AMD Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition Video Card Review

Conclusions

The Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition has performance comparable to the GeForce GTX 570. In our tests, both video cards achieved the same performance level on all the games we ran, except on FarCry 2, where the GeForce GTX 570 beat the Radeon HD 7870 by between 10% and 17 percent. The only other significant performance difference between the two cards on games was on Aliens vs. Predator at 2560×1600, with the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition being 18% faster than the GeForce GTX 570. At 1920×1200, however, both video cards achieved the same performance level.

The Radeon HD 7870 is up to 12% faster than its predecessor, the Radeon HD 6970, except for FarCry 2 and on Aliens vs. Predator at 1920×1200, where the older video card was 5% faster. This is good news. If you were thinking about buying a Radeon HD 6970, you can now buy the Radeon HD 7870 for the same price and get extra performance.

When using the video card to run regular programs (in our case, Media Espresso), however, the Radeon HD 7870 was 24% faster than the GeForce GTX 570 and 41% faster than the Radeon HD 6970, proving that the new GCN architecture is really optimized for programs that can use the graphics processor to speed up processing.

Both the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition and the GeForce GTX 570 are good options on the USD 350 range, but since the GeForce GTX 570 was released a while ago, its price has already dropped below USD 350. It will take a while for the Radeon 7870 to follow.