AMD Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition & Radeon HD 7850 Review: Rounding Out Southern Islands
by Ryan Smith on March 5, 2012 12:01 AM ESTMetro 2033
Paired with Crysis as our second behemoth FPS is Metro: 2033. Metro gives up Crysis’ lush tropics and frozen wastelands for an underground experience, but even underground it can be quite brutal on GPUs, which is why it’s also our new benchmark of choice for looking at power/temperature/noise during a game. If its sequel due this year is anywhere near as GPU intensive then a single GPU may not be enough to run the game with every quality feature turned up.
Metro ends up being an even better test for the 7800 series than Crysis was. At 1920 the 7870 ties the GTX 580 while taking a 17% lead over the GTX 570 and a much smaller lead over the 6970. The 7850 on the other hand is slightly behind the 6950, but is itself tied with the GTX 570 and well ahead of the GTX 560 Ti.
Interestingly, in spite of being built from the same architecture the 7950’s lead decreases some here. At 1920 it’s now only 13% ahead of the 7870, though in all likelihood it’s just enough of a difference that the 7870 isn’t going to be fully playable at these settings. As it turns out the gap between the 7870 and 7850 ends up being larger, with the 7870 enjoying a 17% advantage.
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Kiste - Monday, March 5, 2012 - link
So, how many people do you know who would spend a few hundred bucks for a performance "sidegrade" that saves them a few bucks per year on their energy bill?Price/performance is still the relevant metric for most people, with everything else being secondary. Not unimportant, but secondary. Noise can also be addressed on cards with high power draw by buying a card with a custom cooler or using a 3rd party cooler.
Kaboose - Monday, March 5, 2012 - link
Some people are just entering the market, some people are coming from 3+ generations ago, some people are looking for HTPC's that can game and need low power and low temp cards that provide solid performance. It isn't a sidegrade for someone who is coming from integrated graphics or maybe a 7800GT etc. It is easy to think that everyone who buys these types of GPU's are knowledgeable and already have high performing GPU's. But that just isn't the case a lot of the time. If you have a high end 5xxx or a mid-high range 6xxx GPU already then there is no reason to upgrade, frankly with the 68xx series AMD isn't looking to grab that market.Kiste - Monday, March 5, 2012 - link
If you're looking for great price/performance, there are plenty of cards that offer more bang for your bucks.If you're looking for raw performance, you look elsewhere, too.
Though I'll happily concede that the 7850/7870 are great absolutely fabulous for everyone who is building a "HTPC that can game".
medi01 - Monday, March 5, 2012 - link
And exactly where do you look for raw performance, pretty please? Maybe at nVidia 570, that costs 80$, consumes more energy yet is outperformed in most tests by 7850?Kiste - Monday, March 5, 2012 - link
Where would you look for raw performance? How about the 79xx line?And what the hell are you talking about anyway? The 7850 does not "outperform" the 570 in most tests, unless you're again back at comparing an overclocked card to a non-overclocked card. Most 570 cards can do a 15-20% OC easily, btw.
Hell, I bought my GTX570 about 12 months ago for €289. And I'm supposed to be blown away by something like the 7870 in 2012?
The GTX570 became available about 14 months ago. It took AMD 14 frigging month to come up with a card like the 7870 that is 9% faster on average at the same price point?
Gee, what a marvel of technology.
krumme - Monday, March 5, 2012 - link
570 is 250% larger and 9% slowerIts a giant leap
talk about marvel of technology
Your card is tech from stone age compared to a 7870.
Old tech is old
SlyNine - Monday, March 5, 2012 - link
I'm running a 5870 which is basically 75% the performance of a 7970, and I paid 379 for the 5870. Which is also 75% of the cost of a 7970. The price of a 7970 is basically the exact same price structure as the 2 1/2 year old 5870, So we are stuck where we were in 2009, yay.Yea we are sure moving forward...
morfinx - Monday, March 5, 2012 - link
75% performance of 7970 would mean that it's 33% faster than a 5870. And that's just not accurate. I have a 5870 as well, so I was paying a lot of attention on how much faster the 7970 is in various reviews. Everything I've read indicates that it's anywhere from 70-110% faster at 2560x1600 resolution (I run 3600x1920, so likely even even more of a difference). That's not even even considering the massive overclocking headroom of the 7970 vs barely any OC headroom of the 5870. Overclocked, a 7970 is easily twice as fast as a 5870.RaistlinZ - Monday, March 5, 2012 - link
This is true. I came from a 5870 to a 7970 and at 2560x1600 the 7970 is easily twice as fast.And that's even before overclocking. My 5870 could barely overclock for crap, whereas my 7970 overclocks 27% on core and 18% on memory.
SlyNine - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
Not according to Anandtechs benchmarks.