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?

Test Setup And Benchmarks

Today’s story is going to be a little different than what you’ve seen from us in the past. The Radeon HD 7850 that AMD sent our US office was so unreliable that it wasn’t usable in a vast number of benchmarks. More on that when we break into the individual tests. AMD wasn’t able to get us a working replacement, so much of our performance data comes from Tom’s Hardware DE by way of Igor Wallosek. The result is that we have two different test systems.

Tom's Hardware DETom's Hardware US
CPUIntel Core i7-2600K (Sandy Bridge), @ 4.5 GHz, Hyper-Threading enabledIntel Core i7-3960X (Sandy Bridge-E), @ 3.6 GHz, Hyper-Threading enabled
MotherboardGigabyte Z68X-UD7 B3Socket 1155, Chipset: Intel Z68ASRock X79 Extreme9LGA 2011, Chipset: Intel X79
NetworkingOn-Board Gigabit LAN controllerOn-Board Gigabit LAN controller
MemoryKingston HyperX, 2 x 4 GB, 1600 MT/sCorsair Vengeance LP PC3-16000, 4 x 4 GB, 1600 MT/s, CL 8-8-8-24-2T
GraphicsAMD Radeon HD 6950800 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1250 MHzAMD Radeon HD 6970880 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1375 MHzAMD Radeon HD 7850860 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1200 MHzAMD Radeon HD 78701000 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1200 MHzAMD Radeon HD 7950800 MHz GPU, 3 GB GDDR5 at 1250 MHzNvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti822 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1002 MHzNvidia GeForce GTX 570732 MHz GPU, 1.25 GB GDDR5 at 950 MHzNvidia GeForce GTX 580772 MHz GPU, 1.5 GB GDDR5 at 1002 MHz
Hard DriveKingston V100+ 256 GB (SSD) Samsung 256 GB (SSD)
PowerePower EP-1200E10-T2 1200 W ATX12V, EPS12VePower EP-1200E10-T2 1200 W ATX12V, EPS12V
Software and Drivers
Operating SystemMicrosoft Windows 7 x6, Service Pack 1
DirectXDirectX 11
Graphics DriversAMD Catalyst 12.3 beta
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