Hi lads

I have been investigating a few reviews of late, and yet, even after looking, I am unclear as to if the 7850/7870 is goping to be any better or worth the purchase?


My current 5870 has been a real trooper, getting very playable frames (60 avg) at 1600x1200 in B3 with most things set on high, and a few on medium. But I want to change, given the occasional dip in fps ( also reduced power consumption is a real plus on 25nm ), so what say you guys, worth it?

Cheers in advance.

Hi there,

Here is anandtech review of the HD 7850 and 7870 in BF3 - and also compares it to the HD 5870.

As you can see, the HD 5870 holds up really well to the 7850 - so you would need a considerably faster (and more expensive) card than the 7850 to see a noticeable performance difference.

The 7870 does seem like a good option, however I would wait until Nvidia Kepler launches before you make your decision - supposedly OCUK is getting stock in next week, so the release can't be too far away,

Cheres for that, its pretty much what I gleaned from the tentative reviews thus far. The 5870 has been as I say a real trooper, lasting longer than I anticipated (and bit like the 9700pro for the old timers) and even absobed my moving from a 22 to a 24inch monitor.

You are right, I would do well to hang on

The 7850 is around equal to the 5870. The 7870 is about 20% faster or so. Not worth it IMO.

ATIorNvidia said:

The 7850 is around equal to the 5870. The 7870 is about 20% faster or so. Not worth it IMO.

Click to expand...

7870 is well worth it given that it boasts double the amount of vram.

If vram wasn't an issue I would completely agree, given that the raw power is more than enough even these days.

But the ram isn't.

I'm guessing the upgrade path from the 5870 is the 7950? or have you thought about getting another 5870 and running them in crossfire? My question is by running two cards in crossfire do you get the added benefit of the increased amount of available video memory? e.g. 1GB + 1GB = 2GB video memory?

dlknight said:

My question is by running two cards in crossfire do you get the added benefit of the increased amount of available video memory? e.g. 1GB + 1GB = 2GB video memory?

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, that is not the case. When you have 1gb + 1gb, you are still left with 1gb.

whebn using 2 cards the vram doesnt double, it will still be 1gb with 2 5870.

but the memory bandwidth will increase.

Yes, and you have the added processing power / texture units etc, but in terms of vram there is no benefit.

Cheers for the replies lads, appreciated, but no, I couldn't run a Crossfire or SLI setup, it uses far too much power, and I think its unsustainable.

dlknight said:

I'm guessing the upgrade path from the 5870 is the 7950? or have you thought about getting another 5870 and running them in crossfire? My question is by running two cards in crossfire do you get the added benefit of the increased amount of available video memory? e.g. 1GB + 1GB = 2GB video memory?

Click to expand...

I would say that the correct upgrade path from the 5870 would be the 7970.

7870 is a mid range card, 5870 wasn't, it was the top end card.

Price wise though yes, I would say you are perfectly correct. 7950 would be a nice upgrade as it costs around the same and really performs well

arc@css said:

Unfortunately that is not the case. When you have 1gb + 1gb you are still left with 1gb.

Click to expand...

Ah didn't know that! I'm in a similar boat and was considering going for the cheap upgrade of a 2nd 5850 but perhaps I should save for a 7950 instead (I have 3 x 1080p displays to run in eyefinity).

Wolv34ine said:

Hi lads

I have been investigating a few reviews of late, and yet, even after looking, I am unclear as to if the 7850/7870 is goping to be any better or worth the purchase?


My current 5870 has been a real trooper, getting very playable frames (60 avg) at 1600x1200 in B3 with most things set on high, and a few on medium. But I want to change, given the occasional dip in fps ( also reduced power consumption is a real plus on 25nm ), so what say you guys, worth it?

Cheers in advance.

Click to expand...

If you look at this i think its very much worth it.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7870-review-benchmark,3148-21.html