AMD Radeon HD 7870 And 7850 Review: Pitcairn Gets Benchmarked

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There's a big hole in between AMD's $450 Radeon HD 7950 and its $160 Radeon HD 7700. Today, the company introduces Radeon HD 7850 and 7870 to fill that gap, and they push a lot more performance than we expected. But are they really ready for prime time?

Benchmark Results: StarCraft II

Our StarCraft II benchmark results require a little background. This was one of the games tested in our German lab. Unfortunately, the Radeon HD 7850 they received wasn’t stable either. So, Igor dialed his core clock back to 845 MHz in order to make it through this test.

Incidentally, World of Warcraft (another Blizzard title) was the US lab’s most problematic game to benchmark.

The most surprising results in StarCraft II come from our Radeon HD 7850. Although we were able to complete benchmarks successfully with the underclocked card, there’s still something very wrong with where it places.  

Don Woligroski
172 Comments Comment from the forums
  • hardcore_gamer
    Wow..7870 has nearly half the power-draw of GTX 570 and performs better . IMO this is the most impressive card in GCN line up so far.
    Reply
  • ilysaml
    Watch the benches well, the HD 7870 almost beating the GTX 580.
    Reply
  • alex3064
    what date is this 7850/7870 actually launched
    Reply
  • esrever
    AMD saved the best for last it seems. Although a bit over priced, these cards are amazing performance/watt with all the new features. Nice to see the 7870 take a few blows at the 580 in a few games. Can't wait to see what kepler can do as well!
    Reply
  • alex3064
    alex3064what date is this 7850/7870 actually launchedi mean when will it be launched in market
    Reply
  • theuniquegamer
    impressive performance of 7870 (i was disappointed by the 7770's performance )And what about microshuttering? Is it present in 7870 CF?
    Reply
  • hardcore_gamer
    ilysamlWatch the benches well, the HD 7870 almost beating the GTX 580.
    Looking at the performance graphs, 7870 performs very close to 7950 which has 40% more SPs and a 384 bit memory interface. I think AMD reduced the performance of 79xx series on purpose so that they can release a better card just before the launch of Kepler.
    Reply
  • _Pez_
    the 7870 is quite impressive. O.O almost the same gaming capability of the 580 for 350. OMG!
    Reply
  • hardcore_gamer
    alex3064i mean when will it be launched in market
    It is there in the first page. "you won’t be able to buy the card until at least March 19th, AMD tells us."
    Reply
  • Onikage
    7870 is a sensational card !!! even at this given price!!!
    what a card !!!
    DAY 1 BUY !
    Reply