Benchmarks — High Quality AA and AF
High Quality AA and AF
While we test all our games with maximum in-game settings, turning on Anti-Aliasing (AA) and Antistrophic Filtering (AF) helps take the intensity of our testing to another level.
Here we see video cards go from playable FPS to an unplayable FPS and the real power houses continue to help break that 60 FPS mark we always aim for to provide a smooth gaming experience.
With AA and AF turned on you can see we’ve got some pretty strong numbers and we’re able to just be in that 30 FPS minimum area we want at 2560 x 1600 here.
While we see a very small bump in performance; we’re ultimately too far below that 60 FPS number we need.
While we again see just a small bump in overall performance we continue to have playable numbers at 1920 x 1200, but unplayable numbers at 2560 x 1600 when AA and AF is turned on.
Finishing with Sleeping Dogs it’s no surprise that our numbers are unplayable here, even with an extra FPS or two being seen from our PowerColor offering.
Benchmarks — Nexuiz
Nexuiz
Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update
Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark
Developer Homepage: http://www.alientrap.org/
Product Homepage: http://www.nexuiz.com/
Nexuiz is an Arena First Person shooter coming soon to consoles. Nexuiz is fast paced with extremely competitive game play. IllFonic brings Alientrap Software’s Nexuiz to next-gen gaming consoles around the world while staying true to the game play refined over the years through development. IllFonic introduces a new Victorian influenced art style that is simultaneously futuristic and sophisticated. Nexuiz for consoles is powered by CryENGINE 3.
Performance is a little all over the place here, but more importantly it’s just below that 60 FPS number we want at every resolution.
Is Tahiti LE A Cheap Ticket To 3D-Accelerated Paradise?
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, right? This proverb isn’t new, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that not all of AMD’s Tahiti GPUs are fully-functional and can be turned into Radeon HD 7970s. In fact, some don’t even have the working bits to become stripped-down Radeon HD 7950s. But that doesn’t make those chips worthless.
The blocks of functional logic on those handicapped graphics processors should work just as well as those in AMD’s better-manufactured GPUs. And that’s why we’re starting to see companies like TUL Corporation using Tahiti LE parts to create special versions of the Radeon HD 7870. Three companies are selling the TUL-based boards: PowerColor (owned by TUL), VTX3D (also owned by TUL), and Club 3D. Today, we’re going hands-on with the PowerColor card.
The question that begs to be answered is: What exactly is the difference between one of these special Radeon HD 7870s and a true Radeon HD 7950? To begin, let’s look at a block diagram of the Tahiti LE graphics processor.
One-quarter of the Graphics Core Next (GCN) clusters are disabled, taking the chip’s 2,048 ALUs and cutting that number down to 1,536 active shader units. Each GCN compute unit has four texture units tied to it. So, when eight of the GPU’s 32 CUs get switched off, so too do 32 of its texture units. A Tahiti LE consequentially exposes 96, rather than 128 texture units.
The GPU’s back-end is independent of the shader cores, so AMD chooses to leave all eight ROP clusters turned on, fielding up to 32 full-color raster operations per clock cycle. It cuts back, however, on Tahiti LE’s peak memory bandwidth by bypassing two of six 64-bit controllers. Instead of the 384-bit aggregate interface you get from a Radeon HD 7950 or 7970, these boards make due with 256-bit connections. Narrowing the memory bus has a second effect: cutting capacity from 3 GB to 2 GB of on-board GDDR5. To help compensate, PowerColor increases the memory clock rate from 1,250 MHz to 1,500 MHz, pushing peak bandwidth all the way to a respectable 192 GB/s.
A 925 MHz base core frequency isn’t bad either, compared to a Radeon HD 7950’s 800 MHz. AMD’s Boost feature keeps the new chip running at 975 MHz more often than not, though.
Naturally, a comparison between this card and the original Radeon HD 7950 is going to be interesting. Have a look at their respective specifications, along with some of the other boards competing for space in your mid-range to high-end gaming PC.
| Radeon HD 7850 | Radeon HD 7870 | PowerColorHD7870Myst Edition | Radeon HD 7950 | Radeon HD 7950Boost Edition | GeForce GTX 660Ti | GeForce GTX 670 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shader Units | 1,024 | 1,280 | 1,536 | 1,792 | 1,792 | 1,344 | 1,344 |
| ROPs | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 24 | 32 |
| GPU | Pitcairn | Pitcairn | Tahiti | Tahiti | Tahiti | GK104 | GK104 |
| Memory Size | 2 GB | 2 GB | 2 GB | 3 GB | 3 GB | 2 GB | 2 GB |
| Memory Bus Bandwidth | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit | 192-bit | 256-bit |
| GPU Clock | 860 MHz | 1,000 MHz | 925 MHz/975 MHz | 800 MHz | 850 MHz/925 MHz | 915 MHz+ Boost | 915 MHz+ Boost |
| Memory Clock | 1,200 MHz | 1,200 MHz | 1,500 MHz | 1,250 MHz | 1,250 MHz | 1,502 MHz | 1,502 MHz |
Benchmarks — Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Version and / or Patch Used: 3
Developer Homepage: http://www.unigine.com
Product Homepage: http://unigine.com/press-releases/091022-heaven_benchmark//
New benchmark grants the power to unleash the DirectX 11 potential in the gift wrapping of impressively towering graphics capabilities. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is ensured within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.
Looking at Unigine Heaven performance you can see the two HD 7870s perform almost identical to each other with very little separating them. It’s important to remember that the Pitcairn XT based HD 7870 we’re looking at is of course a pre-overclocked version from Sapphire.
Benchmarks — Phantasy Star Online 2
Phantasy Star Online 2
Version and / or Patch Used: Standalone Benchmark
Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark
Developer Homepage: http://www.sega.com/?t=EnglishUSA
Product Homepage: http://www.pso2.com/us/html/index.html
Play Phantasy Star Online 2 and experience revolutionary combat in an action-driven, free-to-play multiplayer online RPG from SEGA. Take a journey into an immersive sci-fi fantasy narrative and explore mysterious worlds to unravel their secrets. Join fellow adventurers and fight against the legions of darkness to banish them from the galaxy.
Score explanation: Less than 2000: Please adjust your game settings because the processing load is quite heavy.
2000 through 5000: The game runs fine at the setting, if you have room, you can adjust some settings.
5001+: The game works wonderfully at this setting.
Looking at PSO2 performance we can see it looks good against the other HD 7800 series based video cards and we’re nearing that 5001+ territory which Sega say is perfect for solid game play.
Benchmarks — Far Cry 2
Far Cry 2
Version and / or Patch Used: 1.01
Timedemo or Level Used: Ranch Long
Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.farcry2.com/
The Dunia Engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2 by the award-winning Ubisoft Montreal development team. It delivers the most realistic destructible environments, amazing special effects such as dynamic fire propagation and storm effects, real-time night-and-day cycle, dynamic music system, non-scripted enemy A.I. and so much more.
We can see a boost across the board as you’d expect, but ultimately we’ve just got very strong FPS at all resolution.
Benchmarks — Sniper Elite V2
Sniper Elite V2
Version and / or Patch Used: Standalone Benchmark
Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark
Developer Homepage: http://www.rebellion.co.uk/
Product Homepage: http://sniperelitev2.com/us/age.html
Sniper Elite V2 features detailed sniping simulation with advanced ballistics, taking into account gravity, wind, velocity, bullet penetration, aim stability and more. Guaranteed to provide players with the most realistic simulation of military sharpshooting yet available.
Sniper Elite V2 sees a nice little bump at all resolution and we’ve got playable numbers at 1920 x 1200 and below. Moving to 2560 x 1600 we can see a nice increase in performance that equates to about 10%, but we’re still below that 60 FPS number we need.
Power Consumption Test
Using our PROVA Power Analyzer WM-01 or «Power Thingy» as it has become quickly known as to our readers, we are now able to find out what kind of power is being used by our test system and the associated graphics cards installed. Keep in mind; it tests the complete system (minus LCD monitor, which is plugged directly into AC wall socket).
There are a few important notes to remember though; while our maximum power is taken in 3DMark06 at the same exact point, we have seen in particular tests the power being drawn as much as 10% more. We test at the exact same stage every time; therefore tests should be very consistent and accurate.
The other thing to remember is that our test system is bare minimum — only a SSD hard drive is used with a single CD ROM and minimal cooling fans.
So while the system might draw 400 watts in our test system, placing it into your own PC with a number of other items, the draw is going to be higher.
The 400 Watt power draw at load is pretty strong and you can see it’s in the middle of the pack. Any quality power supply isn’t going to have a problem.
Introduction and Package
I suppose it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that AMD decided to bring something a little new to us in time for the holiday season. The new Tahiti LE based HD 7870, though, seems to be extremely limited with only a few companies choosing to pick up the new variant. AMD themselves don’t have the new model on its website, though, and it seems that only a few companies have decided to pick up the model.
Alongside Sapphire the other main company we know that has bought the new Tahiti LE based video card to us is PowerColor and it comes in the form of the PowerColor PCS+ HD 7870 2GB Myst Edition. The main problem is that you’re not quite sure that the model is based on the new Tahiti LE chip. Hopefully today, though, we’ll be able to give you a bit of a clearer picture of what exactly we’re dealing with.
While we’ll go into a bit more detail on the next page when we look at the specifications side of things the main thing to remember is that this is an «LE» based chip. The Tahiti chip is used on the HD 7900 series while the Pitcairn chip is used on the HD 7800 series. What I like here is that while they’re using the Tahiti chip, AMD have decided to bring the «LE» based version of it to the HD 7800 series.
In the end from a specification point of view it looks good for the consumers because by bringing it under the HD 7800 series name we feel like we’re getting a supped up HD 7870 where if it was called the HD 7950 LE, the impression of a cut down HD 7900 series based card just doesn’t sit as well.
Anyway we don’t want to go into too much detail when it comes to the specifications side of things as we’ll cover that in the next page. Before we get there, though, we’ll quickly see what’s going on with the package before taking a closer look at the card itself. Once we’ve done that we’ll check out the specifications, our testbed, the cards we’ll be using in our graphs today and finally get into the performance side of things.
Package
VIEW GALLERY — 30 IMAGES
I always love the box design from PowerColor; it looks great and you can see on the front we’ve got the main information we need. Including the fact it’s a HD 7870, PCS+ cooler and the Myst Edition card which helps let us know it’s based on the Tahiti LE chip. As for the back of the box you can see we’ve got information on some of the components and a large chunk is dedicated to showing off the cooler and the benefits it brings.
Moving inside the bundle we don’t have a whole lot going on with a Quick Installation Guide and Driver CD being included alongside just a single cable which is a Mini DP to DisplayPort connector.
Benchmarks — F1 2012
F1 2012
Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update
Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark
Developer Homepage: http://www.codemasters.com/uk/
Product Homepage: http://www.codemasters.com
In F1 2012 players will feel the unparalleled thrill of becoming a FORMULA ONE driver with a host of new features, wide-ranging technical and gameplay advancements and extensive competitive and co-operative multiplayer components. F1 2012 will feature all of the official teams, drivers and circuits from the 2012 FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP, including the debut of the 2012 FORMULA 1 UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX at Austin, Texas and the return of Germany’s famous Hockenheim circuit to the calendar.
F1 2012 numbers across the board are nice and you can see an extra couple of FPS at all resolutions. Again like Just Cause 2 that bump at 2560 x 1600 is nice as it takes us out of that 60 FPS realm.
Benchmarks — Sleeping Dogs
Sleeping Dogs
Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update
Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark
Developer Homepage: http://eu.square-enix.com/en
Product Homepage: http://www.sleepingdogs.net/
The core gameplay of Sleeping Dogs consists of giving the player an open world environment in which to move around freely. Sleeping Dogs is played as an over-the-shoulder, third-person perspective action-adventure game with role-playing elements. The player controls Wei Shen, a Chinese-American police officer, as he goes undercover to infiltrate the Sun On Yee Triad organization. On foot, the player character has the ability to walk, run, jump, climb over obstacles and swim, as well as use weapons and martial arts in combat. Players also drive a variety of vehicles including cars, boats, and motorcycles.
Sleeping Dogs performance across the board is good and it’s nice to get a bit more breathing room at 2560 x 1600 where the Pitcairn XT based video card scored 61 FPS.
The Card and Specifications
The Card
Having a look at the card the overall cooler design isn’t anything too exciting with a black shroud covering most of the card. Looking at it, though, you can see under the center fan a big aluminum heatsink with a couple of heatpipes coming out the top.
As we take a look around you can see we’ve got two 6-pin PCIe power connectors which is the same as the standard GHz Edition of the HD 7870. Closer to the front you can see we’ve got a single CrossFire connector in the event you want to add a second card into the mix.
Moving to the I/O department you can see on the left we’ve got two Mini-DP connectors, one HDMI connector and a Dual Link DVI connector to round off the connectivity side of things. You can see the top half of the I/O plate is a vent that’s going to assist in getting the hot air out the back of the case.
Specifications
Like we mentioned in the introduction the main thing to remember about the Tahiti chip is that it’s the one used on the HD 7900 series cards and not the HD 7800 series. So while it carries the «LE» tag at the end of it, specifications wise it looks impressive against the Pitcairn XT chip which the HD 7870 GHz Edition uses.
The standard HD 7870 and this Myst Edition share some similarities like 28nm core and 256-bit memory bus, the main difference between the two cards is the Unified Shaders. The original HD 7870 GHz Edition came with 1280 while this Tahiti LE based model offers 1536.
While the clock speeds are down with 975MHz being seen here via boost compared to the 1200MHz via Boost on the GHz Edition card, the extra shaders are going to make a huge difference. Along with that we’ve also got a 6000MHz QDR memory clock instead of 4800MHz QDR.
Benchmarks — Just Cause 2
Just Cause 2
Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update
Timedemo or Level Used: Dark Tower
Developer Homepage: http://www.eidos.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.justcause.com/
Just Cause 2 employs the Avalanche Engine 2.0, an updated version of the engine used in Just Cause. The game is set on the other side of the world from the original Just Cause, on the fictional island of Panau in Southeast Asia. Panau has varied terrain, from desert to alpine to rainforest. Rico Rodriguez returns as the protagonist, aiming to overthrow the evil dictator Pandak «Baby» Panay and confront his former mentor, Tom Sheldon.
Just Cause 2 numbers across the board look good and the extra couple of FPS at 2560 x 1600 is extremely appreciated as we’re floating around that 60 FPS area.
Benchmarks — Lost Planet 2
Lost Planet 2
Version and / or Patch Used: Standalone Benchmark
Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark — Test A Scene 1
Developer Homepage: http://www.capcom.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.lostplanet2game.com/
Lost Planet 2 is a third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the sequel to Lost Planet: Extreme Condition which is also made by Capcom, taking place ten years after the events of the first game, on the same fictional planet. The story takes place back on E.D.N. III 10 years after the events of the first game. The snow has melted to reveal jungles and more tropical areas that have taken the place of more frozen regions. The plot begins with Mercenaries fighting against Jungle Pirates. After destroying a mine, the Mercenaries continue on to evacuate the area, in which a Category-G Akrid appears and attacks them. After being rescued, they find out their evacuation point (Where the Category-G appeared) was a set-up and no pick up team awaited them. The last words imply possible DLC additions to the game, «There’s nothing to be gained by wiping out snow pirates… unless you had some kind of grudge.»
Looking at Lost Planet 2 performance you can see at the lower resolution we get an extra couple of FPS while we dip slightly at the highest. Overall, though, the gains at 1920 x 1200 and 1680 x 1050 are most appreciated as we’re in the area of playable numbers.
