Mid-Range AMD Graphics Card Round-Up (HIS 7770 GHz / HIS 7850 / Sapphire 7850)

To test these graphics cards, we put them in a gaming-class system which consists of an Intel Core i5 3570K processor overclocked to 4.2GHz, 8GB of 2133MHz memory from Patriot, and a solid state drive.

We used the latest, non-beta – AMD Catalyst 13.1 – drivers as we encountered some undesirable stability issues when testing with the 13.2 Beta 7 drivers.

All cards use the same test system and software configuration, making the results accurate and directly comparable.

Test System:

• Processor: Intel Core i5 3570K @ 4.2GHz.
• Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V.
• Memory: 8GB Patriot Viper 3 IEM Limited Edition 2133MHz.
• Case: NZXT Phantom.
• Case Fans: 1x 120mm 1900 RPM Scythe Kaze Jyuni (front intake), 1x 120mm NZXT (side intake), 1x 120mm NZXT (rear exhaust), 1x 200mm NZXT (roof exhaust).
• CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus.
• Power supply: Seasonic Platinum 1000W.
• Storage drives: 128GB Kingston V100 (OS), 1TB Samsung F3, 300GB Western Digital Caviar.
• Monitor: BenQ G2222HDL 1920×1080.

Comparison Graphics Cards:

• XFX Radeon HD 6870 Black Edition 1GB @ Stock HD 6870 frequencies (900 MHz Core / 1050 MHz Memory)
• HIS HD 7770 GHz Edition IceQ X Turbo 1GB (1100MHz Core / 1200MHz Memory)
• HIS HD 7850 IceQ 2GB (860MHz Core / 1200MHz Memory)
• Sapphire HD 7850 Dual-X 1GB (860MHz Core / 1200MHz Memory)

Software Suite:

• 3DMark Vantage
• 3DMark 11
• 3DMark
• Unigine Heaven
• Ungine Valley
• Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
• Fraps
• GPU-Z
• Steam
• Origin
• FurMark
• AMD Catalyst 13.1

Games:

• Battlefield 3 (located on SSD)
• Crysis 2 (located on SSD)
• Metro 2033 (located Samsung F3 HDD)
• Hitman: Absolution (located Samsung F3 HDD)
• Sleeping Dogs (located Samsung F3 HDD)
• Dirt 3 (located Samsung F3 HDD)

Some game descriptions are edited from Wikipedia.

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