Video card advice HIS HD 7770 vs HD 7850

Lmp900

n00b
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Jan 28, 2013
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Hello all.
As a long time lurker, I thought it would be best to register and begin contributing in some way to the forums.
I will start with a video card question that has me pulling my hair out at this point.
My current setup is the following.

MSI 760GM-P33 AM3 AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
HIS HD4670 1 GB DDR3 128 Bit Video Card
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1600
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core
ZALMAN CNPS 9700 NT 110mm 2 Ball Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler
Antec Trublue 450 Watt Power Supply
I currently game using a single monitor at 1920x1080

I would like to upgrade my video card at this time and have it narrowed down to the following models.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161402
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161426

These two cards seem very similar to me. The 7770 has a slightly faster core clock but almost only half of the stream processors. Is one of these factors more important than the other? It is so close that maybe it does not matter. Is it worth the extra money to get the 256 memory interface? If anyone has advice or suggestions for a card in this price range please leave a response. Thank you!
 
You can't just look at specs anymore. Look up reviews on both cards and compare them on the games that you play and the resolution you play at.
 
To put it simply, the 7850 is a much much better card than the 7770. With the 7770 it wouldn't be very long before you'd need to upgrade again whereas the 7850 will last you a good while. Worth the money.
 
I was starting to lean more towards the 7850. Most of the charts and reviews that I have read have been positive for both, however it does seem the performance of the 7850 will hold up a little better over time.
 
These two cards seem very similar to me. The 7770 has a slightly faster core clock but almost only half of the stream processors. Is one of these factors more important than the other? It is so close that maybe it does not matter. Is it worth the extra money to get the 256 memory interface? If anyone has advice or suggestions for a card in this price range please leave a response. Thank you!
As others said, the 7850 is much faster (as reviews show) and is the better buy if your budget allows it.

To specifically answer your questions, a stream processor is the main "work unit" of the GPU. How many you have largely determines how much work you can get done. Frequency determines how many clock cycles a second the stream processors complete. The faster they run, the more work per unit time they can do, which to us comes out as frames per second (FPS). The higher the FPS, the more fluid a game feels (or the more you can push the graphics options). Therefore, the number of stream processors is very important, but remember that it's only comparable within a GPU architecture (so within the AMD 7000 series, the 5000 and 6000 cards are different, and definitely not to nvidia cards).

A larger memory interface contributes to memory bandwidth, which allows a faster connection between the GPU and vRAM. Being able to move data faster allows for higher FPS and higher settings (although not exactly the same as a faster GPU frequency or one with more stream processors).
 
You can't just look at specs anymore. Look up reviews on both cards and compare them on the games that you play and the resolution you play at.

Actually, you still can. The fact that the 7770 has about 65% of the stream processors sort of relate to the fact that it performs around the 65% mark of a 7850, give or take.
 
I would get a 7850 with the new 8x series coming sometime this year ppl will be sending off their used but still good 7850s to other homes for other ppl to enjoy who cant do quad sli everytime a new version gpu comes out list. Or to norrow it down: ASUS, HIS, GIGABYTE, SAPPHIRE.
 
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