craig5320

Sapphire HD 7870 XT With Boost (Tahiti LE) Review

"Today we take our second look at Tahiti LE with the Sapphire 7870 XT (With Boost) and in this article will be maxing out its core and memory speed then checking how it performs in games like Far Cry 3, Assassins Creed 3 and Hitman Absolution against a max OC 660 Ti."

__________________

HardwareHeaven on Facebook

blibbax

Nice review, but oughn't you address the Tahiti frame latency (/microstuttering) issues that have been all over the internet in recent weeks, since the Techreport 660Ti vs 7950 article(s)?


AMD themselves have actually come out and recognised this as an issue now, so it seems pretty notable by its absence.

I absolutely agree though that it should have been called the 7910 or 7930.

__________________

Veridian3

Regarding the TechReport stuff, i dont doubt that they are seeing what they are seeing but I feel that they are not quite there yet in identifying why it happens. For our testing as you know we have been using real world gaming for years, and adding to the min/max/avg with a graph of framerate over time for quite a while now too... this was something I was always keen to do because while timedemos etc were a nice easy way to get results they hid issues like micro-stutters and image quality issues. (And also skewed the performance as TD's including those bundled with games as benchmarks never give the same performance as actually playing). We have also noted problems in recent reviews too, on both card types, with SWTOR being a particular game that caused issues for a while.

So... for this particular review as always I played through the games as normal and there were no issues with the same findings as Tech Report. Now I dont doubt they are seeing the problem and that it is something that can be caused (as AMD say) by various issues in the graphics processing pipeline, or even in the system as a whole.

What I can say though is that with our game suite and tested settings, on a Tahiti LE maxed out, on a system running the top i7@5GHz, with Win 8/games from multiple SSDs, with 16GB of DDR3 @ 2000+MHz and 120Hz screens... there was no stuttering/latency problem that was noticeable.

Can only report what we see (or in this case dont)... the gaming experience was great on both cards.

blibbax

Thanks for the reasoned and sensible response

While I don't doubt your findings, I do think that people want to separate cards - saying that both did excellently is helpful, but not as helpful as saying "but when games/settings/resolutions advance to the point that playability becomes questionable, it'll be this card that serves you better".

I think that as well as quantifying an unsatisfactory gaming experience (even when minimum FPS remains high), Techreport's methods can also help to point out which card is closer to an unsatisfactory gaming experience, and thus make it easier to make the "buy this card not this card" or "we cannot recommend this product" calls that people are looking for in reviews.

I've said in the past that I'd appreciate harsher reviews from HH, but I also think that it'd be pretty awesome to see you at the forefront of adopting these superior techniques

__________________

Veridian3

Looking at how we test is always in progress. There are a few things which are going to be tweaked before GPUs though I would say... but equally this exact scenario is exactly why everyone should read a few reviews before making a decision on something. Not just GPUs but any significant purchase.

yezzedman

I already bought this Sapphire HD7870 XT last week. So far, this is the very best card in its class. There are too many argument about this card's real name, but after check it using HWInfo software, here's the result :

I wonder, why AMD not just declare this GC as it real name instead of hd7870XT?

Attached Thumbnails

 

blibbax

7890 is less ambiguous but still doesn't make a great deal of sense. Like the review said, 7910 would be sensible (or equally 7920/7930/7940).

__________________

xaniko

Good morning everyone, I'm having problems with the core clock (varying between 500 - 925mhz ) which it's making the card unstable. Anyone else noticed this issue?

Veridian3

HI Xaniko, most modern cards vary their speed depending on load/task. It is normal (although some do it more than others). Is it the Sapphire 7870 XT you have? And are there any error messages etc?

xaniko

Hi Veridian, thanks for answering. It's the Sapphire Yes. And actually it's very frustrating, because it varies while playing and makes the game crash.

I got no errors messages, just the PC freezes...

Veridian3

Hey, pop over to this part of the forum: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/hardwa...ssion-support/

List your system spec's, what you have been playing that freezes and any steps you have tried to fix. That will get a lot more people involved in helping you than the review thread.

SeanPatrick

Hi there! I read your review and it seems I've chosen the right card in the 7870 XT with boost. This is my first foray into overclocking and was looking for guidance as far as settings go, and stumbled across your article. I've read it, and gone ahead and set it to your suggested specs 1285 gp clock and 1760 memory clock. One thing the picture in your article doesn't show ( and excuse my lack of knowledge here ) is whether you've adjusted the power control settings in any way. I've also downloaded Trixx by Radeon, but that looks a little to complicated for me, and I don't want to destroy my new card by messing with voltages. Would you say that I'll be getting the most (safely) out of my card with your settings? Of course I'll monitor the temps - I bought a p182 antec case to go along with it, and currently have 4 fans ( in addition to the 700w psu fan, the two on the sapphire itself, and my new cpu fan that I replaced the stock intel i5 3570k for). Also, is there a program you could recommend that gives you some kind of warning signal if your internal temps get to high?
Cheers!
Sean.

Veridian3

Hi Sean, in the driver control panel you always want to bump up Powertune to the top when overclocking.

As for Trixx, unless something has changed in the last day the public version doesnt allow voltage adjustments on this card. Version 4.6 which we were given for the review will allow it though.

My suggestion would be to stick to the control panel for now and bump the core up by 100MHz and memory the same. Check its stable and then go up by 25Mhz on each slider one at a time until you find the stable setting. Nice and simple really... you may get a little higher than us or a little lower. Every card is different.

Good luck and have fun!

SeanPatrick

thanks for the reply! just to be clear im bumping the power control settings to plus 20 percent? (max) Oh and one last question, do I need to put the card under load while I do this to test the stability?

SeanPatrick

thanks for the reply! just to be clear im bumping the power control settings to plus 20 percent? Oh and one last question, do I need to put the card under load while I do this to test the stability?

Veridian3

Yeah. 20% is fine. And then run something to test the stability. Some people like Furmark, other people like 3Dmark, others just play games and if it works they are happy. Whatever you want really.

bnn1

Hi guys,
I'm new to the website and i have a question after reading this well made review.
Do you think i can pair this video card with an FX-6300 & Asrock 970 Pro3? Will i be able to obtain similar FPS from the games you tested? My max resolution will be 1920*1080.

Thank you

randy232

Can you tell me the settings for the overclocking, because when i put it in overclock (same card), i get 1175 Core, and 1630 Memory, and when i start bf3 , it freezes immidiatily, then i got stripes, vertical ones. please help, greets, randy

Veridian3

It was just a case of maxing out power tune/tweaking the voltage and then moving the sliders to find a stable point. Nothing out of the ordinary. Every card is different though so you may just have found the limit for your GPU or memory.

Nya`

Going to buy two of these soon I think, or I might wait for the 8000 series to come.

__________________

SeanPatrick

Well the absolute limit I was able to clock to was 1180 MHz with a Memory clock of 1650. I had a lot of problems with this card initially, and finally found out through sapphire that it was a bios problem limiting the LLC on my card. It wasn't until I was sent the new Vbios and flashed my card that I was able to get an overclock at all. Seems to be running not to bad right now, but can't get anywhere near the overclock HH was able to attain. This was tested on MSI afterburner, Trixx 4.6, Asus Gpu tweak, and the native CCC overdrive, which I should mention was completely useless. In any case if anyone picks one of these up be aware it might need to have the bios flashed if your going to OC. Cheers!

CDsDontBurn

Perhaps that's a Sapphire issue? I'll have to check on my card which is PowerColor's version.

__________________

melodystyle2003

Hello,

Is it possbile to post the 015.027.000.000.000000 | 113-C4740107-S01 bios which gpu was using on your tests?

Thanks.

SeanPatrick

I'd like to help but I've sold that card and picked up a 7970, and while doing so re installed windows on a new SSD, so I don't have the file anymore. Did you register with sapphire? if so just go to there sapphire website found here: https://www.sapphireselectclub.com/p...ber_index.aspx and open up a new ticket requesting the new bios

melodystyle2003

Oh too bad friend.

This isnt new bios, as i have understood is the first bios 7870XT sapphire was released with and according this review (HH) can o/c better than the S03.
Any chance to get it somehow, even with the new holder of the card?
Dont know if sapphire will give an old bios.

SeanPatrick

Well oc'ing as you know is dependent on the card - I've heard it so many times before, the chip lottery, sometimes it's great, sometimes it's not. That being said, when I got my bios I was complaining to the tech that my core clock was jumping around from 925 to whatever I had it clocked at then back down constantly, like every 2 seconds, so he just gave me a bios. I can't get the other one back I sold it to a guy off craigslist, but I'm sure the techs will give you one. You can always go to overclocker.net forums for amd problems, someone will help you out with the bios: http://www.overclock.net/f/70/ati-dr...cking-software

but again I'm sure sapphire techs will give it to you.

SeanPatrick

I dug through my emails for you and found the link the techs sent me for the new vbios. Just click on it and it will automatically download. Then just follow the steps included on the readme file to flash it to your bios.
Your welcome!

http://www.sapphiretech.com/archive/...9090173934.ZIP