PowerColor HD7870 PCS+ Review
Test Setup, Overclocking and Temps
Published: 11th April 2012 | Source: PowerColor | Price: £280 |
Test Setup
As there are only a limited amount of LGA2011 systems around, today we're reviewing on our LGA1155 setup. Given how little, to a certain degree, CPUs factor into the equation with mid-range cards this shouldn't have an enormous effect. The multi-core programs might lose a little, but it should be only a frame or two.
PowerColor HD7870 PCS+
Catalyst 12.3 Drivers
ASUS P8 Z77V Pro
Intel Core i5-2500K @ 4.6 GHz
Kingston Genesis 2133MHz
Cougar CM1000 PSU
Corsair F80 SSD
Thermalright Silver Arrow
Windows 7 x64
Overclocking
With the PCS+ we have a huge overclock straight out of the box, with a whopping 1100MHz on the core. Rather than overvolt we're looking at just how much we can get out of it with the default settings. Surprisingly, considering this is the highest PowerColor model in the HD7870 range, we got 135MHz extra on the GPU Core and 55MHz on the GDDR5.
Temperatures
At first glance it might appear that the PCS+ gets a little bit warm under heavy loading, but the most surprising thing is the silence. It is, as near as makes no difference, silent. The open test setup has the card about 2 1/2 feet away (80cm ish) from me and it was just about inaudible. The Silver Arrow was louder than the card under load.
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.
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Time to take a look at a HD7870 on steroids, courtesy of the fine folks at PowerColor.
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