ATI Radeon HD 4770 40nm GPU, $99 Graphics Return

The Radeon HD 4770 looks much like the current crop of Radeon HD 4000 series cards, thanks to its red PCB and ATI-branded cooling the solution.

    

    
Reference ATI Radeon HD 4770

Like the other members of the Radeon HD 4000 family, the new 4770 features a pair of dual-link DVI outputs with an HDTV output nestled in between. Digitla audio can also be passed through to an HDTV through the use of a compatible DVI-to-HDMI adapter dongle.

The Radeon HD 4770's PCB is markedly shorter than Radeon HD 4800 series cards, so it should have no trouble fitting into any standard case. And like other Radeons it is equipped with a pair of CrossFire edge connectors for multi-GPU operation. The cooling solution used on the card is two-slots wide and exhausts hot-air from the system through vents in its case bracket. It consists of a heatsink with copper heat-pipes that rests atop the GPU and a barrel-type fan which sucks air in at the rear of the card and expels it from the front. There is also a reinforcement bar on our reference Radeon HD 4770 that run along the top edge of the PCB. It's not a necessity, however, as the card and cooler is relatively light in comparison to most other dual-slot graphics cards.

    

   
Asus EAH4770 With Custom Cooler

Custom Radeon HD 4770 cards are also planned by a few of AMD's board partners, as is evident by the Asus EAH4770 you see pictured here. The Asus EAH4770 uses a similar PCB design at the reference card, but with a custom cooling solution. The GPU cooler used on the Asus EAH4770 sits right on top of the GPU with a large cooling fan dead-center. While not completely silent, we found the EAH4770's custom cooler to be very quiet and it did its job quite well, with idle and load GPU temps hovering between 40'C and 75'C. It doesn't, however, exhaust hot air from the case.

Asus will be shipping the EAH4770 with a basic array of accessories. Included with the card, we found an HD component output dongle, a DVI-to-HDMI adapter, a DVI-to-VGA adapter, a dual-Molex to PCI Express 6-pin power adapter, a quick setup guide, and of course driver and utility discs.