Radeon 7870/7850 Reviews Are up!

[WMD]

Overclocking doesn't look that good on the 7870. Much of its stock performance gain over the 6970 comes from the rather high default clocks and voltage. $250 for an unlocked 6950 oc to 1000mhz gets you the same performance 12months ago.

 

[Don Karnage]

Overclocking doesn't look that good on the 7870. Much of its stock performance gain over the 6970 comes from the rather high default clocks and voltage. $250 for an unlocked 6950 oc to 1000mhz gets you the same performance 12months ago.

One review with voltage tuning hit 1200 core with the 7970. Why would anyone even consider going with old technology?

 

[Meaker10]

You would be better off buying a higher end card than running multiple mid range cards (especially above 2).

However did you see that power analysis, over volted and running at 1.275ghz core it still uses less power than a stock 6870.

With an inexpensive 3rd party cooler you get GTX580 performance with silence.

The sapphire model may give you that on the stock cooler.

 

[Haserath]

You can see a 30% OC on a 7870 with volt mod in the techreport review. No other review site has OCed the card with volt mods.

Aside that I don't know how the hell are you measuring the IPC in a complete different architecture with different transistor, units, bandwidth and memory count.

Just saying the 580 doesn't need as much % overclock, because it starts out faster than the 7870.

 

[Olikan]

Just saying the 580 doesn't need as much % overclock, because it starts out faster than the 7870.

just saying that comparing the 7870 with the 580 is useless, they are not in the same price league.... actually to us have this discussion, just show how good the 7870 is

 

[Silverforce11]

How is it faster? I'm just not sure where you're coming up with that.

Power wasn't part of the discussion, you can stop using it as a crutch.

What's the typical air ref design OC on gtx580?

Here's one of the best gtx580 boards (ASUS 580 Matrix Plat) designed for OC:

883 core, not even close to 20% OC.

MSI Lightning, another expensive OC premium card:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/06/02/msi_n580gtx_lightning_video_card_review/8

915mhz with vcore mods. Almost there. Consuming an extra 90W, to 555W system load.

The default 7870 is a few percent behind gtx580. It has better OC headroom (for a reference non-premium board no less!) and good scaling and 2gb vram. Oh, $350 vs $450. You still want to argue the gtx580 is better? ARE YOU NUTS?

ps. ~140W OC vs 400W OC and power use is not a factor? You must be insane or live in a world with free electricity.

 

[Bateluer]

Seems like pretty decent set of cards. The 7870 outperforms my 6950 a bit.

Might pick up a 7850 for my back up machine, currently it has a 5670.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

People are also forgetting another important aspect. Previous AMD cards might have overclocked 5-10% (perhaps) but increasing clocks by 10% meant increasing performance by 1-2% for them.

The same MIGHT be true for the GTX 580. Even if it overclocks well, that doesn't mean that x% oc means x% more performance, with 100% scaling.

But with the 7800 and 7900 series it does mean that. If you overclock it 30%, it means you get 30% more FPS period. This is probably not true for any other card we are talking about

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

So, apparently now the argument is "But the Nvidia card is 436456 months old"

Who cares? Right now, and to quote Anandtech, AMD owns the 200+$ market, so why the hell would you buy an Nvidia card at this point other than being a complete fanboy? OMG 3DPHYSXJENSEXrgtrgtytfry

 

[poohbear]

wow, my 5870 is still holding up against all these new cards. amazing!!!! no need to upgrade anytime soon it seems.

 

[HurleyBird]

But with the 7800 and 7900 series it does mean that. If you overclock it 30%, it means you get 30% more FPS period. This is probably not true for any other card we are talking about

For 7970, yes. For 7870 it seems to depend on the game. Sometimes it's bandwidth constrained. By the same token though, memory clocks are a bit lower and aftermarket boards may use higher rated chips.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

What's the typical air ref design OC on gtx580?

Here's one of the best gtx580 boards (ASUS 580 Matrix Plat) designed for OC:

883 core, not even close to 20% OC.

MSI Lightning, another expensive OC premium card:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/06/02/msi_n580gtx_lightning_video_card_review/8

915mhz with vcore mods. Almost there. Consuming an extra 90W, to 555W system load.

The default 7870 is a few percent behind gtx580. It has better OC headroom (for a reference non-premium board no less!) and good scaling and 2gb vram. Oh, $350 vs $450. You still want to argue the gtx580 is better? ARE YOU NUTS?

ps. ~140W OC vs 400W OC and power use is not a factor? You must be insane or live in a world with free electricity.

I'd need to see direct comparisons of performance of a 900mhz 580 to a 7870 overclocked. I'm guessing a 900mhz 580 would stomp a highly overclocked 7870.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

I'm going to have to say that AMD has made progress with the 7870. Gtx 580 performance, power consumption is fantastic even overclocked, and makes the 580 obsolete at $350. AMD has a winner on its hands. To me the 7970 and 7950 kept the 580 semi relevant which I didn't like. The 7870 makes the 580 totally obsolete.

Probably not what you guys thought you'd hear from a "nvidia shill/marketer". Wonder if those calling me a shill would say positive things about kepler if it made similar progress as the 7870? My guess is no.

 

[Arachnotronic]

You know, I bought into all this AMD GCN hype. I bought a 7970 on release day, super excited to use it. Things were fine when I was playing modern games, but I had severe issues with older games (major slowdowns/artifacts in RTCW -- I've replicated these slowdowns on a bunch of AMD cards since). Image quality seemed to take a hit in a number of titles I play as well.

There are things more important than raw benchmark scores. And while I think AMD's technology is good and constantly improving, they've got a long way to go before I'm going to plunk down $550 on a card from them again.

 

[Meaker10]

I'd need to see direct comparisons of performance of a 900mhz 580 to a 7870 overclocked. I'm guessing a 900mhz 580 would stomp a highly overclocked 7870.

Due to the near perfect scaling of the 7800 series core, I don't see why you say that?

 

[SirPauly]

Pro's: Great engineering job on the chip to me. Con's: Price/performance when compared to the MSRP of the HD 6970.

 

[notty22]

Due to the near perfect scaling of the 7800 series core, I don't see why you say that?

I don't know how you can't see it. Anand used a stock 770mhz gtx 580 in his testing against a 1000mhz 7870. Add 20% to both.

I'm more interested what it does to the value of a 450.00$ 800mhz 7950.
The gtx 580/570 has been around for 15 months.

 

[Zargon]

I'm going to have to say that AMD has made progress with the 7870. Gtx 580 performance, power consumption is fantastic even overclocked, and makes the 580 obsolete at $350. AMD has a winner on its hands. To me the 7970 and 7950 kept the 580 semi relevant which I didn't like. The 7870 makes the 580 totally obsolete.

Probably not what you guys thought you'd hear from a "nvidia shill/marketer". Wonder if those calling me a shill would say positive things about kepler if it made similar progress as the 7870? My guess is no.

this makes me think about selling my 69xx's and buying 7870's. Small perf bump, lower power and heat.....

 

[Grooveriding]

I'm going to have to say that AMD has made progress with the 7870. Gtx 580 performance, power consumption is fantastic even overclocked, and makes the 580 obsolete at $350. AMD has a winner on its hands. To me the 7970 and 7950 kept the 580 semi relevant which I didn't like. The 7870 makes the 580 totally obsolete.

Probably not what you guys thought you'd hear from a "nvidia shill/marketer". Wonder if those calling me a shill would say positive things about kepler if it made similar progress as the 7870? My guess is no.

GK104 will be good if it is either a) faster than anything available by an appreciable margin, could care less about price, b.) is slower but offers better price/performance

7870 is pretty impressive, gtx 580 speed with headroom still there to get faster than a 580 and up to 7950 with an overclock for $350. Very nice, at $300 it would of been ideal, but it is still better than anything but a 7950 or 7979, both of which cost a good margin more.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

this makes me think about selling my 69xx's and buying 7870's. Small perf bump, lower power and heat.....

I'm interested in seeing the custom coolers. Unfortunately that will probably add another $50. :'( I would not be surprised to see load temps in the low 50's and overclocks to 1200mhz. Once these things get to around the $300 mark I think we're looking at this gens price/performance champ.

 

[tviceman]

In my opinion, this is the only release AMD has gotten close to right. The performance is impressive, and it is priced much better than any of their other releases on 28nm

 

[biostud]

wow, my 5870 is still holding up against all these new cards. amazing!!!! no need to upgrade anytime soon it seems.

And it seems the trend will continue. Video cards in the +$250 category are going to be long lasting when gaming in HD resolution.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

GK104 will be good if it is either a) faster than anything available by an appreciable margin, could care less about price, b.) is slower but offers better price/performance

7870 is pretty impressive, gtx 580 speed with headroom still there to get faster than a 580 and up to 7950 with an overclock for $350. Very nice, at $300 it would of been ideal, but it is still better than anything but a 7950 or 7979, both of which cost a good margin more.

I think this is the first AMD offering that actually puts some pressure on Kepler to where Kep will need to be pretty aggressive on pricing. I feel like the 7870 broke up the status quo of the market. I didn't feel that way about the 7970 or 7950.

 

[Rvenger]

Mehh, holding off until these prices calm down. I guess I will keep my 480 for a while until the price wars start happening. These cards will look much better price/performance wise once they drop about ~$50 per model.

 

[tviceman]

In my opinion, this is the only release AMD has gotten close to right. The performance is impressive, and it is priced much better than any of their other releases on 28nm

I think this is the first AMD offering that actually puts some pressure on Kepler to where Kep will need to be pretty aggressive on pricing. I feel like the 7870 broke up the status quo of the market. I didn't feel that way about the 7970 or 7950.

I completely agree!