# AMD Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1 GB



## W1zzard (Feb 10, 2012)

Today AMD launches the new Radeon HD 7770 which is the first affordable card based on AMD's new 28 nm GCN Architecture. AMD's reference design HD 7770 offers amazing performance per Watt and a significant performance improvement over the previous generation.

*Show full review*


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## entropy13 (Feb 15, 2012)

7770:
21% better than 5770/6770 in raw performance
20% worse than 5770/6770 in performance per dollar


What.


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## Flanker (Feb 15, 2012)

prices should come down a bit after most of the previous generation stock has been cleared


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## entropy13 (Feb 15, 2012)

Flanker said:


> prices should come down a bit after most of the previous generation stock has been cleared



Yet the HD 7750 has no issues like that, RIGHT NOW.


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## ViperXTR (Feb 15, 2012)

suddenly, HD 7770 is doing better than HD 6870 then suddenly its slower than HD 6850...same with HD 7750...


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## DarkOCean (Feb 15, 2012)

I am the only one who thinks these should have been named 7*6*70 and 7*5*70 sice they consume very little power (especially 7750), perf its no so good apart from a few games from many? ...and prices are like wtf!?


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## 1nf3rn0x (Feb 15, 2012)

What's the point of this. It performs worse than previous 6850/6870 yet is more expensive. Derp.


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## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Feb 15, 2012)

my 6850 is still winning.


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## entropy13 (Feb 15, 2012)

Yeah, earlier I just looked at the summaries. Priced between the 6870 and GTX 560...and performed worse than both most of the time. WTF AMD?


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## dieterd (Feb 15, 2012)

omg what a FAIL: hd 7770 = hd 6790 preformance for hd 6870 price - WTF! is this 1.april joke? new generation with much worse price/preformance, well this is something I never wanted to see.... oh, AMD I hope you die for this!


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## dj-electric (Feb 15, 2012)

Chillax, when AMD will stop pointing their finger at NVIDIA an laugh they will drop prices.


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## entropy13 (Feb 15, 2012)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> Chillax, when AMD will stop pointing their finger at NVIDIA an laugh they will drop prices.



And retailers WON'T drop the prices for the 6850, 6870, GTX 560?


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## dj-electric (Feb 15, 2012)

I assume that the price drop wont be as drastic as it would be with the brand new series of graphics cards


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## Flanker (Feb 15, 2012)

probably OT: is there supposed to be a 78xx series to fill the gap? (as in, not from some sort of rebranding...)


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## ViperXTR (Feb 15, 2012)

^Yes, those will arrive in march i believe, codenamed Pitcairn


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## Maban (Feb 15, 2012)

Flanker said:


> probably OT: is there supposed to be a 78xx series to fill the gap? (as in, not from some sort of rebranding...)



Pitcairn should launch at CeBIT.


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## Crap Daddy (Feb 15, 2012)

Welcome to the new AMD business concept. If it wasn't too clear until now since the 7970/50 don't have yet competition, this 7000 series is a bad joke concerning performance/price ratio although I was expecting the 7770 to be priced EVEN higher.

Same performance as the last generation at the same price after more than a year. Wait and see the 7870 performance, if this trend continues I guesstimate it will be around the 6950 for 280-300$


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## dieterd (Feb 15, 2012)

Crap Daddy said:


> Welcome to the new AMD business concept. If it wasn't too clear until now since the 7970/50 don't have yet competition, this 7000 series is a bad joke concerning performance/price ratio although I was expecting the 7770 to be priced EVEN higher.
> 
> Same performance as the last generation at the same price after more than a year. Wait and see the 7870 performance, if this trend continues I guesstimate it will be around the 6950 for 280-300$


+1
I gues, from what I have seen now with HD 7xxx, that HD 7870 preformance will be like HD 6950, but price will be like HD 6970.
Even though we all saw HD 79xx series redicilous and bizzare price tags lot of people still praised and celebraited new geberation begginings.... I gues they recive and will recive what they want.


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## Joe Public (Feb 15, 2012)

I was hoping for a performance increase about equal of that the 7970/7950 had over the 6900 series. But no such luck.   The 7700s should have launched with a $20 lower price tag.


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## entropy13 (Feb 15, 2012)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> I assume that the price drop wont be as drastic as it would be with the brand new series of graphics cards



Even a not so drastic price drop for the previous gen 6850 and 6870 would still make it a better choice over the 7770 because of the performance gap.

6850 - $135 (107%)
7770 - $160 (100%)

Now make the 7770 drop in price by $30. Then the 6850 drops by $5 (or even not at all).

6850 - $135/$130 (107%)
7770 - $130 (100%)

Even without the $5 drop the 6850 still looks the better choice because of the 7% advantage for just $5.

Now the remaining attractive feature of this would be how low its power consumption is.



Joe Public said:


> The 7700s should have launched with a $20 lower price tag.



And would still not be an outright better option than a previous gen card that's STILL cheaper (6850).


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## Flanker (Feb 15, 2012)

this reminds me of the evergreen launch, 5770 had similar performance to 4870, probably a little lower due to early driver issues, and had the pricetag of a 4890. Not to the same extent as what we are seeing today but it does ring a bell.



ViperXTR said:


> ^Yes, those will arrive in march i believe, codenamed Pitcairn





Maban said:


> Pitcairn should launch at CeBIT.



thanks guys


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## Yellow&Nerdy? (Feb 15, 2012)

So let me get this straight. It performs worse than a 6850, but costs slightly more than the 6870? That is quite bad. I sure hope the blame is on the drivers, or AMD better lower the price to the same as a 6850.


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## entropy13 (Feb 15, 2012)

Yellow&Nerdy? said:


> So let me get this straight. It performs worse than a 6850, but costs slightly more than the 6870? That is quite bad. I sure hope the blame is on the drivers, or AMD better lower the price to the same as a 6850.



And if it is the drivers' fault, it then begs another question: where the f**k are the new drivers? The first HD 7000 card has been "launched" last December, then "released" in January. Another followed towards the end of the month, and then two new cards are out today. There are now 4 cards with no "proper" drivers.


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## W1zzard (Feb 15, 2012)

Yellow&Nerdy? said:


> I sure hope the blame is on the drivers, or AMD better lower the price to the same as a 6850.



it's not the drivers, it's the pricing


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## Shinshin (Feb 15, 2012)

Such a shame it cost too much... 
Or at least, more than the 6850 which is a bit disappointing...

7770 Such a lovely number...
AMD - please let loose of the prices!


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## Fourstaff (Feb 15, 2012)

Once you factor in the power consumption costs its not that bad. We will need to wait for Nvidia to come out with something interesting to restart the price war.


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## NdMk2o1o (Feb 15, 2012)

Well I am not liking what I am seeing from both camps with every new gen, looks like I will have to wait another 2 gens to upgrade as to make it worthwhile unless I want to spend $400+ on a new card every year for any kind of "substantial" increase :shadedshu

This is a tad better than a 5770/6770 which both launched at the same god damned price, so for 3 years they have been selling customers the same performance at the same price, bullshit if you ask me.


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## Yellow&Nerdy? (Feb 15, 2012)

Fourstaff said:


> Once you factor in the power consumption costs its not that bad. We will need to wait for Nvidia to come out with something interesting to restart the price war.



Yes, but for a next gen card, you would at least expect it to perform as well as the old gen card in it's price range, while consuming less power. Otherwise it's kind of pointless producing that next gen card, eh?


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## Fourstaff (Feb 15, 2012)

Yellow&Nerdy? said:


> Yes, but for a next gen card, you would at least expect it to perform as well as the old gen card in it's price range, while consuming less power. Otherwise it's kind of pointless producing that next gen card, eh?



No, most of the "new gen" cards come with a price premium, and it gradually falls as competition forces the price downwards. Sometimes it takes almost half a year for the premium to go away, with exceptions of the 58xx series where it absolutely dominated everything else.


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## Supercrit (Feb 15, 2012)

OH YES 6850's performance with GTX 560's price
AMD lost the last bit of my respect from the 4850 era.


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## xenocide (Feb 15, 2012)

This is a really bad product.  Other than the very low power usage, there is no reason to buy either the 7770 or 7750.  I can't wait for Nvidia to launch their new series so either I can get a reasonably priced Nvidia product, or the prices level out based on performance.  The non-reference version of these cards are selling upwards of $200, and they perform on par for 6850's which cost $130-140.  Tisk Tisk.


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## beautyless (Feb 15, 2012)

Cards looks OK (in its positions). But the prices are not reasonably. I'm not happy with it.


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## Isenstaedt (Feb 15, 2012)

Hopefully future drivers can increase the 7700 series performance.


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## kid41212003 (Feb 15, 2012)

the score is biased

it should be sub 8/10


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## ArchStupid (Feb 15, 2012)

kid41212003 said:


> the score is biased
> 
> it should be sub 8/10



Damn straight, that is a horrible card.
IMO tt should be sub 7 at the very least, though I guess W1zz would rather not piss AMD off hehe.

This card is useless... A mid card with FAR worse performance / price ratio than the last generation. What The F AMD.


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## Delta6326 (Feb 15, 2012)

Nice this beats my first 4850 and is close to the same price I paid for it with much lower power consumption.

I hope someone comes out with a passive or single slot version!

I don't see why people complain about price of new tech that has been out for less than one day and isn't even on newegg.com to give a real price. Whether that will be higher or lower I don't know.

I find it's performance to be not to bad its a third tier card that has close performance to the last gens second tier with less power consumption, granted I do wish it at least beat the 6850.


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## ArchStupid (Feb 15, 2012)

Delta6326 said:


> Nice this beats my first 4850 and is close to the same price I paid for it with much lower power consumption.
> 
> I hope someone comes out with a passive or single slot version!
> 
> ...



Is it really that hard to understand why?
It's because it shows what kind of business model AMD is trying to create.

A new generation mid-range card that is more expensive and less performant than previous generation cards released more than a year and a half ago.

There is no excuse.


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## sergionography (Feb 15, 2012)

Shinshin said:


> Such a shame it cost too much...
> Or at least, more than the 6850 which is a bit disappointing...
> 
> 7770 Such a lovely number...
> AMD - please let loose of the prices!



well we are comparing launch price with cards that are over a year old, give it a couple month and they will be cheap

tho it makes s



DarkOCean said:


> I am the only one who thinks these should have been named 7*6*70 and 7*5*70 sice they consume very little power (especially 7750), perf its no so good apart from a few games from many? ...and prices are like wtf!?



very true, but this is for a reason and that is TSMC to blame, they raised the prices per wafer by like 20-30% for 28nm(which is 40% die shrink) that being said amd would have to build smaller chips to be able to price them like the 40nm chips. they ended up with a 123mm^2 die size compared with the old 170mm^2, that is a good 40% smaller, and the 20% increase in performance is due to the new architecture

random note* in games that require more cpu power the gcn architecture seems to be doing good, like in civilization and crysis 2, not to mention amd didnt release an official catalyst driver for the 7000 series so there might still be some tricks up their sleeves


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## N3M3515 (Feb 15, 2012)

"16 months ago AMD launched the Radeon HD 6850 at $179 amidst fierce competition from NVIDIA. Ignoring the current price of the 6850 for the moment, on average the 7770 delivers 90% of the 6850’s gaming performance for 90% of the 6850’s launch price. In other words in 16 months AMD has moved nowhere along the price/performance curve – if you go by launch prices you’re getting the same amount of performance per dollar today as you did in October of 2010. In reality the 6850 is much cheaper than that, with a number of cards selling for $139 before a rebate, while several more 6870s sell for $149 after rebate." -Anand.

My work here is done.


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## N3M3515 (Feb 15, 2012)

Fourstaff said:


> Once you factor in the power consumption costs its not that bad. We will need to wait for Nvidia to come out with something interesting to restart the price war.



Who the fudge cares about power!?
This is a low power card already man......wtf? really?


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## N3M3515 (Feb 15, 2012)

NdMk2o1o said:


> Well I am not liking what I am seeing from both camps with every new gen, looks like I will have to wait another 2 gens to upgrade as to make it worthwhile unless I want to spend $400+ on a new card every year for any kind of "substantial" increase :shadedshu
> 
> This is a tad better than a 5770/6770 which both launched at the same god damned price, so for 3 years they have been selling customers the same performance at the same price, bullshit if you ask me.



+99
Bulls eye!!
How much longer do i have to keep my 4870....


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## N3M3515 (Feb 15, 2012)

Delta6326 said:


> Nice this beats my first 4850 and is close to the same price I paid for it with much lower power consumption.
> 
> I hope someone comes out with a passive or single slot version!
> 
> ...



Excuse me?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125416


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## Fourstaff (Feb 15, 2012)

N3M3515 said:


> Who the fudge cares about power!?
> This is a low power card already man......wtf? really?



If you are living in a place where electricity is not cheap, you will need to care. Every watt saved is every pound saved from the electricity bill per year, as a rule of the thumb.


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## Casecutter (Feb 15, 2012)

Flanker said:


> this reminds me of the evergreen launch, 5770 had similar performance to 4870, probably a little lower due to early driver issues, and had the pricetag of a 4890. Not to the same extent as what we are seeing today but it does ring a bell.



Exactly, But this time no one is factoring in the TSMC price increase for 28Nm and there's CoreNext architecture so yes driver will mature.  Stock performance is not what I’d hoped but the OC’n is wicked and if in several months for $140 you can grab a decent custom cooling and bump it to 1150Mhz and gain 16-18%; it has great potential. 

Again to judge this price which includes the TSMC "up charge" (I was surprised they're this low as it is), without the seeing the equilibrium of what Nvidia will ask for a GK106, that talk is is bunk.  Nvidia might (or may not) significantly leap frog these we have no bases to judge as of yet.  So what if Nvidia gets between a 550ti and the 560(non ti), will it be worth an MSRP of $180, while Super OC’s hit $220?  If Nvidia just "one-ups-man's" this performance while asking the same/similar price I'd be shocked. The best they did recently was the GTX460's, but that filled the gapping crevasse between the 5770 and 5850. Nvidia for quite a while kept those prices fairly aggressive considering $/Fps, as they were in the position that guys loved anything at $230-250 (sweet spot). It wasn't was 4mo's till 6850/70 came into play that those really came around.  No competition and a TSMC up charge is AMD burden today, but don’t unyoke Nvidia just yet!


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## sergionography (Feb 16, 2012)

N3M3515 said:


> Who the fudge cares about power!?
> This is a low power card already man......wtf? really?




what? its all about power per watt, graphics cards is all about efficiency thats how they are measured, nvidia and amd have so far been on par in such terms except nvidia usualy releases bigger chips that pack more transistors but consumes more power, what does that translate to? well that will limit your multi gpu setups for one
second is OEM's, im sure OEMs will love the 7750, and soon we will probably see cape verde in the mobile market thats even a better reason.

as for those compaining about price the 7770 just got released and is selling for 180 on newegg while the 7750 is going for 110, for a release price thats crazy cheap

and whoever sais the hd6870 costed that much when it came out doesnt know what hes talking about, it was in the 260 dollars range and i remember my friend getting it, it was only when nvidia dropped the fermi prices (gtx470 from 350 to 250, and the 480 down to about 400 or so) before the hd6800 got any cheap


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## ViperXTR (Feb 16, 2012)

midrange... is this card supposed to be midrange? aren't the x8xx series supposed to be the new midrange from AMD and the x8xx series being the new midrange and x9xx series being high end?


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## qubit (Feb 16, 2012)

NdMk2o1o said:


> Well I am not liking what I am seeing from both camps with every new gen, looks like I will have to wait another 2 gens to upgrade as to make it worthwhile unless I want to spend $400+ on a new card every year for any kind of "substantial" increase :shadedshu
> 
> This is a tad better than a 5770/6770 which both launched at the same god damned price, so for 3 years they have been selling customers the same performance at the same price, bullshit if you ask me.



I was gonna give my take on this, but then you said it all perfectly already. 

Just you wait, soon the trend will reverse: performance will increase for every generation and so will the price in line with the performance, or a little bit more (likely a bit more, let's face it). After all, something better should cost more shouldn't it? /sarcasm


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## N3M3515 (Feb 16, 2012)

sergionography said:


> and whoever sais the hd6870 costed that much when it came out doesnt know what hes talking about, it was in the 260 dollars range and i remember my friend getting it, it was only when nvidia dropped the fermi prices (gtx470 from 350 to 250, and the 480 down to about 400 or so) before the hd6800 got any cheap



If you're quoting me, the part i wrote is from anandtech.com, and they say HD6850, not HD6870

And for the record, it doesn't matter if 6870 was 249 at launch, i'm talkin about price/performance, in which the hd7770 is absolute garbage, only time i recall something like that was when the HD5770 came out and the HD4870 was marginally faster at a $20 cheaper price, by that time one could have said OHH directx 11 OK! 

So, every other time you got more performance for the same price >>CURRENT PRICE<<. You have to be blind not to see it man, seriously.

Bottom line: In 16 months AMD has moved nowhere along the price/performance curve – if you go by launch prices you’re getting the same amount of performance per dollar today as you did in October of 2010. 

*Ignoring the current price* of the 6850 for the moment, on average the 7770 delivers 90% of the 6850’s gaming performance for 90% of the 6850’s launch price.


All the people with HD4850, HD4870, that bought them for 110 and 140 bucks respectively, have nothing at that price range which can bring a 200% increase in perf for example.

I went from Geforce 6800GS, which i paid $215 for, to HD4870, $140 
That's 65% less price for 250% perf, among other advantages.

Now if i want 200% perf i would have to buy a HD6950 that costs $250 (or a HD7870 that hopefully will cost $250)...........no need to explain.....


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## N3M3515 (Feb 16, 2012)

qubit said:


> I was gonna give my take on this, but then you said it all perfectly already.
> 
> Just you wait, soon the trend will reverse: performance will increase for every generation and so will the price in line with the performance, or a little bit more (likely a bit more, let's face it). After all, something better should cost more shouldn't it? /sarcasm



For some people here this seems horribly difficult to understand, i think it's so obvious.

Winner: 6850.
Loser: AMD releasing a new product at a price segment that makes their own previous products look like gold.
Now to find someone that isn't sold out of 6850s....


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## N3M3515 (Feb 16, 2012)

"This is a card that belongs at around $130, just below the Radeon HD 6850. It has no business anywhere near $159 or, heaven forbid, $179 like our snazzed-up XFX entrant." -Tech Report.

Why amd, why...

"Unlike Rolex, Porsche or Apple, AMD isn't in a position to sell customers "emotional value" or "status" or "prestige". They should be in business of innovating visual, mobile and personal computing. Delivering something that costs MORE and is SLOWER than your previous card that costs LESS on the market today is not innovation. But if it is for you, knock yourself out."

And . . . . . i had to write this, couldn't resist:
"Maybe we should start referring to any product launch like this (where price goes up but performance remains flat or declines) as "pulling a bulldozer"? "


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## sergionography (Feb 16, 2012)

N3M3515 said:


> If you're quoting me, the part i wrote is from anandtech.com, and they say HD6850, not HD6870
> 
> And for the record, it doesn't matter if 6870 was 249 at launch, i'm talkin about price/performance, in which the hd7770 is absolute garbage, only time i recall something like that was when the HD5770 came out and the HD4870 was marginally faster at a $20 cheaper price, by that time one could have said OHH directx 11 OK!
> 
> ...




yes i agree with you 100% and i wouldnt buy a 7770 now but my point is every product is expensive when it first comes out, therefore price/performance is something that is affected by the market/competition/demand and what not. in technology performance/watt is the most important because that decides how efficient they are getting.

another thing you should note is that this is GCN, while its 90% of the 6850s graphics capability, it has like 160% the 6850s compute capabilities which arent really benchmarked in the benchmarks ive seen(which makes sense since most people dont care about gpgpu much, but seeing a benchmark like civilization IV and the 7770 being on top it shows what GCN can pull), but overall that was the whole point of GCN as vliw4 already had real good graphics capability which is always the strength in vliw architectures, but what amd did is build something that fills in the weakness and that is compute/gpgpu

again most people might not really be aware or care about compute but it sure has its benefits or else nvidia/amd wouldnt be investing so much into it. and when the 2 major graphics companies are doing so then expect games in the future to take more advantage of it.

and back to the 6850 arguement, you need to note that at the time the battle between amd/nvidia was more intense than ever, so being released in such situation made the prices extra good, that was like the best time to buy graphics cards as nvidia almost cut prices of its line up by 100 dollars but that was after making profit. amd is doing the same thing now, they are making as much profit as they can, once nvidia comes out, amd will do 2 nvidia what nvidia did to them last year


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