Final thoughts and conclusion

...Sapphire's HD 7730 1GB GDDR5 card offers a comfortable performance increase over the very latest integrated graphics.

AMD's Radeon HD 7730 is a welcome addition to the budget graphics fold. Based on the same GCN architecture powering the remainder of the Radeon HD 7000-series and fundamentally better than the otherwise comparable Radeon HD 6670 that is manufactured using older technology, this new card, priced at £60, provides solid 1080p gaming performance when using medium-quality settings.

AMD's GCN architecture has become incrementally better over time and we have little reason to doubt continued advancement, as GCN-based chips are set to power the major next-generation consoles, as well. And appreciating that AMD has eked out decent performance from a small-ish die bodes well for the next iteration of the APU, codenamed Kaveri, but it's a shame that AMD's anachronistic APU and discrete-card releases don't line up - the HD 7730 is incompatible with the current Richland APU's Dual Graphics technology.

So with a number of positives on the horizon it seems strange that AMD has snuck the HD 7730 without any semblance of fanfare. Sapphire's duly picked it up and launched two SKUs, though we'd steer clear of the 2GB version that's severely hamstrung by the use of antiquated DDR3 memory.

We'll know more about where the HD 7730 1GB GDDR5 sits against the Nvidia competition when we look at the performance of the same-priced GeForce GT 640, which is just becoming available with a newer, faster GK208 die, so stay tuned for that.

Sapphire's HD 7730 1GB GDDR5 card offers a comfortable performance increase over some of the latest integrated graphics, too, and it represents an inexpensive upgrade for folk looking to take their PC gaming to the first real level. We come to the conclusion that this card makes good sense at the purported £60 price point.

The Good

GCN-powered mainstream GPU
Competitive performance
Whisper-quiet operation

The Bad

Not compatible with AMD Dual Graphics

HEXUS Awards

Sapphire Radeon HD 7730 1GB GDDR5

HEXUS Where2Buy

The Sapphire Radeon HD 7730 1GB GDDR5 graphics card is available to purchase from Scan Computers.*

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I can only find DDR3 versions in stock after a very quick look about. At £57+ they're bad value at moment…

I would like to know how this GPU performs directly against an APU such as the mid-range A8 or better still the old A6-3670 (which I still have :P)

Trinity/Richland A8 iGPU performs almost like a HD6570 so HD7730 is much better than any A8 APU.
Actually is better than any APU.

Much faster, largely thanks to its DDR5 memory interface. GCN isn't that much more efficient per shader than VLIW4 that Trinity and Richland both use, so you're looking at 384 shaders @ ~800MHz in both cases, but the 7730 is much much faster due to the much higher memory bandwidth on tap.

Although I agree, it would've been nice to see this paired with a lower end set up like a Core i3 or higher-end APU, which it's more likely to be coupled with in a real build.

Also, it'll make more sense when Kaveri lands, as the 384 shader GCN architecture will couple well in dual graphics.

I was expecting to be based on Oland. Sadly it isn't:

http://media.bestofmicro.com/H/Z/394631/original/Power.png

Oland with GDDR5 would probably have consumed less power than an HD6670 GDDR5.