PowerColor HD7870 PCS+ Review
Conclusion
Published: 11th April 2012 | Source: PowerColor | Price: £280 |
Conclusion
There is a heck of a lot to like about the HD7870 PCS+ from PowerColor.
Let's start with the things they have no control over. The HD7870 follows on from the HD7950 in that it's quite surprisingly close to the next model up in the range. For a long while at the top end of the range manufacturers have left ever larger performance gaps to try and justify their exorbitant pricing, whilst the low end of the market saw so many cards released that it was nearly impossible to find any real differences in either performance or pricing, such was the overlap. Now with the current range of Radeons we see that each card neatly follows the rest. An overclocked HD7870 is about the same as a stock HD7950 which, when overclocked, is about the same as a HD7970. Anything that stops people overspending in these hard times is a good thing in our book.
As for the PowerColor side of the equation we have a lot to like. Firstly we know only too well how many of you don't want to faff about with overclocking your card and will always look for one that comes out of the box with a blazing speed attached to it. The PCS+ variant of the HD7870 certainly does with its 1100MHz GPU core speed and 1225MHz GDDR5.
Although it's easy to overclock the card still further, it's just a shame the overclock doesn't really give us quite the extra performance we usually see. This is largely because the card is already heavily overclocked and we were resisting the temptation to overvolt it because most people who like to overclock in a hardcore style prefer to do so with the reference models rather than one which is already tuned.
The cooler deserves special praise. Not only is it very aesthetically pleasing, being a nice simple blend of silver and black, free from the shouty stickers or go faster stripes that plague some other cards, but the silence is staggering. It's unbelievably quiet. Not quiet compared to other graphics cards. Just quiet compared to, well, anything. The two 140mm low-RPM fans on the Silver Arrow CPU cooler were louder than the PowerColor PCS+ HD7870, even when it was under heavy loading. If you place as much value upon your ears as you do upon the eye candy, then you're in for a treat.
Pricing is exactly where you'd expect. There is about £100 between a factory overclocked HD7970 and the HD7950, and a further £80 between that and this card, which we expect to retail around the £275 mark. You're getting a lot of card for the money with the factory overclock, low temperatures, and the sheer silence are certainly worth a premium over a reference card.
The combination of those factors means the PowerColor HD7870 PCS+ is worthy of our Gold Award.
Thanks to PowerColor for providing the HD7870 PCS+ for review. Discuss in our forums.
Most Recent Comments
Firstly we know only too well how many of you don't want to faff about with overclocking your card and will always look for one that comes out of the box with a blazing speed attached to it.
I'd hope that's not too true.
I would be looking to buy one card then at a later date pick up another. Looking at these numbers there would be a significant drop in performance running one of these before I could save up for a second card. Might just be better off ditching my pair of 6870's for a single 7970, then at a much later date once prices come down pick up a second...
For sheer size reasons we cannot keep every possible setup in our graphs. They're already very large. If anyone doesn't mind losing the maximum frame rate graphs we could move the OC ones to a separate graph which would allow us to retain more models. However, in your particular case you'll find we still have the 6950CF results in the graph, and the HD7870 comes in just beneath it in most games. A few FPS at most.
Personally I'd say get a HD7950 and OC it, which is nearly a HD7970, much cheaper, and the likelihood of affording another would come sooner.
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Originally Posted by VonBlade
In 0xAA Unigine it scored 1586, and with the 8xAA it scored 1114. For sheer size reasons we cannot keep every possible setup in our graphs. They're already very large. If anyone doesn't mind losing the maximum frame rate graphs we could move the OC ones to a separate graph which would allow us to retain more models. However, in your particular case you'll find we still have the 6950CF results in the graph, and the HD7870 comes in just beneath it in most games. A few FPS at most. Personally I'd say get a HD7950 and OC it, which is nearly a HD7970, much cheaper, and the likelihood of affording another would come sooner. |
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Originally Posted by Rastalovich
I'd hope that's not too true. |
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Originally Posted by VonBlade
In 0xAA Unigine it scored 1586, and with the 8xAA it scored 1114. For sheer size reasons we cannot keep every possible setup in our graphs. They're already very large. If anyone doesn't mind losing the maximum frame rate graphs we could move the OC ones to a separate graph which would allow us to retain more models. However, in your particular case you'll find we still have the 6950CF results in the graph, and the HD7870 comes in just beneath it in most games. A few FPS at most. Personally I'd say get a HD7950 and OC it, which is nearly a HD7970, much cheaper, and the likelihood of affording another would come sooner. |
Totally agree with you about the 7950. The 78xx have great processors but I think the 2gb might become limiting so I'm not willing to fork out for anything less than 2.5gb.
like the core clock speed this little beast will roar more if you put it on Crossfire.
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Originally Posted by Hackedoff
I'm not sure this card offers much to the party. When OC'd it's biting the heels of a GTX 580. But you can pick up a 580 for £294 now and you can then overclock that further. I'm also not sure this card deserves the gold award. That should be reserved for greatness, and seeing this card runs hot, although quiet, doesn't quite cut gold for me. |
Solid review nontheless.
CSS Valid
Time to take a look at a HD7870 on steroids, courtesy of the fine folks at PowerColor.
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