HIS HD 4770 512MB PCI-E Graphics Card
Packaging & Appearance
The HD4770 is presented in what can only be described as a rather drab cardboard box. Whilst lower end cards don’t usually feature extravagant, over the top packaging, a little more effort to add appeal to the box would have gone a long way. Simple styling seemingly is what HIS do best. On the front we have a spherical design dominating the package, with some key features listed on the right.
Moving on to the rear we are greeted with the cards aptly named Features & Benefits, System Requirements and a number of coloured orbs outlining some more of the cards key features.
Lifting up the flap reveals the card neatly packaged in a plastic shroud, supported by a sheet of anti-static styrofoam and a number of polystyrene pieces to make sure it arrives safely without damage, even if it does take a bump or two along the way. The VGA and HDMI adapters sit snugly under the plastic shroud, with the driver disc, sticker and manual resting in the depths of the box.
On the right, the contents are set out on display and rather disappointingly there isn’t an awful lot there. Other manufacturers include a handful of useful adaptors and programs along with their cards, so there isn’t really any excuse here for HIS.
Now for a closeup of the card. First of all the card is fairly short, so should fit easily into most systems without the need for modding/rearranging the internals of your chassis. When I first saw the cooler I was surprised that it wasn’t the full cover shroud cooler ATI had shown in press releases, but the supplied cooler is more than sufficient for keeping the 4770 cool and quiet under load.
On to the back of the card we see that the usual 4 sprung retaining backplate is used to attach the heatsink to the card, applying optimal contact with the GPU core.
The heatsink assembly is far from unnatractive with its sleek, insinuating curves, subtly branded with ATI’s logo. Silver, black and gold detailing gives the impression of quality, and helps tone down the bright red PCB. The heatsink is made from aluminium which may come as a surprise due to it’s copper colouring and features an embedded 92mm fan.
On the right you will see that the memory is made by Qimonda and should overclock reasonably well. Opting to cool the memory via airflow from the heatsink is never a good idea from my point of view, but heatsinks could easily be added should the end user wish to do so.
With Multi-GPU configurations becoming more popular, ATI have added not one, but two Crossfire fingers to the 4770, allowing users with a compatible motherboard to run four cards in Quad Crossfire X mode. Whilst scaling isn’t perfect, it will offer a huge boost in FPS for many games supporting the technology.
Power Consumption has long been an issue and until recently many companies did very little to reduce the power graphics cards draw. ATI decided to make the 4770 as efficient as possible and even though a 6 pin power connector was still required, the cards draws less power compared to similar cards on the market.
