The Retail Radeon HD 7870 Review: HIS 7870 IceQ Turbo & PowerColor PCS+ HD7870
by Ryan Smith on March 19, 2012 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- PowerColor
- Radeon HD 7000
- HIS
Final Words
Being in the business of producing video cards is often not an easy feat, as a GPU manufacturer’s partners only have limited control over the resulting product. At the end of the day most of the performance of a GPU is dictated by its design and fabrication, so partners need to find ways to differentiate themselves not only from each other, but to meaningfully differentiate themselves from the reference products.
This is why AMD’s partners are so happy with the 7000 series. The overclocking headroom in Cape Verde, Pitcairn, and even Tahiti translates into room for them to play with factory overclocks, allowing them to create cards that are meaningfully different from the reference cards in performance. So long as partners can sell all of their GPUs, both high clocking and not, then factory overclocked models are a textbook upsale that lets them grab some more profit in what’s otherwise a cutthroat business. Coupled with a chance to further differentiate themselves based on coolers, and the 7000 has given partners a chance to stand out in a way they couldn’t on the 6000 series.
As far as today’s cards are concerned, both HIS and PowerColor stand out in different ways. PowerColor’s PCS+ HD7870 is a rather straightforward upsell: for $20 (6%) more PowerColor will sell you a 7870 card that gets 5-7% more performance than a stock 7870. And because of their custom open air cooler, it can do this while being a bit quieter than AMD’s reference design. As has been the case with factory overclocked cards in the past this is really an individual decision – based on our limited data, it looks like most 7870s should be able to hit PowerColor’s factory overclocks – but if you just want a bit more guaranteed performance for a bit more money, PowerColor is happy to sell it to you. If nothing else the performance gain is large enough to justify considering it in the first place.
HIS on the other hand makes things a bit more interesting, and a lot less clear. For their IceQ Turbo 7870 their upsell is $40 (11%) for roughly the same 5-7% performance improvement, and if all you care about is stock performance then it’s not a good deal. The real differentiating factor is the IceQ cooler; it’s simply leaps and bounds ahead of any other 7870 we’ve seen so far, though it gets there by using an extra slot in width. If for some reason you need its impressively effective cooling – say for overvolting in the future – then it’s a great candidate. Otherwise without with the prospect of overvolting it’s effectively limited by the AMD PCB and what Pitcairn can do on stock voltage, in which case its temperature advantage likely won’t translate into any material benefit. But then this is the advantage of the GPU partner system for consumers – a company like HIS can go out and create an overcooled card, even if it's for just a niche market.
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Death666Angel - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link
Then why include the 7970 at all since that isn't an option? Just so people can compare their e-peens against higher end cards which in turn can be overlocked so the comparison is moot anyway?kyuu - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link
The point is to show that you can achieve equal or better performance to a higher-end stock card with this particular card, that is the one being reviewed, over clocked. You're making up some theoretical audience that is somehow misreading it and arguing that they're being mislead, but I don't think those people actually exist. No one is claiming you can't over clock the more expensive card, nor is it really relevant.kyuu - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link
Sorry, it was actually the OP who imagines there is some "inept" audience misreading it, not you, so my apologies. However, there's still no need to include OC figures for every single card (making a huge, messy, difficult-to-read graph). This article is about two particular products. They are then compared to other stock cards, with some OC figures presented for good measure. There's nothing to complain about here.Ryan Smith - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link
Funny enough several people asked why we didn't include the 7970 in our This Just In article.Iketh - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link
how is comparing an OC card to a higher stock card determining value???? You have to compare to the higher card's overclock... why is this difficult to understand?Ryan Smith - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link
Hi Peanutsrevenge;The primary goal we have with our overclocking comparison isn't to say any given card is more or less superior because of how far it can overclock, but rather we're trying to give the appropriate framing and significance to our overclocking results. An overclocked 7870 will never be better than an overclocked 7950; the fact that an overclocked 7870 can reach the performance of a stock 7950 is what's important. The only question I'm trying to answer here is "what new performance level can you reach with overclocking".
-Thanks
Ryan Smith
bassface2001 - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link
I agree with the original sentiment that overclocked versus stock is a silly comparison. Since whatever is stock can be overclocked as well. Budget reasons don't add validity to this type of comparison either. If you're limited by budget then it doesn't matter how close or far away an overclocked product is to the next one up when you can't afford the next step up.What may be of interest would be percentage overclocks between different levels of product. This then answers the question of "what new performance level can you reach with overclocking" with fair comparisons acrosss the board.
So if the entry level can be overclocked by 5% the midrange by 25% and the highend by 10%. The mid range may present the best value over the other two or it may not but the reader has a like with like comparison to make an informed decision.
Death666Angel - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link
"The only question I'm trying to answer here is "what new performance level can you reach with overclocking"."Fair enough. :-) And you are doing a great job btw.! But that just isn't the type of question I would set regarding OC ability of different cards. :-)
For that reason, I like the overclockersclub.com reviews, because they have a database of all overclocked cards and compare new overclocked cards against old overclocked cards. It's still not technically "apples to apples" since overclocks vary by a lot. But it is more useful to me and more what I expect than anandtechs treatment of overclocks. :-)
Ryan Smith - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link
It's fair criticism.The reality is that we're sticklers for the scientific method, which means we need as few variables as possible. To keep a DB of overclocked video cards we would need to rebench every overclocked card every time a new driver with a measurable performance impact came out. This isn't practical for purposes of time, nor for that matter do we keep these retail cards on hand. The alternative would be to compare overclocks across different drivers, and we would rather give you fewer accurate numbers than to make such a comparison.
-Thanks
Ryan Smith
Frallan - Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - link
Thanks for the replys Ryan,first its very nice to have the dudes acctually sitting with the hardware and performing the tests communicating with us like you are.
Scondly regarding the discussion at hand I just want to give you my support since it is very valueble to have the tests as you do them. This is bc I will be looking for the best possible effect out of a given budget framework since I dont have the funds to buy whatever I want whenever I want it.
Keep up the good work and Anandtech will remain my main tech reference site another 10 years.
BR
/Fredrik