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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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.