Today marks the launch of the ATI Radeon^TM HD 4770.  Review press are focusing on:

• Strong price/performance ratio
• Gaming performance value
• AMD technology leadership with the first desktop GPU based on 40nm process technology

Here’s a review round-up for Those Who Know (TWKs) and a video overview.

 HardOCP.com: AMD Radeon HD 4770

• “The Radeon HD 4770 has a lot of potential for hardware enthusiasts, even at $100. We feel that AMD is finally making video cards for us hardware enthusiasts.”
• “The Radeon HD 4770 presents a very strong real-world value. At $99-$109 it provides a great gameplay experience compared to the competition. In most games the gameplay experience was the same.”
• “The Radeon HD 4770 provides value because it performs as it does using less power and producing less heat with potentially cheaper prices. It is fact that AMD has introduced new technology in at this price segment, while the competition has simply re-branded old technology. AMD’s goals of making the Radeon HD 4000 series GPU scalable have definitely worked out well for them.”

HardOCP Editor’s Choice Silver Award

Anandtech: Faster Graphics For Lower Prices: ATI Radeon HD 4770

• “40nm has arrived, and it looks pretty good. The Radeon HD 4770 always outperforms the older 4830 and sometimes gives the 4850 a run for its money.”
• “As for the competition, the 4770 comes out on top in the games we tested. The more expensive GTS 250 leads in Call of Duty World at War, while the 4770 blows the doors off everything in Age of Conan. As for the other benchmarks, they come out pretty close with the 4770 generally ahead. But the clincher is Far Cry 2 performance which shows the Radeon HD 4770 leading the GTS 250 fairly well in a heavy hitting graphics engine.”
• “It isn’t clear when NVIDIA will have a part in this generation of their architecture that competes in the near $100 market. For now, the best option is clear: the Radeon HD 4770 is the way to go.”

HotHardware:

• “There is a lot to like about the new Radeon HD 4770. With itsexpected street price of about $109, which will be brought down further to $99 throughmail in rebates, the Radeon HD 4770 offers excellent bang for the buck.”
• “In the end, the Radeon HD 4770 is one of the best buys at its expected price point currently. Performance is strong in light of competing offerings, the price is right, and the card is cheaper to operate over time than anything else in its class. Anyone in the market for a new graphics card priced around a hundred bucks should definitely consider the new AMD ATI Radeon HD 4770.”

HotHardware Recommended

 Extremetech: Radeon HD 4770--The First 40nm Desktop GPU

• “ATI has a real winner on their hands here. The 40nm process combined with GDDR5 have enabled an inexpensive card with a small GPU and 128-bit memory interface that meets or exceeds the performance of bigger GPUs that draw more power, run hotter, and are more expensive to produce.”
• “If you’re in the market for a low-cost card, especially if it has to go into a PC with a limited power supply, we highly recommend the Radeon HD 4770.”
• “This is the best value and best overall performer in the ~$100 price segment, and is especially suited to PCs with lower-wattage power supplies.”

ExtremeTech Approved

firingsquad.com: ATI Radeon 4770 Performance Preview

• “ATI’s Radeon 4770 is a deceiving performer. When you first see its “4770″ designation, you assume it’s been designed to slot in between the 4830 and ATI’s 4670. Its use of a 128-bit memory interface reinforces that assumption. But thanks to its blazing clock speeds and the use of the same 800MHz GDDR5 memory first adopted on the Radeon 4870, the 4770 is actually capable of outrunning ATI’s previous mainstream performance offering, the Radeon 4830.
• ATI should’ve designated the card as the Radeon 4840.”
• “At $110, the card’s closest competitor is NVIDIA’s GeForce 9800 GT. When compared against the 9800 GT, the Radeon 4770 was a little faster overall, but it certainly wasn’t a blowout.”
• “That’s probably going to be the time to pick up a 4770 in our opinion. With its 40-nm process and GDDR5 memory, the chip is begging to be overclocked, and by then RivaTuner should be up to speed with full support, opening the door to higher speeds than what we’re capped at today with Overdrive.”

legitreviews.com: ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB Video Card Review

• “The ATI Radeon HD 4770 graphics card might cost just $109, but the card doesn’t look and perform like what many would expect out of a card in that price range. The Radeon HD 4770 was able to keep up with the Radeon HD 4850 and GeForce 9800 GTX+ in numerous benchmarks as a testament to that. For those that game in the 1280x1024 to 1680x1050 resolution range, the Radeon HD 4770 should be fine for most games with average settings as our testing had the image quality cranked all the way up in almost every test and the card did fine.”
• “Legit Bottom Line: The Radeon HD 4770 512MB graphics card brings all the latest hardware and process technology to the $109 price category.”

computershopper.com: ATI Radeon HD 4770

• “Excellent performance at the $100 price point; uses less power than comparable cards”
• “Thanks to its GDDR5 memory and a new 40nm manufacturing process, the ATI Radeon HD 4770 sets a new bar for graphics-card performance at around $100, while using less power than beefier boards like the Radeon 4850.”
• “But for gaming at medium resolutions, the Radeon HD 4770 does surprisingly well considering its budget-friendly price. In our testing, it fared nearly as well as (and even sometimes better than) the more expensive Radeon HD 4850, for a fair bit less. Another way to look at the value of the Radeon HD 4770 is to consider that, in most tests, this card even defeated the EVGA E-GeForce 9800 GTX, which, about a year ago, was the fastest single-GPU card available and sold for $350. Until the laws of competition force Nvidia to release a new card to compete (or to lower the price on an existing product with more muscle), the ATI Radeon HD 4770 is the best-performing graphics card for around $100.”

ComputerShopper Editor’s Choice. Editor’s Ranking 8.9

PCPerspective: AMD RV740 is all it’s cracked up to be

• “Performance: The gaming performance of the new AMD Radeon HD 4770 512MB graphics card is impressive. For a $99 part (after mail-in rebate…) AMD has created a great product and for gamers that are looking to power a system with a 1920x1200 or 1600x1200 display, it should offer more than enough power to get through most titles. In my testing, the HD 4770 was able to handle World in Conflict, Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty: World at War and even Crysis at top quality settings at 1600x1200 without issue. Far Cry 2 was a bit more complicated -- we tested the game at a quality level above what the GPU and memory buffer could really handle reliably and I feel that running the game at “High” quality would result in a great, and completely playable, experience.”
• “Final Thoughts: The beauty of the Radeon HD 4770 512MB graphics card is that it brings another low price, high performance part to the market that will also potentially make AMD more money as the ramp up to 40nm technology at TSMC increases. If prices stay stable (the $99 HD 4850 withstanding) then the HD 4770 is the best card you will find under $100.”

XBIT Labs: New Revolution: ATI Radeon HD 4770 Graphics Card Review

• “It is about a year since AMD’s graphics department provoked a revolution in the sector of inexpensive gaming graphics cards with the release of Radeon HD 4850. It looks like the revolutionary aspirations of ATI Technologies have become a tradition. The newly announced Radeon HD 4770 is even better in some aspects than its predecessor. The transition to the 40nm tech process is nothing extraordinary in itself, yet the new card’s performance in games is really amazing.”
• “Summing up everything we have just said, Radeon HD 4770 has every right to be titled the best budget graphics accelerator -- it has a ton of advantages and we couldn’t find any serious drawbacks.”

Neoseeker

• “The HD 4770 offers good value at somewhere close to $100 USD. If you were judging by price, you’d classify the HD 4770 as a mid-range video card; but judging by game performance, the HD 4770 seems more at home with other enthusiast class cards than it does mid-range performers.”
• “In relation to the rest of ATI’s closest lineup, the HD 4770 is a welcome addition, and fits in nicely. If you are any more than a casual gamer, we would say the entry level ticket to satisfying gaming performance begins with the HD 4770.”
• “By taking the initial move to 40nm, AMD has won an important new milestone today. While the HD 4770 isn’t a game-changer in the video card landscape today, it is a great first step in a promising direction. Featuring improved power usage, lower operating temperatures, and high-end performance for a lower-end price, the HD 4770 bodes well for both ATI’s — and PC gamers’ — remaining months of 2009.”

Neoseeker Innovation Award

Tomshardware: ATI Radeon HD 4770: 40nm Goes Mainstream: Introduction

• “Writing about the latest and greatest hardware is fun-I’m not going to lie. Getting hands-on with technology in the lab is practically a hobby, and I’m fairly confident that most enthusiasts would share that excitement surrounded by a lab full of tech. But I’ll be the first to admit that $500 dual-GPU video cards and $1,000 Extreme Edition processors are Beluga caviar in a Big Mac world. There are some lucky gamers who really buy the pricey stuff. A majority, however, live vicariously through the reviews, and actually spends their money on components derived from high-end kit.”
• “Well, you know what they say about too good to be true. At the last minute, ATI changed the price to $109. Nothing about the card’s performance was altered. It remains a fast little board with good power consumption numbers. But it lost that “in your face for under $100″ sass.”
• “At $99, the Radeon HD 4770 was an award winner. At $109, it remains a good demonstration of 40 nm manufacturing at work and, as mentioned, a recommended alternative to the Radeon HD 4850/GeForce GTS 250 for budget-crunched gamers. Well-played ATI, well played.”

Benchmarkreviews

• “In conclusion, the ATI Radeon HD 4770 is perfect for HTPC builders and casual gamers looking for performance at a value with excellent cooling and overclocking capabilities. The HD4770 also matches well with AMD 770 motherboards, which currently sell for as little as $54.99 (after rebate). Benchmark Reviews has completed testing on the 40nm RV740, and our results have it performing at- or slightly-below the frame rate of a HD4850, and well ahead of the GeForce 8800 GT. With a double-slot cooler secured to a power-sipping 40nm GPU, budget enthusiasts can squeeze plenty more performance from the Radeon HD 4770 and get faster frame rates for no additional cost.”

Quality Recognition: Benchmark Reviews Silver Tachometer Award.

John Taylor is Director, Global Platform & Product Communications at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.