[Overclockers.com]

If you are not in the market for the monster 7950/7970 (Tahiti) series or the lower end 7750/7770 series (Cape Verde), AMD has a market segment to share with you in their mid-classed Pitcarin, which is comprised of the 7870 and 7850. Today we get a chance to look at a card from Sapphire, the HD7870 GHz Edition.

... Return to article to continue reading.

[Frakk]

Nice review thanks.

I like the 78## series cards, they perform very well indeed for there money, they can hold there own near the top for much less money and there all you will need for a while unless your running multi monitor set ups.

My Problem with AMD's range is at the level just one stap down from the 78## series.

Thats where i'm looking to upgrade, when the 7770 can't out do my overclocked ancient 5770 i see absolutely no incentive to upgrade via AMD.

The gap from the 7770 to the 7850 is vast both in performance and price, and the 7850 is overkill for what i want.

AMD seem to have forgotten about the likes of me.

[bmwbaxter]

Great review as always.

@Frakk

Lets hope they make a 1 GB 7850 to fill in the gap. If they leave the price and performance range empty between 7850 & 7770, it would be a big mistake.

[Frakk]

I doubt a 1GB 7850

But there will be a 7790. The question is will they just up the memory bus width from 128 Bit to 265 Bit or will they also add a couple of hundred Stream Processors?

The later would add a 30% performance increase, the former would not make much difference as the GPU its self with only 640 Stream Processors is pretty weak.

[WedgeWhacko]

I purchased the 7850 lastnight.

I figure it should carry me through the summer atleast.

[Bosco]

The HD7870 is a tough sell now with the HD7950's at 380-399.

According to an article I read at Anandtech amd is just price cutting the 7900 series and the 7770.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5754/r...promos-inbound

[EarthDog]

Indeed it is... But you can find reference 7870's from $330. They may be better served at $299 now.

[pinky33]

I hope prices keep falling for the next month when D3 comes out.

Then waiting for swiftech to come out with an air block to fit around mcw60 for 7870.

$260ish for 7870, then 30-50ish for water cooling. Under $300 for water cooled 7870.

Then again it seems the 7950 is getting much better boost in performance through OCing then 7870.....so water cooling 7870 might be a waste. Either way I have a while to wait for prices to fall that much. Until then I will just keep watching benchmarks to see what is best bang for buck with water cooling cost included.