Tahiti LE, Tested: PowerColor's HD7870 PCS+ Myst Edition

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Today, we look at a card between two worlds. Despite a model number that suggests Pitcairn lineage, this board is based on AMD's Tahiti GPU. Does it behave more like its namesake, or the powerful engine actually under its hood? Read on for more!

Memory Bandwidth Analysis

Benchmarking with Increasing Anti-Aliasing Settings

The run with anti-aliasing turned off provides us with a good baseline of the cards’ performance for each of our two resolutions. And the performance is close to what it should be based on each board's technical specifications.

But what happens when the resolution is pushed up? Can the HD7870 PCS+ Myst Edition’s smaller 256-bit memory interface still handle high anti-aliasing settings?

All Benchmarks in a Flow Chart and in Percent

We put all the benchmark numbers into line graphs and percentage charts to provide a better overview.

It’s plain to see that the smaller memory interface doesn’t really impact performance. Higher clock rates appear to help compensate for any disadvantage that might show up on paper. In fact, there’s barely any performance difference between Pitcairn and Tahiti.

Igor Wallossek
Igor Wallossek
Contributor

Igor Wallossek wrote a wide variety of hardware articles for Tom's Hardware, with a strong focus on technical analysis and in-depth reviews. His contributions have spanned a broad spectrum of PC components, including GPUs, CPUs, workstations, and PC builds. His insightful articles provide readers with detailed knowledge to make informed decisions in the ever-evolving tech landscape