7870... Who owns?

B

Butter

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 30, 2011
Messages
253
I barely hear anyone mention things about their 7870... So I wanna see how many people have one.

Current Sapphire 7870 OC owner here! Gaming has been pretty good so far :p Temps linger around 50c-62c Max though, which I hope is acceptable. 62c is usually on those hot and humid days.
 
I'm a little confused about it too. I am looking at one as an alternative to a 7950 or gtx670 to save a little money but there isn't much discussion on them here on the forum from what I can tell.
 
It seems it's basically price the same as a 7950 so most people would either get that or throw in another $25 and go 670...
 
Rattle said:
It seems it's basically price the same as a 7950 so most people would either get that or throw in another $25 and go 670...
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That may be true, but this is a pretty good deal for close to 580 performance. You can find some models for 340 atm.
 
lloose said:
I'm a little confused about it too. I am looking at one as an alternative to a 7950 or gtx670 to save a little money but there isn't much discussion on them here on the forum from what I can tell.
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I suggest you go for the Sapphire HD 7950 950 Mhz edition. uses ref HD 7970 PCB. almost identical to sapphire HD 7970 OC. excellent overclocker. user sonda5 has posted card pics, overclock speeds here. clocking 1200 Mhz at stock volts. I figure even if you don't go so lucky you will hit 1200+ with sapphire trixx and voltage tweaking.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1695577

http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1157&pid=1551&psn=&lid=1&leg=0

"The new design is HD 7970 class that enables more head room for overclocking"

http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-PCI-...e=UTF8&qid=1339032385&sr=1-3&tag=hardfocom-20

cost USD 390 at amazon. This card will thrash the HD 7870. A HD 7950 at 1200 Mhz is very competitive against a 1300 Mhz HD GTX 670. take your pick. :)
 
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I agree that 7950 looks pretty good , I'm not into spending 390.00 yet on a single card and the review of the 7870 that [H] did made it look pretty good performance wise against a HD 7950,
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1700290

I've got 2 x ASUS HD7870-DC2 GHz Edition coming tues for 240.00 a piece (still seems kinda high) that might be replacing the 2 x 6870's I currently run and have been very pleased with, kinda curious about crossfire performance on the newer cards
 
The 7870 is a great card, it's just priced poorly. It should be much closer to the $325 price mark to actually be worth buying.
 
Crystal_Castles said:
The 7870 is a great card, it's just priced poorly. It should be much closer to the $325 price mark to actually be worth buying.
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um 325 is a horrible price as a gtx670 would offer more bang for buck for just 75 bucks more. IMO the 7870 should have been around 275 at launch and 250 by now.
 
cannondale06 said:
um 325 is a horrible price as a gtx670 would offer more bang for buck for just 75 bucks more. IMO the 7870 should have been around 275 at launch and 250 by now.
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At $250 it would be a superior buy over the GTX 660, so realistically that won't happen anytime soon.
 
cannondale06 said:
um 325 is a horrible price as a gtx670 would offer more bang for buck for just 75 bucks more. IMO the 7870 should have been around 275 at launch and 250 by now.
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You can get the 7870 for $309.99 ($289.99AR). As far as spending more for a better card, where do you stop? You can always spend a bit more. The GTX670 is in a whole different price bracket.
 
cannondale06 said:
you do realize that was already posted here and I even replied to that.
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No I didn't, sorry. I've read back a bit, though. I have to say that 30% more is still a completely different price bracket. If I had $400 to spend on a card I wouldn't even look at the 7870? Just like if I only had $300 I wouldn't look at the 670.
 
Relayer said:
No I didn't, sorry. I've read back a bit, though. I have to say that 30% more is still a completely different price bracket. If I had $400 to spend on a card I wouldn't even look at the 7870? Just like if I only had $300 I wouldn't look at the 670.
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it is but usually we have more bang for buck on the lower end but we dont here.
 
cannondale06 said:
it is but usually we have more bang for buck on the lower end but we dont here.
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You can't use bang/$ as the defining parameter and than ignore the price though. You can't recommend a $400 card if someone has $300 to spend.
 
Relayer said:
You can't use bang/$ as the defining parameter and than ignore the price though. You can't recommend a $400 card if someone has $300 to spend.
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yes I know. again I am just pointing out that high end cards normally offer less bang for buck.
 
Any card from the AMD line-up 7850-7970 will give just about anyone a satisfying experience for a while at 1080 resolution. 1440 might require a 79xx series to get the most out of it, but none of the AMD cards this generation are anything to hate on. I do wish they ran a little cooler though.
 
XFX Black Edition HD7850 and MSI Power Edition 7850 can both over clock to HD7870 performance levels for much less money. Both cards have the same size 256-bit memory interface and 2GB of VRAM.

The fastest liquid nitrogen cooled HD7870s in the world over clocked to 1900mhz on the core can't beat a a 1300mhz air or water clocked HD7950 on 3dMark11.


HD7950 has 33% larger memory interface and 50% more VRAM than HD7950. The price between a decent HD7870 and decent HD7950 is around 10% more.

You get alot more video card for the money with a HD7950 or a HD7850. HD7870 doesn't offer much for the money IMO.
 
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Blkout said:
Who plays 3DMark?
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If you are competitive bench marker you do benchamarks for fun. (like a game)


My other points about the HD7850 and HD7950 are true. HD7870 with $350+ price tag just doesn't seem like a good card to buy for the money when you can buy a HD7850 and over clock it and get similar performance or make a nice step up to a HD7950 with 33% higher memory interface and %50 more ram.
 
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SonDa5 said:
If you are competitive bench marker you do benchamarks for fun. (like a game)


My other points about the HD7850 and HD7950 are true. HD7850 with $350+ price tag just doesn't seem like a good card to buy for the money when you can buy a HD7850 and over clock it and get similar performance or make a nice step up to a HD7950 with 33% higher memory interface and %50 more ram.
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I think you meant 7870 for $350, but I understand what you're saying, however some 7870's have been available for as low as $300 recently. I'm not saying the 7870 is a better value than the 7850, its not, just like the 7970 isn't a better value than the 7950. Both the 7870 and 7970 are just higher clocked versions of the 7x50 counterparts, sure with one added shader cluster enabled too but that means practically nothing. When you buy a 7870 or 7970, you're basically buying a factory overclocked 7850 or 7950, hence the reason why you only see "GHz" editions of those cards, its just AMD's way of offering some variety in their lineup at different price points.

And if you're a competitive benchmarker you're most likely only concerned with setting the highest record for any card or the highest for your type of card, either way a 7870 vs 7950 comparison doesn't factor into a buyers decision based on 3DMark. I think even Capt. Obvious is able to see that a higher end card is going to score higher in 3DMark, however that doesn't always translate to games. Many 7850's and 7870's are able to run 1250MHz and some as high as 1300MHz on air where most 7950's and 7970's arent even able to hit 1200MHz on air. Clearly clock for clock the 79xx's are going to be faster but when you compare a 1250-13000MHz 7850 or 7870 to a 1150-1180MHz 7950 or 7970, things are very close in most games.
 
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Blkout said:
And if you're a competitive benchmarker you're most likely only concerned with setting the highest record for any card or the highest for your type of card, either way a 7870 vs 7950 comparison doesn't factor into a buyers decision based on 3DMark. I think even Capt. Obvious is able to see that a higher end card is going to score higher in 3DMark, however that doesn't always translate to games. Many 7850's and 7870's are able to run 1250MHz and some as high as 1300MHz on air where most 7950's and 7970's arent even able to hit 1200MHz on air. Clearly clock for clock the 79xx's are going to be faster but when you compare a 1250-13000MHz 7850 or 7870 to a 1150-1180MHz 7950 or 7970, things are very close in most games.
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I have fun pushing any card for competitive bench marking but I prefer to have cards that are much more powerful for bench marking. HD7950 is a big step up from HD7870 for bench marking and for gaming.

I run my HD7950 for gaming at 1300/1600 and it is beast for gaming at those settings.

Bottom line is that I don't think the HD7870 offers alot for the money for its price point.
 
Blkout said:
I never arrgued that. I simply said, 3DMark performance isn't the same as game performance.
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Your also compared a slower HD7950 to HD7870 than the HD7950 that I am running.



Not all video cards over clock well but I would rather play the over clock lottery with a more powerful designed HD7950 than a HD7870 and I would rather pay alot less money on a HD7850 over a HD7870. HD7870 just doesn't have the hardware to really merit its high price compared to HD7850 or HD7950.
 
SonDa5 said:
Your also compared a slower HD7950 to HD7870 than the HD7950 that I am running.

Not all video cards over clock well but I would rather play the over clock lottery with a more powerful designed HD7950 than a HD7870 and I would rather pay alot less money on a HD7850 over a HD7870. HD7870 just doesn't have the hardware to really merit its high price compared to HD7850 or HD7950.
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Yeah I think the current price on HD 7870 is not a good deal. Having said that the price stack will eventually settle to this.

Radeon HD 7970 Ghz edition (1000 / 1050) - USD 500
New Radeon HD 7950 (900 / 950) - USD 400
HD 7870 - USD 300
HD 7850 - USD 220 - 230

I can say for sure that the gap between HD 7850 OC and HD 7870 OC is much larger than the gap between HD 7950 OC and HD 7970 OC.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/HD_7870_HAWK/31.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_7850_PCS_Plus/31.html

BF3 1920 X 1200 Ultra 4X AA

HD 7970 (925) - 64.4
MSI HD 7870 (1260) - 62.5
PCS+ HD 7850 (1240) - 50.2

thats a more than 20% difference. I am pretty sure that a HD 7950 OC at similar clocks as HD 7970 OC is nowhere as much behind as that. At most 5%. I know sonda5 can verify that.

It has something to do with AMD's architecture design. The scaling from Pitcairn to Tahiti is not as good as it should be. I think with 2 ACE and 2 rasterizers/ tesselators for HD 7900 cards AMD may have cut some corners too much. Maybe this being their first GCN generation products on a new 28nm process with a compute + gaming focussed chip AMD did not want to increase their risks any more by going for a larger chip with more front end resources.

This is also one of the reasons for the GTX 680 being competitive wrt HD 7970. Their gaming focussed architecture with good scalability in design with 4 GPC allows them to match the HD 7970 (at 1080p/1200p) , which has more resources. Anyway bottom line I feel the best price perf product in AMD's stack is HD 7950. This is well known to sonda5 as he is experiencing the performance of HD 7970 OC for 100 bucks less. When AMD launches Tahiti 2 Pro (900/950) they would be providing a good stock performer and also a very competitive OC performer. All for an attractive price perf. sonda5 you are already enjoying the best price perf. so enjoy your card :)
 
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I feel that the 7870 is sort of at an awkward price point with it being priced only ~$20-30 less than the 7950 but taking a big performance hit for 1080p+
 
SonDa5 said:
Your also compared a slower HD7950 to HD7870 than the HD7950 that I am running.



Not all video cards over clock well but I would rather play the over clock lottery with a more powerful designed HD7950 than a HD7870 and I would rather pay alot less money on a HD7850 over a HD7870. HD7870 just doesn't have the hardware to really merit its high price compared to HD7850 or HD7950.
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Very few people have 7950's running the speed yours is running. At least be realistic. You are clearly naive if you think all 7950's are going to run 1200MHz on air even at 100% fan setting and 1300MHz even under water. Its not just the truth at all. If all you want is to hear Kudos for how well your card overclocks, great, Kudos to you. Otherwise your argument is a bit misleading to people that buy a card that doesn't overclock as well as yours, which is going to be a vast majority.
 
Blkout said:
Very few people have 7950's running the speed yours is running. At least be realistic. You are clearly naive if you think all 7950's are going to run 1200MHz on air even at 100% fan setting and 1300MHz even under water. Its not just the truth at all. If all you want is to hear Kudos for how well your card overclocks, great, Kudos to you. Otherwise your argument is a bit misleading to people that buy a card that doesn't overclock as well as yours, which is going to be a vast majority.
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I suggest you also just drop it. According to you all GTX 670s hit 1250 - 1300 Mhz and very few HD 7950s hit 1150 - 1200 Mhz. I have to say thats just your prejudice at work. because you own a GTX 670 you don't have to continually talk down the HD 7950. People need to make decisions based on their understanding from a number of information sources, not just one or two.
 
raghu78 said:
I suggest you also just drop it. According to you all GTX 670s hit 1250 - 1300 Mhz and very few HD 7950s hit 1150 - 1200 Mhz. I have to say thats just your prejudice at work. because you own a GTX 670 you don't have to continually talk down the HD 7950. People need to make decisions based on their understanding from a number of information sources, not just one or two.
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I think you need to read more carefully, you have twisted my words and that is not what I said at all.On AVERAGE, most 670's and 680's overclock on air about 100-120MHz higher than a 7950 or 7970 on air and this based on numerous online reviews and user reports in the forums and my own testing using both cards. On water, the 7950 and 7970 can make up some of this ground, but the vast majority of people use air cooling.

And don't tell me I'm prejudice when I've own both cards, I have the right to speak about which I prefer and why. I'll ask you again though, have you owned either of these cards? Until you do, please don't tell me you have any more right to give your opinion than I do. I have first hand experience with both cards, I'm not just quoting someone else's personal opinions which may or may not be biased. If you choose not to listen to my own opinion, that's fine with me. I offer it only for those that are interested, for those that aren't move on to the next post.

Your problem is that you hate it when someone doesn't agree with you or doesn't prefer AMD over Nvidia. I am very much pro-AMD, I have been running ATI cards since the 9800 Pro in 2003, the only Nvidia card I've bought since then was a GTX 285 which I sold after 6 months for yet again, ATI cards. The two 670's I have now are only the second and third Nvidia cards I've owned in the last 9 years. So please cut the prejudice crap just because I don't agree with your opinion on which card is better to me this generation. Its my opinion, like it or not, I'm not asking you to agree with it.
 
Blkout said:
I think you need to read more carefully, you have twisted my words and that is not what I said at all.On AVERAGE, most 670's and 680's overclock on air about 100-120MHz higher than a 7950 or 7970 on air and this based on numerous online reviews and user reports in the forums and my own testing using both cards. On water, the 7950 and 7970 can make up some of this ground, but the vast majority of people use air cooling.

And don't tell me I'm prejudice when I've own both cards, I have the right to speak about which I prefer and why. I'll ask you again though, have you owned either of these cards? Until you do, please don't tell me you have any more right to give your opinion than I do. I have first hand experience with both cards, I'm not just quoting someone else's personal opinions which may or may not be biased. If you choose not to listen to my own opinion, that's fine with me. I offer it only for those that are interested, for those that aren't move on to the next post.

Your problem is that you hate it when someone doesn't agree with you or doesn't prefer AMD over Nvidia. I am very much pro-AMD, I have been running ATI cards since the 9800 Pro in 2003, the only Nvidia card I've bought since then was a GTX 285 which I sold after 6 months for yet again, ATI cards. The two 670's I have now are only the second and third Nvidia cards I've owned in the last 9 years. So please cut the prejudice crap just because I don't agree with your opinion on which card is better to me this generation. Its my opinion, like it or not, I'm not asking you to agree with it.
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Overclocking itself does not come with guarantees. even assuming GTX 600 cards are doing 100 Mhz higher the HD 7900 cards are going to win more games because their margins when they win are not small. Few games the extra 100 Mhz can allow the GTX 600 cards to come close, but others not at all. I can say for sure a HD 7950 (1150 - 1200) Mhz is a faster card than GTX 670 (1250 -1300 Mhz). Obviously you and i can differ on that.
 
raghu78 said:
Overclocking itself does not come with guarantees. even assuming GTX 600 cards are doing 100 Mhz higher the HD 7900 cards are going to win more games because their margins when they win are not small. Few games the extra 100 Mhz can allow the GTX 600 cards to come close, but others not at all. I can say for sure a HD 7950 (1150 - 1200) Mhz is a faster card than GTX 670 (1250 -1300 Mhz). Obviously you and i can differ on that.
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Its not for sure, and I've done the testing. They trade blows, I never said that a 6xx series clocking 100Mhz higher was always going to come out on top either, I simply stated the average clocks for both cards. I did however say that the temps and voltages it takes to get an AMD card there is much higher than 6xx series in which case heat and noise goes up considerably. Nvidia simply offers the same performance, in a more efficient, cooler and quieter package which is a win in my book, not even including the better driver support from Nvidia which is a BIG deal.
 
Blkout said:
the temps and voltages it takes to get an AMD card there is much higher than 6xx series in which case heat and noise goes up considerably. Nvidia simply offers the same performance, in a more efficient, cooler and quieter package which is a win in my book, not even including the better driver support from Nvidia which is a BIG deal.
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I prefer to water cool either card and over clock and if you look at it from that perspective the HD7950 is still the better card.
 
people here hate the 7870. you arent going to find anything on this site but bias.

i bought mine because when i put my machine together at microcenter, the 7870 was literally the fastest card they had in stock that day.

i like mine, plays the games i play right now at framerates i need it to.

i guess thats all that needs to be said.

a lot of people here are more about drag racing their systems, than actually gaming with them. gamers rarely post on sites like this because they are too busy gaming to bother with "this card is faster than that card".

thats one of the reasons hard ocp clans and guilds have never in the decade ive been coming to this site, been competitive in any way shape or form in their respective games. people here are more entertained by running a game, and seeing how fast it can run before logging out to post about it for an hour, than actually playing the game and having fun doing it.

if you want to get the card, get the card. buy from a place with a good return policy. least that way if you dont like it, you can take it back.
 
christianw said:
people here hate the 7870. you arent going to find anything on this site but bias.



a lot of people here are more about drag racing their systems, than actually gaming with them. gamers rarely post on sites like this because they are too busy gaming to bother with "this card is faster than that card".

thats one of the reasons hard ocp clans and guilds have never in the decade ive been coming to this site, been competitive in any way shape or form in their respective games. people here are more entertained by running a game, and seeing how fast it can run before logging out to post about it for an hour, than actually playing the game and having fun doing it.
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I don't hate the card but I am being honest about my opinion on the card which is largely based on the price and performance potential of the HD7850, HD7870 and HD7950.

I like building my computer for performance for fun. I enjoy the electrical harmonic power of it all when it is running strong. I enjoy all the details about computer hardware. I also game. I am very competitive at UT3. You may not like UT3 but that is my favorite game and I have put many hours into it and still consider myself a newbie at it because there is so many talented players that I often come across playing it. It's a great game and with many competitive players that have been playing Unreal Tournament for many years.

Not trying to put down your card, just sharing my opinion about the card.

I honestly think the HD7950 should be priced at around $300, HD7850 at $200, HD7870 at $220, and GTX 670 at $280.


Didn't mean to offend you or anyone else.
 
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