Just last week we tested out the new ATI Radeon HD 4770 graphics card designed for the mainstream market. Priced at $100 US this new graphics card is not only very affordable, but at this price it delivers performance that goes unmatched by any other product in this price range. In several cases the Radeon HD 4770 proved to be as fast as the Radeon HD 4850 which costs between $130 - $150 US, while in other cases it was in fact faster!

Here is a quick quote from the conclusion of our Radeon HD 4770 review; “Games where the GeForce based graphics cards are generally more dominate, such as Call of Duty World at War and Crysis Warhead, saw the Radeon HD 4770 defeat the GeForce 9800 GT by reasonable margins. Then in games such as Far Cry 2 the Radeon HD 4770 was quite simply spectacular, delivering the best performance of the pack, meaning it conquered not only the Radeon HD 4850 but also the GeForce 9800GTX+, which is quite remarkable.”

With performance like that we began to wonder what putting two of these graphics cards in Crossfire mode might deliver. After all, the Radeon HD 4890 and GeForce GTX 275 graphics cards are currently retailing for around $250 US. That said, we have noticed a few Radeon HD 4870 (1GB) cards selling for just $200 US, which would be the cost for a pair of Radeon HD 4770 graphics cards.

Typically we avoid multi-GPU technologies such as Crossfire and SLI with low-end and even mid-range graphics cards, as it usually makes more sense to just purchase one high-end graphics card. However with the Radeon HD 4770 graphics cards being so incredibly cheap, it could make more sense to purchase two of them rather than a single Radeon HD 4890 or GeForce GTX 275.

Of course the usual catches apply, such as the need for a motherboard that supports Corssfire technology. Also when playing games that do not feature Corssfire support within the Catalyst drivers, gamers will only be able to use one of the Radeon HD 4770 graphics cards. There is also the issue of added heat and noise generated by an additional graphics card. So clearly there are quite a few things to be considered.

However, what will make all these problems null and void will be the performance of Radeon HD 4770 graphics cards in Crossfire, should they crush the more expensive Radeon HD 4890 and GeForce GTX 275 graphics cards for example. When compared to these high-end graphics cards the Radeon HD 4770 has just one weakness, and that is its 512MB frame buffer.

This could hurt at 2560x1600 and even 1920x1200 in games that feature larger textures. Of course the simple way around this is to reduce the quality settings by disabling features such as anti-aliasing. However to avoid making the Crossfire Radeon HD 4770 setup look better than it might actually be, we are sticking to the settings typically used to test high-end setups.