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Twin Frozr II GTX 580 or Sapphire 7870 for Battlefield 3?

TrevS

TrevS

TrevS

Associate
Joined
22 May 2012
Posts
31
Hi all

I've been trying to work out the best card for my machine and got it down to 2 cards. The MSI twin Frozr II OC 1536MB or the Sapphire HD 7870 2048MB.

I will mainly be using the card of Battlefield 3 so I'd like some advice on which card would be best for that game. All the benchmarks I seem to find suggest the 580 will be better on BF3 but a lot of these were when the 7870 came out so I don't know if newer drivers have improved the performance?

Both of these card will work with my current machine but I understand I might get some bottlenecking. That's fine as i plan to upgrade soon. However one other area that concerns me is running temperature and fan noise. I understand the 7870 is very quiet and cool but does anyone have any info on the Twin Frozr 580 and how it compares.

PC specs are as follows:
Dell XPS 720
Intel Core2 Quad CPU @ 2.66GHz
5.5gb Ram
Windows 64bit ultimate
Dell PM480 1000w PSU

Thanks

Trev
 
Also in terms of price I've been offered a Twin Frozr II GTX 580 for £210 which seems like a good price as I know some places still have these at £300+. The Sapphire 7870 is £240 on overclockers.
 
Get a decently cooled 7850 and save the £50. It will be slightly slower than a 580 or 7870, but will play BF3 very well at resolutions up to 1920x1200 on Ultra. My 7850 maintains 60fps pretty well at these settings when overclocked (and they all overclock past 7870 speeds).

The MSI or Sapphire 7850's seem the best for low noise.
 
555BUK said:
Get a decently cooled 7850 and save the £50. It will be slightly slower than a 580 or 7870, but will play BF3 very well at resolutions up to 1920x1200 on Ultra. My 7850 maintains 60fps pretty well at these settings when overclocked (and they all overclock past 7870 speeds).

The MSI or Sapphire 7850's seem the best for low noise.
Click to expand...

Did look at the Sapphire 7850 that is on at £189 on overclockers at the moment. Thought the 7870 or 580 would be better for the future as I plan to up my screen resolution to either 1920x1200 or 2560x1440 so thought the extra grunt might be worth it
 
A decent 7850 will overclock right up to GTX580 speeds, knocking on 7950 speeds. It's one of the best price/performance cards you can get at the moment
 
Mojo said:
A decent 7850 will overclock right up to GTX580 speeds, knocking on 7950 speeds. It's one of the best price/performance cards you can get at the moment
Click to expand...

What about the 7870 then, would that overclock even better. Also I can't see any GTX580's for £199, does anyone have any links?

Trev
 
I wouldn't buy a 7870 because:-
i). Clock for clock it is only 5% faster than a 7850, yet costs 25-30% more
ii). 7950 is only £30 more expensive and comes with 3 free games. 7950 is 25% faster than a 7870 for very little extra money.

The 7870 if far too expensive for the performance it offers.
 
555BUK said:
I wouldn't buy a 7870 because:-
i). Clock for clock it is only 5% faster than a 7850, yet costs 25-30% more
ii). 7950 is only £30 more expensive and comes with 3 free games. 7950 is 25% faster than a 7870 for very little extra money.

The 7870 if far too expensive for the performance it offers.
Click to expand...

In this benchmark the 7870 has around a 20% increase in frame rate over the 7850 though.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7850_HD_7870/8.html
 
TrevS said:
In this benchmark the 7870 has around a 20% increase in frame rate over the 7850 though.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7850_HD_7870/8.html
Click to expand...
"Clock for clcok" there is only 5-6% between them, and 7850's clock just as well as 7870's.

TrevS said:
If you guys are confident that the 7850 will be as good as the 7870 I'll order one now

Trev
Click to expand...
At stock (out of box) settings the 7870 is about 20% faster than the 7850. However, if you are willing to overclock the cards, the real difference is extremely small. Even AMD's own driver a nd Catalyst Control Centre enables overclocking of the 7850 past 7870 speeds, so it is completely safe. Ultimately, both the 7850 and 7870 overclock to similar speeds of around 1200MHz.
 
Last edited:
OK thanks for the info. In terms of the card then do we think a 7850 is the right card for me? As I said I just really want it for BF3 and at £189 I think it's a very good price for me. I am sure it will be much better than the 8800GTX that it's replacing. BF3 killed the card in the end
 
In complete honnesty, the 580 will probably provide better fps within BF3, but it will be close. The 580 will likely be noiser and will draw more power.

I would normally recommend the 7850, but todays OcUK deal @ £200 for the 580 is very good. It is a hard one to call. If you feel that part of the fun in owning a new graphics card is overclocking ability, get the 7850. If you just want something that works out of the box get the 580.
 
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