AMD Radeon 7870 2GB Graphics Card Review

We’ve seen a lot from AMD just recently and the 7800 series cards for now will finalise the integration of the 7000 series GPUs into the market. As we know the 7800 series cards are the mid-point between the 7700 & 7900 series cards are and there to offer the balance between value and performance between their bigger and little brothers. From what we have seen here, the cards don’t necessarily meet the performance levels in the middle, but offer slightly more towards the higher end of the scale and whilst the 7900 series cards as we know leave Nvidia’s GTX 580 standing in the dust, the 7870 gives it a damn good run for its money.

Continuing on from the point of bang for buck, AMDs partners offerings start in the range of £275 with some of the overclocked and tweaked editions coming at more towards the £300 mark. Now whilst this isn’t mid way between the respective price points of the lesser and more powerful cards, looking across the board at our test results the card offers up a competitive frame rate that may leave some of those gearing towards the more powerful 7950 and 7970 thinking twice about whether they should spend the extra money on what effectively is only a few frames extra on top of what we have here.

Now I know that the die hard gamers are going to make a bolt straight for the 7900 series cards, and I’d probably so the same in all honesty, so where would we say this card lies? Well for one, its a fantastic second option for those that don’t have the same funds available to throw at a new card, but the slightly different angle to look at is that this is more from when we looked at the 7700 series cards. Their performance favoured very clearly towards the 2D productivity market and those that want to boost their output with the option for a little bit of light gaming in between. The 7870 however will do the exact same thing but will offer up a lot more gaming experience and also far better 3D capabilities for those that need it for production.

So where does this leave us? Well to condense everything into a down to earth conclusion, AMD’s 7870 gives a fantastic level of bang for buck in relation to the 7770 and 7970 and I imagine that this will be flying off the shelves much like we have seen from the 6800 series cards in the past. On top of this, taking from what we have seen AMD’s partners release recently based on the 7700 series and 79oo series cards in relation to cooler design and preoverclocked editions, keep your eyes peeled as there are some cracking cards to be had.