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  • Pantsu - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link

    7870 is shaping up to be the best card of the SI bunch. Let's just hope we get good competition from Nvidia on this front too. It could use a smaller price tag, but that goes for all the SI cards and probably GTX 680 too.
  • piroroadkill - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link

    We're talking about a factory 7870 that's faster than a 7950.
    This could be on the cusp of being the absolute new champion in price/performance.
  • Death666Angel - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link

    It will be in some games when core clock is more important than amount of execution units. But there will also be OC'd 7950, so....

    But the 7870 is great value.
  • StevoLincolnite - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link

    I don't agree they're great value.
    For the price of a 7870 you can get 2x 6870's in crossfire.

    Then again, the whole 7000 series is a bit overpriced for my linking, right now I really have no desires to upgrade from my 2x 6950 2gb cards unlocked into 6970's in crossfire.
    That and most games are targeted at consoles anyhow.
  • kyuu - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link

    Would people kindly stop comparing prices to two of some other card in Xfire/SLI. A lot of people, including myself, are not interested in two+ card solutions due to driver issues, microstutterting, heat/power, etc.

    Now, I don't disagree that the 7xxx series could use a price drop, but we won't be seeing that until Kepler provides some competition. Even at the current prices points, the 7850/7870 are still great buys for a performance single-card rig.

    One thing I don't get is why, with such headroom at stock clocks, AMD didn't push the stock clocks higher in the first place. Unless they're planning on releasing a refreshed line with higher clocks when Kepler comes out?
  • Tchamber - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link

    I agree, looks like the 7870 is the sweet spot. This will be a good upgrade from my aging GTX285.
  • chrnochime - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link

    I still got a 4870 so you're better off than I am as is LOL
  • radium69 - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link

    4870? You must be joking. I'm on an Asus 8800GT :'(
    Waiting for kepler and price drops
  • wewter - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link

    i'm still using two 4870s -- xfire ftw hah!
  • adobepro - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link

    I'm on a PNY 8800GT 512MB Signature Card. Works great with Skyrim/BF3 at 1680x1050 on a Dell 2005FPW It's a very underrated workhorse single slot card. I like the power consumption of the 7850, but at a 105TDP, I'm still holding onto my 8800GT
  • CeriseCogburn - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link

    Excuse me but a GTX 570 that is a bit better in the chart is $259-$289 while the 7870 is way more at $359 +
    That's $100 in savings, or nearly one third saved, for the same thing.
    So maybe the 7870 is just the sour spot right now.
    Certainly pay the extra $100 if you want to try the competitions wares, though.
    I don't see anything wrong with that, but just a heads up in case you didn't notice GTX570 is a lot less.
  • CloudFire - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link

    It is because of marketing my friend. To keep partners happy when they can sell their "overclock" editions. Most likely nearly all if not all 7870's will be able to hit 1100mhz with ease and same goes with the memory. If AMD pushed out all ref cards at 1100mhz, there won't be that much of a significant OC "headroom" for partners to sell their cards.

    While 350$ isn't that huge of a rip off compared to the 7950/70, it is way above the price that this card should be at. AMD has the market right now so they are raking in as much profit before Kepler, but that still doesn't make it a great value. Take a look back at the 4/5xxx series, those cards were a way better value than the 7870. Once Kepler comes out, then we'll see all the cards pushed down to their original intended prices.
  • B-Unit1701 - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link

    And why would you? You already have a high end setup. Congratulations. Go enjoy it. Meanwhile, those of us on old hardware are going to enjoy the huge performance gain we see with the 7000 series.
  • CeriseCogburn - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link

    I look at the chart and see a 7870 that is almost as good as the GTX 570.
    My question is which one is cheaper...
  • jALLAD - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link

    I think factory OC'd cards from PowerColor are an absolute disaster. I own a factory OC'd HD4870 from PowerColor, and it is the most unstable (constant flickering, intermittent crashed applications, ...) graphics card I have ever owned. But all that goes away when I turn down the clock to AMD factory settings.

    I discovered later that this was a common problem among all PowerColor factory overclocked cards in the 4000 series. I have previously owned factory overclocked cards from XFX which had worked like a dream.

    Just my 2 ¢.

    PS: Confession, I haven't read the article yet.
  • Death666Angel - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link

    I don't see a 7970 in the benchmarks...? :-)
  • LtGoonRush - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link

    Agreed, more comparisons between the 7870 and 7970 would be really useful for me. I'm trying to decide between the 7970 or the 7870, I'm leaning toward the 7870 right now because it seems like a much better value, especially when overclocked.
  • Death666Angel - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link

    If you game @ 1080/1200 vertical resolution, I think the 7870 is great. If you game with Eyefinity or with a 1440/1600 vertical resolution, you should either go with CF 7870 or if that is too expensive or you don't want to deal with the CF headaches, then buy a 7970 and overclock the hell out of it.
    I wanted 7870 CF for my 27" but after running some numbers including the water cooling blocks, I decided to get a good overclocked 7970 instead (1275/1700). 7870 in CF with a bit of an overclock is still much better than the single 7970 (I would say 30-50% increase in FPS) but also 40% to 50% more expensive (assuming 320€ for the card and 80€ for cooling, compared to the 560€ I spent for the 7970@watercooling).
  • Jamahl - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link

    It's anandtech, Nvidia cards must be shown at the top of most benchmarks.

    You will see one next week after they bench the 680.
  • Ryan Smith - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link

    These are just the charts from the 7870 article with the PCS+ inserted. We'll throw in the 7970 in the full article.
  • Death666Angel - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link

    Okay. I thought it was strange that the 7870/7850 review didn't have 7970 numbers either. :-)
  • Ryan Smith - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link

    When drawing up the charts I didn't think anyone would care about the 7970 given the $200 difference. But clearly I was wrong. Oh well, this is why we have Bench.
  • Peanutsrevenge - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link

    So where's the article damn it?

    Pfft, bloody colonials ;)
  • chrnochime - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link

    2% memory OC is standing out in the pack? GPU clock I can understand but that memory OC might as well be reference.
  • Ankarah - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link

    Why shell out $350+ for a card that could be (but more likely 'would be', from what I've heard so far) trumped by Kepler line of cards at the same price point in a couple of months time.

    Unless your GPU just went up in flames and you need a new one right now, I'd wait for Kepler and see how they do before upgrading.
  • eachus - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link

    Those people who want to wait for Kepler, fine. But realize that the 680 will probably compete on performance with the overclocked 7870s and stock 7950s, not the 7970. Huh?

    Be realistic. Unless nVidia has some blue crystals, they will have slightly more memory bandwidth than the 7870 (both 256 bits wide, the 680 a few percent faster clock), and about 1/3 less than the 7970. On power, the 680 is widely reported to have two 6 pin connectors. They may use more of that power, but I have to assume that nVidia is trying to get away from cards that break the (power) bank. Computing shaders times clocks again is in AMDs favor, although I assume that part of the reason for slowing down the shaders compared to the 500 series is due to more work being accomplished per clock. Good for nVidia, that saves power. But we still have the memory bandwidth limit as an issue. (I don't see 2 vs 3 or even 1.5 Gig of memory as a big deal unless you are running multiple displays, and even then you have to get to 6 2 Megapixel displays from one card to have a problem.)

    We will see what happens in a few weeks, and one thing that probably will happen is that if the 680 comes out at the expected price point, the 7950 and 78xx cards may drop in price. Note that I have a 6950 right now and no dog in this fight, since I normally upgrade every two generations.

    Oh and for CeriseCogburn, the 7870 that compares to the GTX 570, it is a reference design that you won't be able to find in stores anyway. The Powercolor card tested here outperforms the 570 significantly. Probably not enough to matter if you have a 2 Megapixel display (say 1920x1200). But what will matter is the noise. This card generates half as much (3db less) as the GTX 570. Your choice.
  • CeriseCogburn - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link

    No, "we" will see what happens day after tomorrow, and "I've" already seen the leaked benchmarks (TH had a 'little problem").
    Sorry to say (for you) you are miserably underestimating the GTX680.
    Day after tomorrow the 23rd is NDA day, so it won't take weeks, the amd card crown for single core is gone, and it is arguable if the GTX590 still holds the dual core card crown - as the 680 passes it and the lower 6990 at times.
    --
    I don't agree with your 7870 assessment you can't find in stores when the GTX570 is available in quantity and $100 cheaper, and scales like crazy with OC which is considerable, and of course not shown in this review, resulting in your skewed misstatement.
    --
    amd is scalping everyone, nvidia has awesome prices right now, from the gtx460 at $110 smoking the 7770 to the GTX570 @ $269 smoking the 78xx series to the GTX580 at yes $359 at the egg blowing away amd on price perf we are told is all important for years, and let's not forget Nvidia just dropped the 680 price by 50 bucks while it absolutely defeats without question the 7970 by 5-40 percent and on average 18% in games...
    -
    We cannot suddenly pretend with ourselves when amd's prices are insanely high and immense value is offered by equal and superior Nvidia products whose extra features are for some important as well and increase the value eve more.
    --
    None of these current cards deal with 1920x1200 or 1920 X 1080 or 1050 / and are barely good enough for 1680x 1050 so there is no use claiming only triple monitor resolutions tell all.
    Try one of them and you'll see, even an OC 2500k driving them is not enough for solid gaming with the eye candy up let alone single monitor 3D, and certainly not triple monitor anything.
    Casual gamers need one of these top cards and more at average resolution to be effectively covered.
    Isn't it time gamers stop having to struggle to make use of their games full capability at their monitors native resolution ?
    We cannot have faster discreet GPU's fast enough, there is a large misconception out there that they are sufficient and they are not none of them are.
    --
    3decibels for a decision is laughable BTW - and highly likely to be far within the error margin and model margins - that was one sad attempt that makes me mistrust you just to let you know.

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