraded from the HD4850. It's a great card.



I still wish there would've been time to make an HD4770 X2 -- that card would've kicked ass.


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## Mussels (Aug 24, 2009)

mdm-adph said:


> I still wish there would've been time to make an HD4770 X2 -- that card would've kicked ass.



5830x2? lol


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## tonyd223 (Aug 24, 2009)

isn't that what crossfire is for?

When they gonna produce video cards where I can plug more memory in like a mobo?


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## Mussels (Aug 24, 2009)

tonyd223 said:


> isn't that what crossfire is for?
> 
> When they gonna produce video cards where I can plug more memory in like a mobo?



i used to have one of those. upped it to 1MB of ram, the good old days.


dunno why it was dropped, it always made sense that if CPU's can do it, so could GPU's. maybe it affects speed somehow.


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## maxigg (Sep 28, 2009)

Hello W1zzard,

I have a sapphire hd 4770 arctic cooling version (BLUE PCB) which has a uP6201BQ voltage controller. The problem with this card is that I cannot do more than 863mhz on memory, it is also happening with all people that have this card. Asus Top Bios didnt work, so I was thinking in the bios for the Powercolor HD 4770 PCS 512 MB, maybe this can work because it has the same vgpu. The difference is that the sapphire has an hdmi out a dvi and a VGA output (http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/2925/sapphire_radeon_hd_4770_arctic_cooling_video_card/index3.html). Can you please send me your power color BIOS? Also I would like to hear if you have any suggest for my problem, Thank you so much in advise!!


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## SonDa5 (Oct 19, 2009)

maxigg said:


> Hello W1zzard,
> 
> I have a sapphire hd 4770 arctic cooling version (BLUE PCB) which has a uP6201BQ voltage controller. The problem with this card is that I cannot do more than 863mhz on memory, it is also happening with all people that have this card. Asus Top Bios didnt work, so I was thinking in the bios for the Powercolor HD 4770 PCS 512 MB, maybe this can work because it has the same vgpu. The difference is that the sapphire has an hdmi out a dvi and a VGA output (http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/2925/sapphire_radeon_hd_4770_arctic_cooling_video_card/index3.html). Can you please send me your power color BIOS? Also I would like to hear if you have any suggest for my problem, Thank you so much in advise!!




Please check out the new MSI afterburner 1.3.0
Hopefully it will unlock the blue sapphire and the power color.

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm


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## pal (Oct 19, 2009)

Will not work becouse
*Added voltage control for reference design AMD RADEON HD 4770 and AMD RADEON HD 5770 series graphics cards with L6788A voltage regulators*

Shappire blue have uP6201BQ is for vcore

You can OC like in CCC 830/850


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