The Joker
Thread Killer MKII
AMD today releases the third product series within the Radeon HD 7000 series of cards. It's the series that most of you have been waiting for, the Radeon HD 7800 line-up, specificly the Radeon HD 7850 and 7870.
These two new mid-range cards are going to shift the dynamics in the graphics arena alright, as the entire package including performance is really impressive for the 7800 series.
So with AMD's 7700 Series barely released we now see Pitcairn, AKA the 7800-Series. A product series that is to replace the 6800-series performance-wise, it is based on AMD's 28nm process and of course the latest Graphics Core Next GPU architecture.
As stated there are two graphics cards released today, Pitcairn XT (GPU codename) is the AMD Radeon HD HD7870 - it will have 20 Compute Units carrying 1280 Stream Processors, 80 texture units and 32 ROPs. Core and memory frequencies will clock in at an impressive 1000 MHz on the GPU and 1200MHz (4800MHz effective GDDR5) on the memory, this product is equipped with 2GB memory running over a 256-bit memory interface. AMD brands this product the "One GHz Edition" due to the reference clock frequency. This means that AMD's partners can release product clocked even higher.
Pitcairn Pro is what you'll learn to know as the Radeon HD 7850, it features 16 Compute Units, 1024 Stream (shader) Processors, 64 texture units and 32 ROPs. It's core and memory frequencies fall behind that of the 7870 but is still clocked at a good 860 MHz core with 1.20GHz (4800 MHz effective) on the memory. The 7850 tested has 2GB of graphics memory, but for this model we expect to see both 2GB and 1GB memory variants in the stores, again the memory is based on a 256-bit interface.
The 7870 is expected to have an MSRP of $349 USD, whereas the 7850 will be available for $249 (2GB). Typically prices in EUR would be slightly lower.
AMD has been focusing on three primary features and key selling points ever since the series 5000 products were released. First off, the new graphics adapters are of course DirectX 11 ready. With Windows 7 and Vista being DX11 ready all we need are some games to take advantage of DirectCompute, multi-threading, Hardware Tessellation and new shader 5.0 extensions.
Another big feature of the product that you already learned about is of course Eyefinity, the ability to connect many monitors (depending on AIC/AIB choices in outputs) to your videocard and use it in a desktop environment, or to create an incredibly wide monitor resolution to play games in. The third big and prominent feature is of course performance for money. It's new, it's affordable, it has AMD written all over it.
Benchmarks:
DX11: Battlefield 3
One of the biggest game releases of 2011 is Battlefield 3, a combat immersive game that is about to blow you from your socks. We'll take this title and have a look at DX11 performance with the newest graphics cards.
With the plot set in 2014, SSgt Blackburn leads a five-man squad on a mission to locate, find and safely return a US squad investigating a possible chemical weapons site, whose last known position was a market controlled by a hostile militia called the PLR. Blackburn and his squad is later sent to Tehran to apprehend a high-value target named Al-Bashir. While investigating an underground vault in a local bank, Blackburn and his team learn that the PLR had access to Russian portable nuclear devices, and that two of the devices are missing.
DX11: Crysis 2 - High Res Textures
Crysis 2 then. With the recent DirectX 11 patch and that High Resolution Texture pack (download) we all know one thing, Crysis has become the best looking game to date. DirectX 11 hardware tessellation is the headline feature, but the Ultra Upgrade also introduces soft shadows with variable penumbra, improved water rendering, and particle motion blur and shadowing. Having been originally omitted from CryEngine 3, Parallax Occlusion Mapping has been reintroduced, as has full-resolution High Dynamic Range motion blur, making the game’s use of camera panning more detailed and defined. To improve performance further, hardware-based occlusion culling has been implemented, resulting in performance improvements from objects and scenery out of view not being rendered.
The test run applied is stringent, harsh and really only suited for high-end DX 11 class graphics cards of 2011 and 2012
Final Words & Conclusion
With the GCN architecture AMD has proven itself to deliver a mature and great performing series of GPUs. The 7900 was received positive, we think the 7700 series is okay (albeit too expensive), the 7800 series however surprises me the best in every forseeable way.
The entire 28nm chip stack has now been filled and both the Radeon HD 7850 and 7870 are graphics cards that pack a serious amount of performance. The reality is that the Radeon HD 7850 is actually positioned against the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, but it is battling with the GeForce GTX 570 easily just as well. The Radeon HD 7870 on it's end riding the GTX 580's "toosh" all the time and for mid-range targeted cards, that shows a lot of performance. That said you should also realize that the cards tested today are reference sample. AMD's partners will start selling factory faster clocked models as well, so the performance bracket for these cards to operate in can still rise another 10% easily.
We have to discuss power consumption, as I'm riddled how AMD pulls that off. If we stay focused on the R7870 for a minute you'll agree with me that it's in the same performance level as a GTX 580 right?
Well, the R7870 used roughly a 100 Watts LESS then that GTX 580. When we reverse calculate and measure the power consumption the R7870 uses roughly 130 Watt where the GTX 580 hovers at a 235~240W, and that's measured in game while it's peaking and stressed. So for the R7850... well we measure roughly 106 Watt. Amazing stuff really.
The MSRP (in USD) prices will be 349$ for HD 7870 GHz Edition and 249$ for HD 7850, and that is just a really fair price level.
The 7800 series will be sweet products for the people gaming at 1920x1080/1200, it's is precisely there where the cards will show muscle and they won't be shy about the beefy and demanding modern game titles. Just set your image quality preference and the cards will push very nice framerates. If we look at the RTS genre with Anno 2070 then at 1920x1200 we get a good 53 FPS on average from the 7850 and a great 67 FPS on average with the 7870. That game is locked in at the very best image quality settings with 4xAA enabled.
Battlefield 3 then, here's where we enabled that near silly Ultra quality settings mode and 4xAA. Now granted the R7850 is on the edge here with 32 FPS on average, but the R7870 is kicking it loud with 39 FPS. With our IQ settings and opted level these are downright respectful numbers compared to other products in the same price range.
When you look at the overall package, performance, the new Eyefinity updates, PCIe gen 3 compatibility and all other stuff then we can only conclude that we happily embrace the Radeon HD 7800 series in the mainstream to enthusiast graphics card arena. For those that embrace multi-monitor gaming, it's for you guys that AMD decided to go for the 2GB framebuffer / graphics memory. For the 7850 we expect you may opt a 1 GB model as well, but with modern games we recommend 2 GB these days anyways (if you like better image quality that is).
Overclocking then, as you have notice the cards both are tweaking marvels. We do have to state that the R7850 is more limited with the one 6-pin PCIe power header and Overdrive clock limitations. But if you put the card instantly on the maximum AMD overclock settings, then 1050 MHz on the core does just not seem to be an issue, and that's nearly 200 MHz over the stock clock. Combined with memory tweaking you'll bring the performance level towards an R7870, instantly within 5 seconds work.
The R7870 definitely is built for even more, voltage tweaking will become an option, but even without it we got pretty close to 1200 MHz on the GPU core. 1100 MHz should be a fairly safe setting to use though. Also on both cards there was no issue putting the memory at 1450->5800 MHz. The overall result can boost your graphics performance another 10 to even 20% depending on your tweaking success.
The circle that is the Radeon HD 7000 series is now almost complete with the exception of some dual-GPU madness -- yes the R7990 is still pending a launch. But before we get to that one, I just want to say that I'm very pleased with both the Radeon HD 7850 and 7870.
The performance is good, the features very nice, the power consumption is fantastic and the heat and noise levels are a non-issue (though we do not have numbers on the smaller PCB and cooler version of the 7850 ). Now if the end-user prices will be fair (drop a little further) and at the level as earlier reported then the R7800 series is going to be a success. We'd recommend the R7850 to the casual and enthusiast gamers with a monitor resolution of 1920x1080/1200. The R7870 is obviously for the ones that demand a little more performance and have a need for tweaking and overclocking.
The complete package is done right. Overall we can only say this, well-done AMD. The Radeon HD 7800 series could be a homerun in the graphics card arena.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-radeon-hd-7850-and-7870-review/1
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