SAPPHIRE ships HD 4770

High Performance graphics at a mid-range price

SAPPHIRE Technology, the leading manufacturer and worldwide supplier of AMD/ATI based graphics solutions is now shipping the SAPPHIRE HD 4770 - a powerful midrange graphics card that brings new levels of graphics and video performance to enthusiasts on a budget.

The new SAPPHIRE HD 4770 is the first card in its class to use GDDR5 memory and is based on the first ever GPU built in 40nm process technology. It uses the powerful graphics architectures from the ATI division of AMD, incorporating multi-purpose stream processing units and improved memory management architecture.

With 640 stream processors - twice as many as previous generation mid-range cards - and core clock speed of 750MHz, together with 512MB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 800MHz (3200MHz effective), the SAPPHIRE HD 4770 delivers stunning performance for gaming or image rendering. It delivers an outstanding computational performance of 960Gflops, memory bandwidth of 51.2GB/s and texture fill rates of 24GTexels/s.

The new 40nm core technology delivers all of this with reduced power consumption, making the total power requirement of the card only 80Watts and typically less in operation as a result of dynamic power management. The first cards to market use a conventional two slot fan assisted cooler and offer dual DVI and TV-Out on the bracket, as well as support for HDMI (with Audio) over a dongle. SAPPHIRE will be introducing additional models - including some Special Editions - in the coming weeks.

Like the previous generation, SAPPHIRE HD 4770 supports DirectX10.1 for enhanced rendering performance and special lighting effects now being implemented in the latest games. The SAPPHIRE HD 4770 series uses the PCI-Express Gen2 interface, and features connectors for CrossFireX bridge cables, allowing two cards to be used together on a CrossFireX compatible mainboard for higher graphics performance.

SAPPHIRE graphics cards in the HD 4000 series incorporate the latest ATI Avivo™ HD Technology for enhanced Video display. They feature a new generation of built in hardware UVD (Unified Video decoder) considerably reducing CPU load and delivering smooth decoding of Blu-ray™ and HD DVD content for both VC-1 and H.264 codecs, as well as Mpeg files. Integrated upscaling technology delivers the best quality DVD video images. With the latest drivers, the SAPPHIRE HD 4770 also offers ATI Stream processing for the acceleration of video transcoding and other supported applications.

SAPPHIRE HD 4000 series graphics cards are Microsoft Windows Vista™ Premium certified and supported by the ATI Catalyst® suite of software, ensuring customers have ongoing access to software updates for performance, stability and added features.