When AMD first started to talk to me about the upcoming Southern Islands GPUs they tried to warn me. Really they did. “Be prepared for just an onslaught of card releases for 2012,” I was told. In much the same strategy the company took with the HD 6000 series of cards, the new Radeon HD 7000 cards have been trickling out, part by part, so as to make sure the name “AMD” and the brand “Radeon” are showing up as often as possible in your news feeds and on my keyboard. In late December we wrote our review of the Radeon HD 7970 3GB flagship card and then followed that up in January with a review of the Radeon HD 7950. In those briefings were told in a general way about Cape Verde, the Radeon HD 7700 series, and Pitcairn, the Radeon HD 7800 series, but without the details of performance, specifications or release dates. We have the answer for one more of these families now: Cape Verde.

Cape Verde is the smallest of the Southern Islands dies and falls into the sub-$175 graphics market depending on card vendors’ pricing and overclocking settings. The real question we all wanted to know is what performance levels these new cards were going to offer and if they could be the TRUE successor to popular Radeon HD 5770. While the answer will take pages and pages of details to cement into place, I can say that while an impressive card, I wasn’t as excited as I had wanted to be.

• READ MORE (Source): AMD Radeon HD 7770 and 7750 Cape Verde GPU Review | PC Perspective