Sapphire HD7870 FleX Edition Review

1. Introduction2. Sapphire HD7870 FleX Edition3. Sapphire HD7870 FleX Edition (Super High Res Gallery)4. Testing Methodology5. Setting up Eyefinity6. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark7. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage8. Synthetic: 3DMark 119. Synthetic: HQV Benchmark 2.010. Gaming: F1 2011 (1080p)11. Gaming: F1 2011 (5760x1080)12. Gaming: Alien V Predator (1080p)13. Gaming: Tom Clancy HAWX 2 (1080p)14. Gaming: Resident Evil 5 (1080p)15. Gaming: Far Cry 2 (1080p)16. Gaming: Total War Shogun 2 (720p & 1080p)17. Gaming: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2560x1600)18. Gaming: Battlefield 3 (1080p)19. Gaming: Battlefield 3 (5760x1080)20. Gaming: Dirt Showdown (5760x1080)21. Technical: Thermal Dynamics22. Technical: Acoustics Performance23. Technical: Power Consumption24. Technical: Overclocking25. Closing Thoughts26. View All Pages

To test today we are using our long standing Core i7 970 system, which is overclocked. We have a variety of hardware benchmarked on this system this year which will make for an interesting market comparison.

Main Test System:

Processor: Core i7 970 @ 4.6ghz
Graphics: Sapphire HD7870 FleX Edition
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Memory: 6GB ADATA @ 2133mhz 9-10-9-32
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)

Comparison Cards:

Sapphire HD7950 Dual-X FleX Edition Review (OC)
KFA2 Geforce GTX680 EX OC
Asus Geforce GTX670 Direct CU II TOP
GTX680
MSI R7970 Lightning Edition
HD7970
MSI R7950 Twin Frozr III 3GD5/OC
HD7950
HD7870
HD7850
HD6990 (880 core)
HD6970
HD6950
HD6870
Sapphire HD7770 Vapor X Overclock Edition
XFX HD7770 Black Edition S CFx
HD7770 CFx
HD7770
Sapphire HD7750 Ultimate Edition
HD6790
HD6770
HD6670
GTX590 SLi
GTX590
GTX580 SLi
GTX580
GTX570

Monitors: Dell U3011 and 3x Dell U2410

Software:

Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark

Games:

Alien V Predator
Tom Clancy HAWX 2
Resident Evil 5
Far Cry 2
F1 2011
Total War: Shogun 2
Battlefield 3
Elder Scrolls V: SkyRim
Dirt Showdown

All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.

Some game descriptions are edited from Wikipedia.

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