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
Portal 2, Battlefield 3, Starcraft II, Skyrim, & CivV
The story with the back half of our game catalog is much the same, with both the PCS+ HD7870 and IceQ Turbo 7870 performing 5-7% better than the stock 7870. In terms of absolute performance this is enough to push the average framerate above 60fps in both Portal 2 and Battlefield 3 at 1920, giving the 7870 series the jump needed to clear these hurdles.
Both cards are doing particularly well in the back half compared to the 7950; they reach parity with the larger Southern Islands card at 1920 in every game except Starcraft II. In fact the overclocked 7870s even take a surprising 10% lead over the 7950 in CivV, possibly due to the vastly higher clocked frontend (1.1GHz vs. 800MHz).
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
53 Comments
View All Comments
CeriseCogburn - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
But for a long period of time you kept the very same drivers in many released articles, listed right along, one run for AMD drivers was over a year long as I recall or it certainly seemed, as well as for nVidia, and those were recent. you were asked about it and claimed the 10.3a drivers or whatever it was, were nearly identical to never ones so you weren't going to redo all the tests.So your excuse holds no water, you never updated all the time even in regular release benches.
If we accept your answer, it invalidates probably 90%+ of all your reviews.
CeriseCogburn - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
It's reasonable if here they take the short time to assemble the "overclocked chart" they obviously have the data for with all the prior released cards they include in the article, and show one fair game with the respective included cards all OC'ed.Without that there is no real justification, nor is it fair or equitable, or honest.
Peanutsrevenge - Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - link
Thanks for the reply Ryan.From all the replies to replies, I think it's clear.
You'll never be able to please everyone all the time :D
Still, nice review and always come to Anandtech when I'm looking for trustworthy information.
Keep up the good work and good luck with us whiners ;)
CeriseCogburn - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
I think that's just a cop-out. One chart of a neutral game with all the cards OC'ed would be good enough to appease everyone. It would solve the problem.CeriseCogburn - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
Yes, as in the case of the highly overclockable GTX460 EVGA the complaints never ended when it was included without other cards being overclocked.It appears they excused themselves then, and decided promoting amd OC cards in a (near paper and completely unmentioned in the entire article) launch now was iresistable.
I noted the excuse, that AIB's would be bypassing stock cards...(for the most part) - which isn't correct either - as the truth is permission for OC cards at launch is the near difference from the usual standard.
All of them will still issue stock and OC for more money 'for the most part'.
I seriously doubt you can find a single launch in the entire archive that OC's the two launching ( or even one) nVidia card and nothing else.
That of course proves nothing since this is a very special case, one that AMD has approved.
johnpombrio - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link
This will probably be the last AMD release before NVidia comes out with their GTX 680 on March 22. AMD has been making up for the different release times by putting as much product out there as possible while NVidia tries to fix their manufacturing yields. It will interesting to see what happens in the next 6 months.Let the games begin.
CeriseCogburn - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
Which isn't much product at all especially the 7870's and 7850's.MrSpadge - Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - link
I keep hearing how great the SI GPUs overclock on stock voltage. However, that voltage is set to 1.2 V. From my point of view that's already a lot - my HD6950 on a 40 nm process runs at just 1.10 V. It reminds me of AMDs 45 nm CPUs which are set to painful 1.40 V and reviewers are pleased with their overclockability.. not withstanding the fact htat it should have been 1.30 V for better stock efficiency.In the same spirit I think the SI GPUs should get lower stock voltages.. higher efficiency and still plenty of head room.
Onus - Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - link
That was a constructive discussion on the overclocking comparison. I think it is meaningful if only because it adds another data point to the "index" we all maintain when working on configurations or contemplating upgrades. Overclocking may be extremely variable, but if all of a handful of tech sites get only a 5% OC, that tells something.The power usage figures of the new AMD cards look great, especially considering the performance. Now I just hope prices can come down some.
CeriseCogburn - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
They have the data to include a neutral type game with all the cards overclocked, and it would be helpful and easily repeatable, and the excuse that every new driver would need to be used is refuted by the entensive archive here where old drivers were used for extensive periods of time.It appears bias or laziness and excuses is the real answer.