Bang for the buck at ~$200

[fffblackmage]

My apologies if this has already been discussed to death, but after a quick look at the first couple pages in this subforum, I didn't really find an answer.

I'm looking into possibly buying a 7850/7870 or 660. I am not looking for which one is better. I'd have my answer already if that was the case. I want to know which one people think offers better bang for the buck. I leaning towards the 7850 for it's overclock-ability, and low price tag. I also like how the Asus one has a giant cooler meant for a beefier gfx card, which should help me with overclocking (or so I think). However, before I hit the buy button, I just want some opinions.

To give you an idea of what I'm somewhat looking for, I used to have an HD4830 1GB. I absolutely loved it because I got it for cheap and it overclocked like a champ. I quickly upgraded to an HD4890, but at twice the cost, it just didn't give me twice the satisfaction (though it's still an awesome gfx card). Hmm... maybe the 7850 really is just what I'm looking for.

 

[balane]

This is a terrific deal if you can catch it in stock. I don't have one but I read how it's a good card and a good cooler. I wanted it but got sick of waiting so I went with the Asus which I like but it's a little loud. It comes into stock and goes away quickly so get on the email notification list if you're interested.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161404

 

[zaydq]

The 7850 is a great overclocker. The 7870 doesn't quite have the overclocking ability of the 7850. The 660 is an alright card, nothing fantastic about it though. Take a look through the "7850 is an overclocking beast" and see what kind of overclocks people have gotten on their various cards. Asus hasn't been known to offer the best overclockers, and I can vouch for Gigabyte's 7850 being a poor overclocker, or mine was anyway.

 

[Greenlepricon]

Both the 7850 and 7870 are awesome, but I would only buy the latter if you don't want to overclock (which you obviously do). At their best overclocks, both should be more or less the same I think. The 660 is a great card too, but not worth the extra cash, since it won't overclock quite as well and is a little crippled in memory. You'll probably end up replacing it a little faster than AMD's cards. The only reason I would get that one is if you play Nvidia optimized games. Otherwise, I would stick with your original plan cause that's a great deal for an awesome card.

 

[balane]

Not sure what you can get out of the 7850 but I have my Asus 7870 running at 1220/1450 on stock voltage. It seems like a really fast card but I can't speak comparatively with a 7850.

 

[maddie]

The 7850 is a great overclocker. The 7870 doesn't quite have the overclocking ability of the 7850. The 660 is an alright card, nothing fantastic about it though. Take a look through the "7850 is an overclocking beast" and see what kind of overclocks people have gotten on their various cards. Asus hasn't been known to offer the best overclockers, and I can vouch for Gigabyte's 7850 being a poor overclocker, or mine was anyway.

The 7870 might not be able to overclock the same as the 7850 from a % viewpoint, but they should hit roughly the same absolute numbers.
With more shaders it will be faster.

 

[Red Hawk]

7850<660<7870. So get the 7870 if it scratches $200.

 

[Silverforce11]

7850 used to be best bang for buck since the 7870 was so overpriced but with them being so low and the price delta is minimal.. go with the 7870, its still got a good chance of getting 1.25ghz.

 

[lehtv]

The price delta is as minimal as the difference in performance.

http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/video-card/#sort=a5&qq=1&c=81,82,110
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/549?vs=548

7850 can be reasonably had for $180-200 before rebate. 7870 can be had for $220-250 or around 20-25% more, this is pretty accurately the difference in performance as well, but the 7850 overclocks a bit better and requires only 1x 6-pin.

 

[jacktesterson]

I have the HIS IcqQ 7870 from that deal at Newegg. That is easily the best bang for the buck card once in stock.

Mine runs on stock voltage all the way up to 1150 Core. To get to 1200 core I need 1.265v (stock is like 1.21v). Mine will run at 1250 core at 1.30v which is too high for my liking.

I settled on everyday use at 1175/1325. I do run it at 1250/1325 in a particular game where the boost helps to maintain 60FPS maxed, but I never run it anymore than 1-2 hours here.

The memory on my card doesn't O/C that well.

That being said, it scores around 7500 at 1175 core in 3DMARK11 with a 2500k where as a stock 7950 with a 2500k gets about 7800 score, so for $200 its really hard to complain.

The cooler on this HIS card is awesome. Its a non ref blower thats really quiet and cool. Even at 1.30v my card never went above 57 degrees.

At 1175 is rarely goes above 51 degrees. This is in a temp controlled room, and with the fan not being any louder than 140mm low rpm case fans. (around 69-70 room temp F). HIS has a great cooler here. (Which makes sense as its the identical cooler found on the 7950/7970 IceQ Turbos)



I had an Asus 7850 that would hit 1300 core on launch and score around 7400 3DMARKS, but it was WAY louder than the HIS card at any level above 30% fan speed. To be honest, running it over 1200 was too loud for me.

 

[crisium]

The lack of shaders on the 7850 can really hold it back in some games. I think the 7870 is a much safer choice.

 

[alphasigmookie]

I have the HIS IcqQ 7870 from that deal at Newegg. That is easily the best bang for the buck card once in stock.

Mine runs on stock voltage all the way up to 1150 Core. To get to 1200 core I need 1.265v (stock is like 1.21v). Mine will run at 1250 core at 1.30v which is too high for my liking.

I settled on everyday use at 1175/1325. I do run it at 1250/1325 in a particular game where the boost helps to maintain 60FPS maxed, but I never run it anymore than 1-2 hours here.

The memory on my card doesn't O/C that well.

That being said, it scores around 7500 at 1175 core in 3DMARK11 with a 2500k where as a stock 7950 with a 2500k gets about 7800 score, so for $200 its really hard to complain.

The cooler on this HIS card is awesome. Its a non ref blower thats really quiet and cool. Even at 1.30v my card never went above 57 degrees.

At 1175 is rarely goes above 51 degrees. This is in a temp controlled room, and with the fan not being any louder than 140mm low rpm case fans. (around 69-70 room temp F). HIS has a great cooler here. (Which makes sense as its the identical cooler found on the 7950/7970 IceQ Turbos)



I had an Asus 7850 that would hit 1300 core on launch and score around 7400 3DMARKS, but it was WAY louder than the HIS card at any level above 30% fan speed. To be honest, running it over 1200 was too loud for me.

This! If you can find a good deal on a 7870 that would be my vote. Keep an eye out as they can be found in the $200-220 range lately. Definitely worth the extra few bucks over a 7850 IMHO.

 

[raghu78]

clock for clock HD 7850 is 10% slower than HD 7870 when compared across a range of games.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_7850_PCS_Plus/9.html

BF3 1920 X 1200 4X AA

HD 7850 (1 Ghz) - 45.4
HD 7870 (1 Ghz) - 49.5

With overclocking that gap actually increases as the HD 7870 has 25% more shaders, texture units which scale performance beautifully with overclocking.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_7850_PCS_Plus/31.html

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_7870_PCS_Plus_Vortex_II/30.html

BF3 1920 x 1200

PCS+ HD 7850 (1240 Mhz) - 50.2
PCS+ HD 7870 (1245 Mhz) - 61.3

So pick the card you want. :thumbsup:

 

[Silverforce11]

clock for clock HD 7850 is 10% slower than HD 7870 when compared across a range of games.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_7850_PCS_Plus/9.html

BF3 1920 X 1200 4X AA

HD 7850 (1 Ghz) - 45.4
HD 7870 (1 Ghz) - 49.5

With overclocking that gap actually increases as the HD 7870 has 25% more shaders, texture units which scale performance beautifully with overclocking.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_7850_PCS_Plus/31.html

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_7870_PCS_Plus_Vortex_II/30.html

BF3 1920 x 1200

PCS+ HD 7850 (1240 Mhz) - 50.2
PCS+ HD 7870 (1245 Mhz) - 61.3

So pick the card you want. :thumbsup:

not comparable since reviews are so far apart, esp with AMDs recent drivers boosting perf aross many games.

its been shown at release by a few sites that the 7850 vs 7870 clock for clock is ~5% slower overall, but a few recent games using dx11 compute Forward+ has given the 7870 a bigger lead.

id go with the 7870 now since price is so close.

 

[fffblackmage]

Hmm. I'll have to keep an eye out for a deal. Getting the 7870 would definitely make sense, if I can find it for ~$25 more than the 7850. Thanks everyone!

 

[fffblackmage]

Hmmm, I was thinking about getting a few monitors for an Eyefinity setup. Not sure if I'm gonna do it, but if I do, I'll need more gfx omph. Will two 7870s be able to handle something like that? Does 3GB vram makes sense in this case?

 

[Mastercommander]

7870 with sleeping dogs bundle best deal at this price. Its inclusion brings the actual cost down. Sleeping Dogs is a great game

 

[lehtv]

7870 CF should handle a triple monitor setup OK. At that res it's not really powerful enough to properly take advantage of more than 2GB VRAM anyway since you can't play at more than medium settings or so.

 

[Rezist]

In Canada a MSI TF2 660 and 7870 are both 229.99 and a dual fan sapphire 7850 is 199.99. So they pretty much line up on top of one another.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

The 7870 might not be able to overclock the same as the 7850 from a % viewpoint, but they should hit roughly the same absolute numbers.
With more shaders it will be faster.

Once both are overclocked to the max the 7870 is at least 5-10%+ faster than a 7850.

There is no reason to buy a 7850 over a 7870 unless you want to save the money or have some other better deal in mind aka 7950 for a bit more.

 

[lehtv]

5-10% faster is not a very good deal for 20% more cost

 

[Mastercommander]

It doesn't cost that much more w/ Sleeping Dogs. As I said, it's a very good game

 

[aaksheytalwar]

IMO I would send 20% more for something which is 15-20% faster at stock, about 10% faster when both are overclocked. Especially if the diff wa sub $50. And to top it a game worth $50 free along with it makes it a no brainer.

 

[SickBeast]

OP it comes down to brand preference - the 7870 and GTX 660 are equal.

 

[Red Hawk]

OP it comes down to brand preference - the 7870 and GTX 660 are equal.

Not really.