Page 13 - Overclocking and Conclusion
Unfortunately, Gigabyte's OC Guru utility is not compatible with the Radeon HD 7870 2GB OC, so I have resorted to using AMD's stock overclocking utility to see how far I could go. As you can see in our screenshot above, the Radeon HD 7870's core did surprisingly well in this area. As Gigabyte had a relatively conservative overclock from the factory, we managed to squeeze another 120MHz from that. The net figure is 1220MHz, which translates to an awesome 22% over AMD specifications, or 11% over Gigabyte specifications. To test for stability, I have scanned for artifacts in Furmark in addition to testing for stability. Since Gigabyte neglected to overclock the memory from the factory, here is where our work comes in handy. Starting from 1200MHz, Hynix H5GQ2H24MFR memory ICs reached an impressive 1450MHz without any problems, or 20.8% over AMD specifications. These are excellent results, upping the 3DMark results by 17.6% compared to a stock card, as shown in our screenshot above.
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There is a saying in engineering. "If it ain't broke, there just ain't enough features." The one you usually hear -- "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" -- is something we would use in another discipline known as, well, business. While the so-called engineering way is probably the cooler way of doing things, in the real world, why change the recipe for success, when you know that it works brilliantly already? This time around, Gigabyte's interpretation of AMD's Radeon HD 7870 2GB, the GV-R787OC-2GD, is yet another product from the company featuring a beautiful WindForce 3X cooler, overclocked straight from the factory, and quality electronic components to boot. So did it work this time around? Well, to put it in terms anyone can understand, yes. Why? Well, the cooler itself is worth the price premium over your generic bone stock competitor; the one we are rolling with today costs only $10-20 more than the average card for sale. Combined with upgraded electronic components and a nice little factory overclock of 100MHz, what's not to love? That is not to mention it has a boatload of overclocking headroom, too. The only thing I would like to see is a better programmed fan (Since it runs so cool anyway, I don't see why it needs to default at 40% fan speed), but other than that, there really isn't much to complain about. The Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 2GB OC is yet another card from the company that delivers in price and features that will appeal to hardcore gamers and even silent PC enthusiasts.
Gigabyte provided this product to APH Networks for the purpose of evaluation.
Since April 30, 2007, Number Ratings have been dropped for all CPUs, motherboards, RAM, SSD/HDDs, and graphics cards. This is to ensure the most appropriate ratings are reflected without the inherent limits of using numbers. Everything else will continue using the Number Rating System.
More information in our Review Focus.
The Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 2GB OC is yet another card that sets the standard for excellence. So for those guys at the office who are reading this review, let's just say I would request this video card in my work PC for, uhh, productivity reasons, haha.
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Page Index
1. Introduction, Specifications, Bundle
2. AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series Architecture
3. A Closer Look, Test System
4. Benchmark: 3DMark 11
5. Benchmark: Battlefield: Bad Company 2
6. Benchmark: Call of Duty: Black Ops
7. Benchmark: Colin McRae: DiRT 2
8. Benchmark: Far Cry 2
9. Benchmark: Just Cause 2
10. Benchmark: Metro 2033
11. Benchmark: Unigine: Heaven v2.5
12. Power Usage, Temperature, Noise
13. Overclocking and Conclusion
