ASUS EAH 4770 Formula Video Card

Over the years, we have seen major progress made at the sub-$200 mark for video cards. It goes without saying that today's mainstream cards will run circles around high-end cards of a few years ago. It's natural progression as chip makers innovate and streamline manufacturing to get the most out of their silicon.

Now, when we say video cards less than $200 are getting better, we are still talking about something in the $180 range and up.  range cards more often than not are a different story. The perception of course is you get what you pay for and at that price range, you would think you are not getting a whole lot.

Today we will be reviewing the . As we received an early production sample, there isn't any retail packaging to show off, but the hardware itself is representative of what you'll find on store shelves.

Here is an excerpt from :

The ATI Radeon™ HD 4770 graphics processing unit (GPU) offers an unbeatable combination of HD gaming performance1 and price. Featuring the industry’s cutting-edge 40nm process technology and the most advanced GDDR5 memory technology, this GPU delivers seamless frame rates with incredible speed and processing power. Proof that high performance gaming and price can co-exist without compromise.

• Leveraging the latest 40nm manufacturing process technology, the ATI Radeon™ HD 4770 GPU represents an industry milestone in the advancement of gaming performance.
• Equipped with the fastest, most advanced GDDR5 memory technology, the ATI Radeon™ HD 4770 supports higher data rates which translates directly into superior performance.
• Get right in the action and experience cinematic gaming at HD resolutions1 with outstanding performance in the latest DirextX10.1 games.
• Unparalleled anti-aliasing (AA) and anisotropic filtering deliver eye-popping graphics with striking realism.
• Take your game even further with ATI CrossFireX™ technology and enjoy superior scalability with dual GPU support².
• Tap into the massive parallel processing power of your ATI Radeon™ HD 4770 GPU with ATI Stream technology and tackle demanding tasks like video transcoding with amazing speed.
• Watch the latest Blu-ray movies^1,3 play with incredible fidelity and have the freedom to edit videos with lightning-fast speed.

ATI Radeon™ HD 4770 – Key Features

• Advanced Memory - GDDR5 provides twice the data per pin of GDDR3 memory at the same clock speeds.
• Enhanced Anti-Aliasing & Anisotropic Filtering - High performance anisotropic filtering and 24x custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA) smooth jagged edges and create true-to-life graphics, for everything from grass to facial features.
• DirectX® 10.1 - Play today while preparing for tomorrow with state-of-the-art DirectX 10.1 graphics capabilities.
• ATI CrossFireX™ Technology - ATI CrossFireX™ technology with dual GPU support offers superior scalability so your system is ready to level up when you are².
• PCI Express 2.0 - Support for PCI Express 2.0 will prepare you for bandwidth-hungry games and 3D applications.
• Power to Spare - This GPU has the brute processing power needed for physics, artificial intelligence, stream computing and ray tracing calculations.
• Unified Video Decoder 2 (UVD 2) - UVD 2 frees up your CPU for other tasks so you get The Ultimate Visual Experience™ for even the most processing-intensive content, including VC-1, H.264 and now MPEG-2. Also, take full advantage of Blu-ray functionality with dual-stream, picture in picture (PIP) capabilities^1,3.
• Accelerated Video Transcoding (AVT) - With ATI Stream technology, owners of ATI Radeon™ HD 4770 GPUs can help accelerate the conversion of standard and HD video into multiple formats for use on differing consumer electronics devices. The ATI Video Converter, designed to enable GPU transcoding of HD video streams, is currently available.
• Upscale Beyond 1080p - Watch the hottest Blu-ray movies or other HD content at full 1080p display resolution and beyond⁴.
• Enhanced DVD Upscaling - Watch standard DVD movies in near high-definition quality with DVD upscaling. The GPU uses post processing algorithms to enhance standard and low resolution videos and movies on your HD display.
• Dynamic Contrast - Dynamic Contrast automatically adjusts the contrast and brightness during scenes to consistently deliver a crisp, vibrant picture.
• HDMI - Enjoy the latest audio technologies using HDMI with 7.1 digital surround sound support. Also, xvYCC support allows the user to enjoy a wider range of color when connected to a capable HDTV.
• Dynamic Power Management - ATI Radeon HD 4770 GPU delivers high performance when needed and conserves power when the demand on the graphics processor is low.

1 HD capable monitor required
2 ATI CrossFireX™ technology requires an ATI CrossFireX Ready motherboard, an ATI CrossFireX™ Bridge Interconnect and may require a specialized power supply.
3 Blu-ray drive required 
4 The ATI Radeon™ HD 4770 GPU can upscale video display to 2560x1600 on dual-link monitors which is almost twice the display resolution of 1080p displays.