AMD Radeon HD 7870 And 7850 Review: Pitcairn Gets Benchmarked

[rocknrollz]

I want to see what the 7850 and 7870 have when CF'd!

 

[Guest]

Have to agree with others 1920x1080, with all graphics settings maxed, are the only benchmarks i care about.

 

[beckstrom12]

Still waiting for keplar benches before I make any decisions.

 

[jjb8675309]

nothing addressing the micro stutter that plagued the 68XX series!?, for me this would be a deal breaker

SMH toms, come one these cards are prime for a dual setup

 

[jjb8675309]

sounds like intial batches has plenty of issues that need to be ironed out but overall nice release

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]shane799[/nom]I usually never comment on the articles, but I must agree with an earlier post from Alidan. I would guess that 90 percent of people on here are running single screens running at 1080. We want to know what BF3 benches at Ultra not high. Nobody cares about high scores, everybody wants ultra. If we cared about middling settings we probably wouldn't be reading about cutting edge hardware. Not that I don't appreciate all of the hard work that goes into these articles, but tell the people what they want to know.[/citation]
Shane, normally we would be benchmarking at Ultra quality settings, if the results were playable. For this one, however, issues with our 7850 and an extremely short runway provided by AMD meant we needed to use the benchmark results generated by the German team for that title. Don't worry--you'll see a return to the Ultra preset soon!
Chris

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]jjb8675309[/nom]nothing addressing the micro stutter that plagued the 68XX series!?, for me this would be a deal breakerSMH toms, come one these cards are prime for a dual setup[/citation]
CrossFire requires two cards--AMD only sent one :-/

 

[madooo12]

it seems the process on which the 7900 series wasn't really mature, let's wait for the next 7900 wafers

 

[upgrade_1977]

I just want to say, that I am a nvidia fan, and even though they are comparing different generations of hardware, I sincerely impressed with these numbers. Price vs. performance these are a great buy. Be interesting when nVidia 6 series finally gets released.

 

[Guest]

I just sold my 6850's, if Nvidia doesn't release anything in two weeks there is a 7870 with my name on it.

 

[airborne11b]

This looks good for ATI in some ways, in other ways it looks bad. If prices are as they say they are in the article then they are right on par with 570s and 580s performance wise, and you can save a little cash.

However, 3d vision 2 is far superior to ATI's HD3D technology. I would pay a few extra bucks just for that feature alone.

Also, 580 GTXs were released in November of 2010. So it took ATI well over a year to release THIS? A card that can just bearly keep up with an Nvidia card released in late 2010? Honestly, with Kepler launch right around the corner, I wouldn't dare buy this. Even if you're a die hard ATI fanboi (Kepler launch will almost certainly drop the ATI 7xxx prices.)

Good to see some "competition", but sad that that ATI doesn't sport any good features and is over a year behind the power curve.

 

[hannibal]

Well the 7800 series really seems to be the best bang for the buck card from AMD this time...
The only thing I have to wonder is how close 7870 gets to 7950... But maybe 79oo series is more to 3 monitor settings and we mere mortals are better with these!
All in all really good cards!
If Nvidia has said that 104 is near 580 or amd 7950, then it has hard time to fight these. But there is time for Nvidia to tinker their release... Just hope that this does not put that release even further... I someone said, we need both companies! And good cards from both.

 

[megamanx00]

Supper impressed with the 7870. I thought it would aim for a lower performance mark but I was wrong and it looks like it's the card I'd recommend. I think AMD has a winner with this one so we'll have to see nVidia's response. Hope they iron out the 7850 though -_-

 

[atikkur]

altough radeons more effecients, nvidia's most magnet is always they have more stuffs to be toying... and yep, we need to compare it with kepler first before make any decision, would make these radeons on hold. meanwhile, we can now see every line of gpu has price cut... would i see gtx560ti for 150$?

 

[jordan009]

Would a 7870 or 7850 run well with my setup?
phenom 965 @stock
4 gigs ddr3
2 HD's
500W antec Earthwatts green.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]jordan009[/nom]Would a 7870 or 7850 run well with my setup?phenom 965 @stock4 gigs ddr3 2 HD's 500W antec Earthwatts green.[/citation]

Sure I would oc that 965 though.

 

[blazorthon]

This looks good for ATI in some ways, in other ways it looks bad. If prices are as they say they are in the article then they are right on par with 570s and 580s performance wise, and you can save a little cash.

However, 3d vision 2 is far superior to ATI's HD3D technology. I would pay a few extra bucks just for that feature alone.

Also, 580 GTXs were released in November of 2010. So it took ATI well over a year to release THIS? A card that can just bearly keep up with an Nvidia card released in late 2010? Honestly, with Kepler launch right around the corner, I wouldn't dare buy this. Even if you're a die hard ATI fanboi (Kepler launch will almost certainly drop the ATI 7xxx prices.)

Good to see some "competition", but sad that that ATI doesn't sport any good features and is over a year behind the power curve.

Fanboy... You are saying that it's Ati when it's AMD and you are complaining about AMD's mid-range option not hammering Nvidia's flag ship? To be honest, I didn't think that the 7870 would even be this close to the GTX 580. Besides, AMD had the Ati Radeon 5970 around to compete with the GTX 580 anyway so your entire reasoning is null. Furthermore, AMD released the AMD Radeon 7970 AND 7950 already, both of which beat the GTX 580. It would be difficult to be more wrong than you are right now.

Besides that, AMD's cards are generally more power efficient than Nvidia. The only reason that we didn't see AMD competing in single GPU power with Nvidia is because AMD doesn't want to make gargantuan dies like Nvidia does. The Tahiti is slightly smaller than Cayman, so AMD is showing dedication to keeping it's dies relatively small compared to Nvidia's larger dies. This gives AMD other advantages, such as the dies being cheaper than Nvidia (higher profit margin) and more energy efficient. The 6970 is more than fast enough for maxed out 1080p gaming even in the most intensive games today, so it was pointless for most gamers to get anything more powerful. It still is. In fact, up until the games like Metro 2033 and BF3, a Radeon 6870 was enough for maxed out 1080p too. When most gamers don't need faster cards, such cards don't sell as much.

AMD isn't trying to be the fastest, they are trying to be more successful. Other evidence supporting this is that AMD hasn't abandoned the low end markets like Nvidia has. At any given price point, an AMD/Ati setup is more cost-effective than a Nvidia setup, unless you need CUDA or you already have a Nvidia 3D monitor and would need to buy a new monitor for 3D gaming on an AMD system or some other similar circumstance. Most of us aren't locked into one specific manufacturer because of these reasons, so we can buy whatever we want. We tend to choose the better value and Radeons tend to be the better value atm.

 

[belardo]

I hope there will there be an AGP version!

 

[blazorthon]

I hope there will there be an AGP version!

Are you serious? You want a version of these cards that would be severely bottlenecked by an exceptionally outdated and too low bandwidth technology that is incompatible with the vast majority of modern machines? Are you joking or are you actually serious?

 

[DocSuuz]

Can't wait to upgrade to a 7850 from my 512 mb 4850..

 

[Onus]

Well, I do intend to wait. For my resolution and games, I cannot justify to myself (let alone to my wife!) $350 for a graphics card. I could probably go $250, but hopefully I won't have to. I will wait for Kepler, and the inevitable price adjustments (as long as they're still down), then buy; a fixed HD7850 or Kepler equivalent.

 

[SkyWalker1726]

2 * 7870 will be replacing my 2 * 6870 ( i thought the price tag was 299$ and not 350 ... am i wrong ? )

 

[karma831]

Lower power draw, good performance, and competitive pricing...This reminds me of when AMD/ATI launched their 5000 series cards.

Would have been nice to see some overclocking results.

 

[airborne11b]

Fanboy... You are saying that it's Ati when it's AMD

It's ATI, AMD same company, doesn't matter. Way to get off topic with a moot point. I'm a bit older of a guy, so it'll always be ATI imo. Besides, why would you even want to put the same label on these decent GPUs as the fail CPUs? ATI works for me.

and you are complaining about AMD's mid-range option not hammering Nvidia's flag ship? To be honest, I didn't think that the 7870 would even be this close to the GTX 580. Besides, AMD had the Ati Radeon 5970 around to compete with the GTX 580 anyway so your entire reasoning is null.

First of all, 7870 according to this article is about the same price as a stock 580 GTX. So it doesn't matter. Price/performance is the same.

They had to release this because the newly released 7970 cost about $100 more then the Over a Year Old 580 GTX, and in many top titles like Crysis 2 and BF3 it achieves nearly the same, or a tiny bit more FPS, sorry, where's that ATI Price/perfomance win you were talking about? Oh ya, get your facts straight before you talk to someone on my level kid.

Second, I laughed when you compared the duel GPU 5970 to the single GPU 580 GTX. A huge Fail argument if I've ever seen one.

Furthermore, AMD released the AMD Radeon 7970 AND 7950 already, both of which beat the GTX 580. It would be difficult to be more wrong than you are right now.

Ya, +5 fps in BF3 for +$100, when comparing the brand new 7000 flagship VS the 1 year and 4 month old 580 GTX. I thought you were bragging about price/performance here? I'm all about having a beast rig myself, been building my own for about 15 years now, and I have a good amount of disposable income, but even I wouldn't touch a +5-10fps gain for $100 pricetag lol, especially when the cheaper GPU comes with better features (CUDA, 3D Vision 2, etc)

Besides that, AMD's cards are generally more power efficient than Nvidia. .

Ah yes, because when you build a SLI or Xfire power rig, OCed to the max, to push 2560 x 1600 resolution, with a 1200 watt PSU on a 30" LCD monitor, those 30-40 watts really matter! Seriously, do the math, even from an economic standpoint, the few watts difference don't make a real difference money wise. We're talking running the GPUs at load for 20 hours straight to add 10 cents to your power bill as opposed to the 580 GTX. Haha.

6970 is more than fast enough for maxed out 1080p gaming even in the most intensive games today, so it was pointless for most gamers to get anything more powerful. It still is. In fact, up until the games like Metro 2033 and BF3, a Radeon 6870 was enough for maxed out 1080p too. When most gamers don't need faster cards, such cards don't sell as much.

What's the point you're trying to make here? My wife's single 580 GTX that I got here a year ago plays BF3 and other top titles very smoothly. Buying a card depends a lot on where your current system really is. These 7000s are not really worth the upgrade cash if you're already sporting a similar teir 500 or 6000 GPU. However, those looking to upgrade are making a mistake buying this $470 ATI card right now because, for one, 580s run almost exactly the same performance wise for the same cost, yet come with better additional features I already covered above, AND the 600 series will drive down costs even more. So anyone on a budget should wait for the 600s before making a choice.

AMD isn't trying to be the fastest, they are trying to be more successful. Other evidence supporting this is that AMD hasn't abandoned the low end markets like Nvidia has. At any given price point, an AMD/Ati setup is more cost-effective than a Nvidia setup.

This is absolute garbage, the 580 GTXs perform almost exactly the same for the same price, how is that better? If anything it's on par.

Also, Nvidia has options at all teirs, saying they've abondoned the low-end market is based on zero fact.

Your frothing like a fanboy, stop it before you get your nasty froth on my suit.

 

[Onus]

No, nVidia does not have viable options at all tiers. For example, it has nothing to compete with the HD5670/HD6670, which need no auxiliary power (nevermind the HD7750). The best they had, the GT240, is almost impossible to find new; the GT440 doesn't compare even to the HD6570.
I'm not a fanboy of either company; I really hope Kepler addresses the low end; I think AMD's options there need to be 15%-20% cheaper.