Overclocking: Gaming & Compute Performance

As always we’ll keep the commentary thin here, but overall the overclocked performance of the 7800s looks very good, which is what you’d expect with a 15%+ core overclock and a 12% memory overclock. With the exception of Skyrim performance at 19x12, the overclocking performance increase for both cards is roughly split between the core and memory overclocks, meaning we’re seeing a 13.5% average performance increase for the 7870 and a 17% average performance increase for the 7850. As the 7800 series has the same number of ROPS as the 7900 series, it looks like we’re running headlong into the memory bandwidth bottleneck that makes the 384-bit memory bus on the 7900 series sing.

All things considered among our tests we have everything from even the 7850OC beating the GTX 580, to the GTX 580 still holding onto its lead versus the 7870OC. But even if you can’t beat a GTX 580 with a 7870OC you can get very close on a card that costs a good bit less.

Meanwhile for compute performance the gains are similar: 12.5% on the 7870, and 19.5% on the 7850.

Overclocking: Power, Temp, & Noise Final Words
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  • slypher1024 - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link

    Well said bro...

    Its like Nvidia and Amd secretly team up to maximizing profits.. AMD launch now, over price the product, Nvidia hold out for like 3-5 months, then launches a more powerful product knowing all too well that yes AMD will drop there prices, but we have the more powerful hardware so, persons will still gobble it up..

    You would think with the launch of a new product line, AMD would drop the price significantly so it can encourage customer to buy off the remaining stock .
  • IceDread - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link

    I do not think it's ok to skip hd 7970 but include nvidia 580. This makes anandtech look like it favors nvidia over amd and the entire site can be questioned.
  • warmbit - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link

    Here is the link to an interesting overview performance 7870 and 7850 of 5 Web sites competing Nvidia cards - GTX580 and GTX570 and penalties of the previous generation AMD - 6970 and 6950.

    Analysis of the results of the Radeon 7870 and 7850 in 12 games and 5 resolutions:
    http://translate.google.pl/translate?hl=pl&sl=...

    You will know the relationship between average interest rates these cards and you will find out in which graphics card is better in the game and resolution.

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