Sapphire HD7870 Overclock Edition Review

Allan 'Zardon' Campbell April 2, 2012 Featured Tech News, Graphics

Rating: 8.0.

Last week we reviewed the overclocked XFX HD7870 Black Edition graphics card, and today we look at the Sapphire HD7870 Overclock Edition. This card features a custom cooler, with twin fans and overclocked out of the box settings to appeal to the enthusiast audience.

Sapphire discrete video cards have scored well on Kitguru in recent months, and with good reason. Their coolers are the best on the market, even outperforming solutions from XFX. The combination of low noise levels and excellent cooling proficiency ensure class leading performance.

Product	AMD HD7970	AMD HD7950	Sapphire HD7870 Overclock Edition	AMD HD7850
Core Clock speed	925mhz	800mhz	1000mhz (1,050mhz)	860mhz
Transistors	4.31 billion	4.31 billion	2.8 billion	2.8 billion
Stream Processors	2,048	1,792	1,280	1,024
Compute Performance	3.79 TFLOPS	2.87 TFLOPS	2.56 TFLOPS	1.76 TFLOPS
Texture Units	128	112	80	64
Texture Fillrate	118.4 GT/s	89.6 GT/s	80 GT/s	55.0 GT/s
ROPs	32	32	32	32
Pixel Fillrate	29.6 GP/s	25.6 GP/s	32.0 GP/s	27.52 GP/s
Z/Stencil	128	128	128	128
Memory Type	3GB GDDR5	3GB GDDR5	2GB GDDR5	2GB GDDR5
Memory Clock	1,375mhz	1,250mhz	1,200mhz (1,250mhz)	1,200mhz
Memory Data Rate	5.5 GBps	5.0 Gbps	4.8 Gbps (5.0Gbps)	4.8 Gbps
Memory Bandwidth	264 GB/s	240 GB/s	153.6 GB/s	153.6 GB/s

Sapphire have opted for the same modest overclock as XFX – that being 50mhz on the core, from 1,200mhz to 1,250mhz. The GDDR5 memory also receives a 50mhz clock increase to 1,250mhz (5.0Gbps effective). The Gigabyte HD7870 Overclock Edition that we reviewed a short while ago received a 100mhz overclock to 1,100mhz on the core, but didn’t have a memory boost at all.

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AOC’s latest Agon G4 monitors push 260Hz speeds into budget territory

AGON by AOC has added the 23.8‑inch 24G4ZR and 27‑inch 27G4ZR to its G4 lineup, combining 260Hz overclocked performance and sub‑millisecond response times with entry‑level pricing. Tilt‑only versions, the 24G4ZRE and 27G4ZRE, will follow for buyers who want the same panel performance at even lower cost.

10 comments

Davis
April 2, 2012 at 8:57 am

Another good card from the Sapphire team 🙂
Brian McFadden
April 2, 2012 at 11:06 am

Great cards. My friend bought one and its really quiet. the coolers are great this year.
Terry Oreilly
April 2, 2012 at 2:27 pm

Bought the 7970 last week 🙂
Justin
April 2, 2012 at 2:28 pm

Quality cards, but its a tough decision id have to base on price right now. as they all overclock much the same.
Brian
April 2, 2012 at 2:28 pm

Its XFX or Sapphire usually, but that gigabyte card is a solid buy,

Only one problem. YOU CANT FIND IT ANYWHERE !!!”
Joseph
April 3, 2012 at 8:02 am

nice specs. good performance sapphire coolers seem a bit better than XFX coolers in regards to tempeatures.