Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel i7 920 @ 3.8GHz (190MHz x 20)

Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P (Supplied by Noctua)

Motherboard(s): GIGABYTE EX58-UD5 (Supplied by GIGABYTE)

Memory: 3 X 2GB OCZ Technology PC-12800 DDR-3 8-8-8-24 (OCZ3G1600LV6GK)

Hard Disk(s): Western Digital 300GB Velicorapter (Supplied by Western Digital)

Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2, Windows Vista SP1 64-Bit

Drivers: ForceWare 182.50, Catalyst 9.4

Today we'll have a look at how the HD 4770 compares against some of the higher end HD 4800 series of cards including the new HD 4890 and the older HD 4870. As for how the card compares to NVIDIA offerings, while the GTS 250 is more expensive it's also the most recent mid-range model from NVIDIA, so we'll see how the 4770 goes against that.

3DMark Vantage

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.1

Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com

Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmarkvantage/

Buy It Here

3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware.

3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.

In our first test we can see that the performance sits quite similar to the more expensive GTS 250. We'll have to see how it pans out in real world testing whether or not the card sits in a similar position or falls back, as the lower price would suggest.