HD 7870?

[foxnamedfox]

What are your guys thoughts on this card? would it be a good fit with an i5 Ivy Bride 3750k? any advice/opinions are greatly appreciated

 

[echondo]

I'm getting a 7870 MSI HAWK tomorrow to pair with my i5-2500k.

It's a very good mid-tier card that is on par with the 660ti and can be overclocked to reach 7950 and 670 performance. Great for 1920x1080 gaming, can max out some to most games, some brands are better for overclocking like the 7870 MSI HAWK that has a "GPU Reactor" that helps with volts and supplying more power to the card for a better overclock.

If you don't like to overclock, it's still a great card at stock speeds no matter the brand.

 

[foxnamedfox]

I see, this will be my first home build so I probably won't overclock until I get the system up and running but I do plan on doing a little processor/video card OC'ing once things are going smoothly. I was just curious as to what some people's opinions are on this card since most of what I see is gtx 670 vs hd7970 which is ok but both of those cards are out of my price range :/ I mostly play BF3, Killing Floor, and WoW to a lesser extent if that matters at all

 

[footlong96]

Im pretty sure the 660ti easily beats a 7870.

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph6159/49205.png

 

[echondo]

I see, this will be my first home build so I probably won't overclock until I get the system up and running but I do plan on doing a little processor/video card OC'ing once things are going smoothly. I was just curious as to what some people's opinions are on this card since most of what I see is gtx 670 vs hd7970 which is ok but both of those cards are out of my price range :/ I mostly play BF3, Killing Floor, and WoW to a lesser extent if that matters at all

What is your resolution? I'm guessing since you're not a hardcore enthusiast I'm going to assume that you are gaming at max resolution of 1920x1080 or below?

For the price of the 7870, there are multiple brands, it is on par with the 660ti which is almost $50 more in some cases. I would recommend the MSI, Sapphire, and Gigabyte. Some others would recommend ASUS but with some past experiences with them I tend to avoid recommending them, people love ASUS but prefer MSI and EVGA to all others.

Here is a nifty website that you could use: http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/video-card/#c=82,110&sort=a5

I linked the U.S. version, there is also a UK version as well(but I'm assuming you're American).

Do you have a build in mind already? Do you have a budget for a GPU? Like I said, if you want overclocking potential then the MSI HAWK is the way to go.

Here is a benchmark on the 7870: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/548#

Since you said you play BF3, at 1920x1080 in full ultra detail on a reference 7870, it has 40.3 FPS, on high with FXAA the FPS is 59.8. This would be even higher with a slight overclock(which with the MSI version it already has a factory overclock).

Which PSU do you have(or plan on buying?) I just want to make sure you have a decent quality PSU with enough wattage, the card isn't a powerhouse but a PSU that is from Cooler Master and 500w won't do, my #1 and everyone else's on here is that you never skimp on the PSU, I would recommend brands such as; Seasonic, Corsair, XFX and Antec.

Im pretty sure the 660ti easily beats a 7870.

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph6159/49205.png

I never said that the 7870 is better but it isn't worse, it's on PAR with the 660ti, it has the same performance.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/548?vs=647#

Saying "Im pretty sure the 660ti easily beats a 7870" and link ONE graph on ONE game at ONE resolution does NOT help.

 

[footlong96]

Just realized the benchmark i posted was of BF3 and i remember reading BF3 was optomized for nvidia cards.

I agree with Echondo.

 

[foxnamedfox]

here is a rough run down of what I am looking to throw together, let me know what you think. I have a monitor, 500gb hd, keyboard, mouse, and OS so I won't need any of those things.


COUGAR Evolution-W White SECC ATX Full Tower

Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo)

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler

SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC128B/WW 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive

Radeon HD 7870 Video Card

SeaSonic M12II 620 Bronze 620W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

LITE-ON Black SATA DVD-ROM Drive Model iHDS118-04 – OEM

ASRock Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) RAM

if there is anything that doesn't match up or something that I am forgetting please let me know, this is still an in the works build and I am very open to suggestions

 

[echondo]

here is a rough run down of what I am looking to throw together, let me know what you think. I have a monitor, 500gb hd, keyboard, mouse, and OS so I won't need any of those things.

if there is anything that doesn't match up or something that I am forgetting please let me know, this is still an in the works build and I am very open to suggestions

Looks great to me. Ivy bridge with a Z77 mobo, Seasonic 620w, 8GB of Corsair RAM. Nice.

Just make sure that the 500GB hard drive you have is SATA and not IDE.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4gpXHrXKkks/SlEBdHjWFnI/AAAAAAAAAGY/0LiM3ds3IRQ/s400/SATA+and+PATA.png

Other than that, great build. If you want to SLI/Crossfire in the future, the 620w, to me, isn't enough for 2x7870's. Some can have power up to 250w-300w just from the GPU alone, for a single card that Seasonic is perfect.

Just a heads up

 

[foxnamedfox]

thanks for the input man, glad to hear some feed back on my build since it's my first one

 

[echondo]

thanks for the input man, glad to hear some feed back on my build since it's my first one

Not a problem, and your first build? Very nice then. Guess you are one of the smarter ones and research a bit more before throwing a build together! I've seen some crazy builds before and yours is just on the sweet spot.

The only thing I would change in your build is getting a bigger SSD

Also, you do know that Samsung is releasing a new 840 Pro SSD, right?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6328/samsung-ssd-840-pro-256gb-review

Probably a bit out of your price range but it's just a heads up, it will be released on Oct. 15th supposedly and:

Samsung SSD 840 Pro Pricing;

64GB-$99.99
128GB-$149.99
256GB-$269.99
512GB-$599.99

The 830 is an amazing drive but I don't know if you'd be interested in this.

 

[foxnamedfox]

the 64GB one could be in my price range, as it's around the same price as the 128GB one I had posted before, do you know how much space windows 7 64 bit OS takes up on a drive? preferably I'd like to run my OS, BF3, and maybe one other game off of my SSD and pretty much everything else from the other regular HD I already have if at all possible

 

[bigcyco1]

The 7870 is still a nice card and for the price it's very appealing imo for example i will Quote:
"As it stands, AMD’s position correctly reflects their performance; the GTX 660 Ti is a solid and relatively consistent 10-15% faster than the 7870, while the 7950 is anywhere between a bit faster to a bit slower depending on what benchmarks you favor. Of course when talking about the 7950 the “anything but equal” maxim still applies here, if not more so than with the GTX 670. The GTX 660 Ti is anywhere 50% ahead of the 7950 and 25% behind it, and everywhere in between.Coupled with the tight pricing between all of these cards, this makes it very hard to make any kind of meaningful recommendation here for potential buyers. Compared to the 7870 the GTX 660 Ti is a solid buy if you can spare the extra $20, though it’s not going to be a massive difference. The performance difference is going to be just enough that AMD is going to need to trim prices a bit more to secure the 7870’s position."
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/21 btw they have trim the price now.

 

[echondo]

the 64GB one could be in my price range, as it's around the same price as the 128GB one I had posted before, do you know how much space windows 7 64 bit OS takes up on a drive? preferably I'd like to run my OS, BF3, and maybe one other game off of my SSD and pretty much everything else from the other regular HD I already have if at all possible

I have about 80GB taken up myself, I believe Windows 7 is around 30GB to 40GB? Not sure.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/how-much-disk-space-is-needed-for-a-clean-install/f5de49c6-0133-4f8c-9a6e-8458267f3924

"If you are installing Windows 7 64 bit , it is recommended you have 20 GBs of free disk space. If its Windows 7 32 bit , its recommended you have 16 GBs of free disk space."

The 7870 is still a nice card and for the price it's very appealing imo for example i will Quote:
"As it stands, AMD’s position correctly reflects their performance; the GTX 660 Ti is a solid and relatively consistent 10-15% faster than the 7870, while the 7950 is anywhere between a bit faster to a bit slower depending on what benchmarks you favor. Of course when talking about the 7950 the “anything but equal” maxim still applies here, if not more so than with the GTX 670. The GTX 660 Ti is anywhere 50% ahead of the 7950 and 25% behind it, and everywhere in between.Coupled with the tight pricing between all of these cards, this makes it very hard to make any kind of meaningful recommendation here for potential buyers. Compared to the 7870 the GTX 660 Ti is a solid buy if you can spare the extra $20, though it’s not going to be a massive difference. The performance difference is going to be just enough that AMD is going to need to trim prices a bit more to secure the 7870’s position."
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/21

Great article, even though it's over a month old, the 7870 is even lower in pricing now then it was before. I've seen difference of $50-$100 from the 7870 and the 660ti while the 7950 can be had for $300!

Very smart of AMD to do this, especially since I just bought a MSI HAWK 7870 myself

 

[bigcyco1]

I have about 80GB taken up myself, I believe Windows 7 is around 30GB to 40GB? Not sure.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/how-much-disk-space-is-needed-for-a-clean-install/f5de49c6-0133-4f8c-9a6e-8458267f3924

"If you are installing Windows 7 64 bit , it is recommended you have 20 GBs of free disk space. If its Windows 7 32 bit , its recommended you have 16 GBs of free disk space."



Great article, even though it's over a month old, the 7870 is even lower in pricing now then it was before. I've seen difference of $50-$100 from the 7870 and the 660ti while the 7950 can be had for $300!

Very smart of AMD to do this, especially since I just bought a MSI HAWK 7870 myself

Yeah i know i edited my message but you must of quoted me before i did :lol: I have not seen the card $100 cheaper but i have seen it $40 to $60 cheaper and i am very familiar with the Hawk The MSI Radeon HD 7870 HAWK is the MSI Lightning's smaller brother. It uses the company's signature Twin Frozr II dual-fan cooler. MSI has also increased the clock speeds of the HD 7870 HAWK to 1100 MHz GPU and 1200 MHz memory.I have gamed with the card imo bottom line...HAWK = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djj7jW6ny2M&feature=related

 

[foxnamedfox]

Best answer selected by foxnamedfox.

 

[echondo]

Yeah i know i edited my message but you must of quoted me before i did :lol: I have not seen the card $100 cheaper but i have seen it $40 to $60 cheaper and i am very familiar with the Hawk The MSI Radeon HD 7870 HAWK is the MSI Lightning's smaller brother. It uses the company's signature Twin Frozr II dual-fan cooler. MSI has also increased the clock speeds of the HD 7870 HAWK to 1100 MHz GPU and 1200 MHz memory.I have gamed with the card imo bottom line...HAWK = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djj7jW6ny2M&feature=related

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nLol, nice link, love the Terminator. Yeah, I plan on overclocking the 7870! I'm going from a 550ti to it, I'm gonna suspect a huge improvement
n
n

Best answer selected by foxnamedfox.

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nThanks man, if you have anymore questions feel free to PM me.