The new Sandy Bridge versions of the HP Pavilion series – the 15.6-inch dv6t and the 17.3-inch dv7t – have been given a boost in the graphics department. Instead of a Mobility Radeon HD 6570M, base models of the dv6t and dv7t are now shipping with an AMD Mobility Radeon HD 6770M.
It’s hard to keep track of the GPU manufacturers’ naming schemes – sometimes the changes are in name only or just a minor adjustment to clock frequencies. However, although only a single number separates them, the HD 6570 and HD 6770 are two different pieces of silicon.
The HD 6770 has 480 shaders (or Stream Processing Units) compared to 400 in the HD 6570, and the clocks are higher across the board. According to AMD the difference in processing power is considerable – 696 GigaFLOPS in the HD 6770 and 520 GigaFLOPS in the HD 6570. This should translate into a noticeable improvement in 3D gaming frame rates.
None of these GPUs can compete with the high-end HD 6800 or HD 6900 series, or Nvidia’s latest GTX-series GPUs, but the HD 6770 is definitely close to the high-end segment. Just to state the obvious, the Pavilion series is now more powerful than ever and it’s becoming an attractive option for gamers.
See also: the latest dv6t coupon / dv7t coupon offers.