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When AMD released their reference Pitcairn HD7850 and HD7870 early March, I was really impressed with the range. The price point for the HD7870 is around the £270-£280 inc vat mark, meaning it will target a wide audience of enthusiast gamers who don't want to fork out the extra money for the HD7950 or HD7970. Both of these cards are really expensive … around £355 for the HD7950 and £470 for the HD7970.
Gigabyte's HD7870 Overclock Edition is a memorable graphics card, particularly for the incredibly low noise emissions. The engineers deliberately opted for a triple fan cooler so they could spin each of the fans as slowly as possible, and the design really does deliver the goods.
When gaming in a moderately warm room, the card hovered just under 50c which is 17c better than the reference cooler.
It may seem like overkill, but for a media center with a primary focus on gaming, this Gigabyte card would make an excellent first choice. The overclocked core clock allows this HD7870 to perform at a level close to the more expensive HD7950 in the majority of games.
Pricing in the United Kingdom has yet to be confirmed, but we would expect this card to demand a small premium over the reference card. Gigabyte need to keep the price below £299 inc vat however, or it will be getting periously close to the least expensive HD7950's. OCUK for instance have an offer right now for the HIS HD7950 at £335.99.
If you can find this card for under £270 inc vat, then we reckon you should snap one up, immediately.
Pros:
- Excellent performance.
- Almost silent.
- cooler maintains a <50c threshold when gaming.
- additional headroom for manual overclocking.
Cons:
- The semi translucent black plastic might not appeal to some.
Kitguru says: An almost silent high performance gaming card which runs at under 50c, when gaming. Its an attractive combination.
looks like a great card, three fans, only seen arctic cooling going for a menage et trois 🙂
I dont like the appearance, but it is great, no doubt about it. never bought an MSI or gigabyte GPU before but they seem to be good.
That is a great idea, spinning them slowly but including 3 fans. cant see it for sale yet anywhere.
I like your reviews but question the data based on other reviews posted regarding this card, especially around acoustics. For me, low sound is a big part of a purchase and most of these sophisticated coolers end up louder than the reference design. Guru3D point out that the fans rpm remains constant at idle and load, your review shows a big difference between idle and load indicating an increase in rpm’s. Also Guru3d noted that this version was louder than the reference design and you have indicated that it is quieter. Why the inconsistency?
Hi Greg, I have no idea about other sites reviews. I only test what I am sent. This card is very quiet at all times and barely registered on our meter. It does spin up when loaded although GPUZ won’t record the fan speeds. At all times it was much quieter than the reference design we have here which can spin the single fan quite high under furmark load.
perhaps the bioses/fan implementation were changed, the card I received came straight from the factory without any box or accessories.
Hmm i don’t know which to buy the Gigabyte 7870 or the Sapphire 7870 both are good. Gigabyte is even more better but i can’t choose. My last Sapphire 5750 was pretty good even overclocked & I was happy. Pls help me
Which is cheaper where you live?