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The ASUS Extreme AH4770 Formula is an interesting take on the Radeon HD 4770, and although it is no faster than the standard version, it does still have a few advantages. Obviously the biggest advantage being the unique cooling solution, which saw the Extreme AH4770 Formula reach a load temperature of just 60 degrees, making it significantly cooler than our ATI reference sample. Also keep in mind that there are two different types of reference coolers available for the Radeon HD 4770, and our sample featured the more expensive version. The vast majority of Radeon HD 4770 graphics cards feature the cheaper version, and the Extreme AH4770 Formula will look even more impressive when compared to these cards. For those that have not seen the two different reference coolers, they were shown on the second page of this review alongside the Extreme AH4770 Formula. It was not just the cooling performance of the Extreme AH4770 Formula that impressed us, the operating volume was amazing. Despite managing a load temperature of just 60 degrees, the Extreme AH4770 Formula remained almost silent.   While the performance of this cooler did impress us, the appearance probably will not appeal to everyone. For the most part we could not care less about how a graphics card looks, as long as it performs well, runs cool, and doesn’t make much noise. The Extreme AH4770 Formula does all this, but it could also be argued that the fan shroud over the heatsink looks a little tacky. The shroud is meant to look like a formula race car, and while it looks more like a futuristic hover craft, we are not sure that a graphics card really needs to look like this. Whatever your thoughts on how the Extreme AH4770 Formula looks, it does perform well. The quality components featured on the PCB are also a nice touch, as is the ASUS Fuse Technology. With such an impressive cooler we were keen to see how the Extreme AH4770 Formula overclocked. Unfortunately Radeon HD 4770 overclocking is not all that well supported yet. However using a modified version of RivaTuner we were able to get the core stable at 875MHz, while the memory only reached 900MHz. In the past we have pushed the core of Radeon HD 4770 graphics cards as high as 900MHz and the memory 1000MHz, so the Extreme AH4770 Formula result was a little disappointing. Overall we are impressed with how well the custom designed cooler of the Extreme AH4770 Formula works, particularly when compared to the reference cooler. Although the overclocking results were a little disappointing, they will likely vary from card to card.
Reviewed By Steven Walton |
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