Buy a second 6870 or sell the first and buy a 7870 tahiti?

sell the HD 6870 and buy the HD 7870 tahiti LE. its stock performance is on apr with HD 7950(800 Mhz) and GTX 660 Ti. overclocks to 1150 -1200 mhz easily matching HD 7970(925 mhz) . faster than HD 6870 CF at those speeds. also provides consistent performance unlike multi GPU solutions whose performance and scaling can vary from game to game. also with single GPU you can get a smoother performance. multi gpu frametime latencies are not as good as single GPU. also 1GB VRAM on HD 6870 will not allow you to play the latest games maxed out with MSAA.
 
I ran my 5850's in Crossfire (similar to 6870's in Crossfire) against my Single Radeon 7870-Tahiti (@1150mhz core) and found that in benchmarks they ran close, most of the time they are equal but sometimes one was higher than the other. There were some circumstances where the 5850's in CFX doesn't run well(like in Tomb Raider the TressFX and High Shadows mess up pretty bad), and most games like Dirt Showdown score similarly at the same settings, but run much smoother on the 7870-Tahiti. Definitly go with a 7870-Tahiti over crossfired 6870s. A little bonus, I frickin LOVE the 7870-Tahiti!!! Clocked at 1150mhz it really runs close to my GTX670(mines not overclocked). With the deals going on with this card ($209 when I got mine), this is probably the best overall card available.
 
Whenever possible I always go with the fastest single card setup I can afford. Every time I try to run SLI/crossfire I always seem to run into all sorts of issues not present in the single card system.
 
I get around 7800 3DMark 11 with two 6850s, about 8400 with a single 7870XT. If you sell the card and the games you cant get the XT for around $70.
 
Sounds like selling it is the right way to go then. What is a fair price to sell the 6870 for? I am thinking something like $110 including shipping.

It is a Sapphire 6870 1GB, model number 100314-3L.
 
given the availability of cards like HD 7790 1 GB (on par with HD 6870) with bioshock infinite at USD 150 and GTX 650 Ti boost (on par with HD 7850) at USD 150 - 170 i think USD 100 with shipping is the max you can expect for a used HD 6870. as for the HD 7870 Tahiti LE wiat for the sapphire HD 7870 XT to come back in stock or grab the powercolor HD 7870 Tahiti le . the powercolor card after mail in rebate is USD 219 while sapphire card is usd 235

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202024
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131487
 
given the availability of cards like HD 7790 1 GB (on par with HD 6870) with bioshock infinite at USD 150 and GTX 650 Ti boost (on par with HD 7850) at USD 150 - 170 i think USD 100 with shipping is the max you can expect for a used HD 6870. as for the HD 7870 Tahiti LE wiat for the sapphire HD 7870 XT to come back in stock or grab the powercolor HD 7870 Tahiti le . the powercolor card after mail in rebate is USD 219 while sapphire card is usd 235

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202024
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131487

Hmmm....

Someone on Craigslist offered my $85. Maybe I should just take that before the value drops any further.

Is the 7870 Tahiti the best bang for the buck card right now or is there something else to look at? Maybe some version of the 7950? Whatever I get, I will probably sell it next year when I do a full system upgrade. I am trying to keep the performance up while losing as little money as possible. If I get a 7870, I am hoping I will be able to sell it for around $100 a year from now.
 
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Hmmm....

Someone on Craigslist offered my $85. Maybe I should just take that before the value drops any further.

Is the 7870 Tahiti the best bang for the buck card right now or is there something else to look at? Maybe some version of the 7950? Whatever I get, I will probably sell it next year when I do a full system upgrade. I am trying to keep the performance up while losing as little money as possible. If I get a 7870, I am hoping I will be able to sell it for around $100 a year from now.

Sapphire HD 7950 boost for USD 290 after mail in rebate is a good deal.

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?p=AT-7950BST

HD 7950 is 15 - 20% faster than HD 7870 Tahiti LE at same clocks

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1039740322&postcount=12
 
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Avoid that one like the plague. The cooler is poorly executed and additionally one user found it didn't have the same fillrate. It's not on Powercolor's site for a reason.

Get this one instead, new code PWCHD7870 making it $209 without a rebate. Some people are having issues with the code but worked for me.

If you don't need it right away hold out for the Sapphire 7870XT which was $215 (?) a few days ago. The PCB is identical but the cooler is more efficient/quieter.
 
Avoid that one like the plague. The cooler is poorly executed and additionally one user found it didn't have the same fillrate. It's not on Powercolor's site for a reason.

Get this one instead, new code PWCHD7870 making it $209 without a rebate. Some people are having issues with the code but worked for me.

If you don't need it right away hold out for the Sapphire 7870XT which was $215 (?) a few days ago. The PCB is identical but the cooler is more efficient/quieter.

Thanks for the link, the code worked for me. I hate waiting to see whether a card will come back into stock or not. Is the cooler really that much worse? By worse I mean, does it affect max OC or just noise?

Edit: I read that driver support for the Tahiti LE cards is only through the manufacturer. Is this true? I remember this situation being a pain for my old HD 2600 XT AGP card.
 
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I'd honestly like to hear from people who've actually purchased the Sapphire as to how loud it is. I believe it would be quieter and has a better cooler, but I don't own it. Some of the Egg reviews say it's cool and quiet, others say things like
Runs a little on the hot side. Be sure you have a really nice airflow in your case, especially if you live in a hot climate like here in Texas or Florida. 72C Under load

I bought this to replace my HD6950 2GB reference card that I had flashed and OC'd to 6970 specs. The card runs good but it is LOUD. Did I say LOUD.

I have two Mysts in crossfire and it gets to the low 90s, this guy had his Sapphires in crossfire and got the same:
When I originally setup the cards up in crossfire I installed the cards side by side as to utilize 16x/16x PCIe slots leaving about a half inch gap between the cards. This caused the top card to have restricted air flow resulting in the top card hitting about 92 C while running some benchmarks

I will say this about the Myst, the factory fan profile sucks and is quite loud. You will hear the fan through circumaural headphones. I changed this with Afterburner to keep the fans under 60% if the card temps are under 80C, and this works much better. Max temps with two Mysts in crossfire with vsync enabled have not exceeded 80C for me. Only with vsync off does it keep going until you can smell the cards. With just one card in use you won't get much over 82C running Furmark, less than that with any game. You should replace the factory TIM though, the default stuff is likely recycled brick mortar. Also if your card comes with the 031 BIOS, replace it with 032, links are in the AMD forum.

The out of the box experience with a Myst may not be as good as the Sapphire, I don't really know, but with a couple tweaks it's a good card.


The drivers you use are the standard AMD drivers off AMD's site. I'm using the 13.3 beta 3. My cards start to artifact at 1175, but others have gotten theirs over 1200. I don't think the Myst cooler inhibits the card's OC. If you really want to go balls out with the OC you can buy an adapter that will fit an Asetek OEM (sold by Zalman, Antec, Corsair, etc) all in one water cooler onto the card. This would cost about $40.
 
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Avoid that one like the plague. The cooler is poorly executed and additionally one user found it didn't have the same fillrate. It's not on Powercolor's site for a reason.

Get this one instead, new code PWCHD7870 making it $209 without a rebate. Some people are having issues with the code but worked for me.

If you don't need it right away hold out for the Sapphire 7870XT which was $215 (?) a few days ago. The PCB is identical but the cooler is more efficient/quieter.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131487

just because a user got a faulty card does not mean anything. look at the newegg reviews. the first reviewer says he got 9400 graphics score in 3d mark 11 performance at 1200 mhz. most users have positive comments on this card.
 
The thing I don't like about it is the fan shroud doesn't extend all the way to the end of the card, so hot air is going to recirculate in the case. Whether the card reports the lower fill rate because it's defective, I don't know. I've never heard of a defect that reduces one card's fill rate while other cards are fine. Regardless the Myst is cheaper without the need to wait two months for the rebate.
 
Got the 7870 MYST today. I only had about an hour with it from the time the package arrived. Just enough time to install it and see that it works. The improvement is definitely substantial.
 
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