We take a look at our second Tahiti LE based AMD Radeon HD 7870 video card and overclock it this time as well to see what's on offer.

Introduction and Package

VIEW GALLERY - 30 IMAGES

Earlier in the month we had a chance to look at the new PowerColor HD 7870 2GB Myst Edition Tahiti LE based HD 7870 which uses a modified version of the higher end Tahiti HD 7900 GPU. We found ourselves extremely impressed with the new model, but it was not without its flaws.

The card itself was excellent in so many ways and it was rounded off with a really strong price. The big issue comes from the marketing side of things. As we mentioned in that review the new Tahiti LE based HD 7870 isn't a model that AMD are promoting. Instead only certain companies are offering the model with PowerColor being one, and another being Sapphire.

Due to this it's up to companies themselves to promote it and while they'll do a pretty good job, there's no denying that the product won't get the same attention verse a model that every AMD partner was promoting. Since we've already looked at one of the new Tahiti LE based HD 7870's at its out of the box speeds, we'll today be taking time to overclock a Sapphire model to see just what it's capable of doing.

As always there are a few things we need to do before we get into the overclocking side of things. We'll start with the package to see what Sapphire is offering before we move onto the video card itself. Once we've done that we'll take a look at the specifications of the card out of the box before we look at how we went with the overclocking. Finally we'll quickly check out our testbed and then get into the performance side of things.

Package

Having a look at the box there's nothing too new. You can actually see we're dealing with the typical HD 7870 box with just a sticker that gives it the new name which has the XT label tagged onto the end. The biggest problem is that we don't really know this card is based on the new Tahiti LE core. This was the same issue we noted with the PowerColor version that we looked at previously.

We kind of understand when you throw the "LE" tag onto anything it gets hit with this negative stigma. The difference is that this time we're dealing with a HD 7900 series core that has been brought down to the HD 7800 series level. In the past we often saw the LE tag on video cards in the same series where a lower end version of the core was used.

This time, though, we're dealing with a core that is used on the series above it and AMD have brought it down to the series below making it the highest end HD 7800 based video card on sale.

Looking inside the package it comes as a big surprise just how much there is contained within. Alongside the normal paperwork and driver CD we have the standard DVI to VGA connector and CrossFire bridge in the bundle. We've also got two Molex to 6-pin PCIe connectors, Mini DP to DisplayPort, HDMI to DVI and a full length HDMI cable to round things off. This package bucks the trend of late of light video card bundles.

The Card and Specifications

The Card

Having a look at the video card the overall design isn't anything too out of the ordinary - we've seen this Dual-X cooler in the past. It's a pretty strong cooler, though, and you can see the massive heatsink in the background along with a number of heatpipes coming out the bottom to help pull heat away from the core.

Moving away from the front and taking a moment to move around, you can see we've got two 6-pin PCIe power connectors at the back. As we stay across the top and move closer to the front you can see a single CrossFire connector in the event that you want to throw two of these video cards together.

Finishing up with the I/O side of things we've got a single Dual-Link DVI connector, HDMI port and a pair of Mini DisplayPort connectors. You can also see the top half has a vent that goes from top to bottom to help hot air escape out the back of your case.

Specifications

Out of the box the Sapphire HD 7870 XT carries with it the default clock speeds that are associated with this new model. That means the core comes in at 975MHz on the core and 6000 MHz QDR on the 2GB of GDDR5 memory. Like we mentioned in the introduction, because we've already had a look at stock performance in a previous PowerColor review, we'll be overclocking today.

Firing up MSI Afterburner we took the time to see what we could do with overclocking. While normally we'd adjust the voltage, as you can see above, it wasn't an option here. Since the Tahiti LE isn't manufactured by everyone it's clear that companies aren't going to put as much effort into the overclocking software, especially someone like MSI who hasn't got a Tahiti LE based video card on sale yet themselves.

For some reason GPU-Z wouldn't show us the adjusted speeds when overclocked so for that reason we've used the MSI Afterburner image. As you can see above we pushed the core up to 1208MHz. For the 2GB of GDDR5, we left that at the default 6000MHz QDR, as whenever we adjusted the memory speed, the performance of the video card would drop back - so we left the memory clock at the default speed.

Benchmarks - Test System Setup

We would like to thank the following companies for supplying and supporting us with our test system hardware and equipment: Intel, ASUS and Corsair.

Looking above you can see our testbed which is covered in detail. The cards that will be in our graphs today include this Sapphire video card which we've overclocked to 1208MHz on the core.

Along with that we've also got the older HD 7870 OC from Sapphire along with the Myst Edition of the HD 7870 from PowerColor which also uses the Tahiti LE core. To round out the collection of cards we've got the HD 7970 GHz Edition and the HIS HD 7950 IceQ X2 heavily overclocked to 1200MHz on its core.

The FPS Numbers Explained

When we benchmark our video cards and look at the graphs, we aim to get to a certain level of FPS which we consider playable. While many may argue that the human eye can't see over 24 FPS or 30 FPS, any true gamer will tell you that as we climb higher in Frames Per Seconds (FPS), the overall gameplay feels smoother. There are three numbers we're looking out for when it comes to our benchmarks.

30 FPS - It's the minimum number we aim for when it comes to games. If you're not dropping below 30 FPS during games, you're going to have a nice and smooth gaming experience. The ideal situation is that even in a heavy fire fight, the minimum stays above 30 FPS making sure that you can continue to aim easily or turn the corner with no dramas.

60 FPS - It's the average we look for when we don't have a minimum coming at us. If we're getting an average of 60 FPS, we should have a minimum of 30 FPS or better and as mentioned above, it means we've got some smooth game play happening.

120 FPS - The new number that we've been hunting down over recent months. If you're the owner of a 120 Hz monitor, to get the most out of it you want to get around the 120 FPS mark. Moving from 60 FPS / 60 Hz to 120 FPS / 120 Hz brings with it a certain fluidity that can't really be explained, but instead has to be experienced. Of course, if you're buying a 120 Hz monitor to take advantage of 3D, an average of 120 FPS in our benchmark means that in 3D you will have an average of 60 FPS, which again means you should expect some smooth gameplay.

Benchmarks - 3DMark 11

3DMark 11

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.1

Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com

Product Homepage: http://www.3dmark.com/3dmark11/

Buy It Here

3DMark 11 is the latest version of the world's most popular benchmark. Designed to measure your PC's gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

Starting off with 3DMark 11 you can see we've got a nice little boost in performance in both presets.

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.

Heaven performance drops back which is something we've seen recently when it comes to overclocked video cards. As long as this isn't consistent in our other benchmarks we're not too worried about it in this synthetic benchmark.

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.

Phantasy Star Online 2 performance is strong and you can see the overclock helps push us into that 5000+ score area which Sega says represents perfect gameplay.

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."

Lost Planet 2 performance is strong at 1680 x 1050 and 1920 x 1200 with a couple of extra FPS at both resolutions. We also see a slight bump at the highest resolution, but it's not enough to bring us in to the playable area.

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 looks great across the board with a couple of extra FPS and just playable numbers across the board, which is fantastic.

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.

Moving into F1 2012 you can see a slight boost across the board and just like Just Cause 2, we've got playable numbers across the board.

Benchmarks - Metro 2033

Metro 2033

Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update

Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark

Developer Homepage: http://www.4a-games.com/

Product Homepage: http://www.thqnordic.com/

Metro 2033 is an action-oriented video game with a combination of survival horror and first-person shooter elements. The game is based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. It was developed by 4A Games in Ukraine and released in March 2010 for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360.[3] In March 2006, 4A Games announced a partnership with Glukhovsky to collaborate on the game.[4] The game was announced at the 2009 Games Convention in Leipzig;[5] a first trailer came along with the announcement.[6] A sequel was announced, currently titled Metro: Last Light.

Metro 2033 performance sees a bump at all resolutions, but you can see it's not enough to bring us playable numbers at the highest resolution. Below that, though, we're looking good and a bit more breathing room is seen at 1920 x 1200, which is nice.

Benchmarks - Dirt Showdown

Dirt Showdown

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/uk/dirtshowdown/360/

DiRT Showdown is the new arcade racing game from the team that brought you the award-winning DiRT series, uncaged in 2012. Pick up and play controls combine with electrifying events, frenzied crowds and stunning graphics to deliver high octane, dive in and drive thrills from event one.

Dirt Showdown looks good and the overclock again gives us a boost at all resolution. At the highest resolution, though, you can see we still fall shy by just 2 FPS at the highest resolution. A slight detail adjustment would get us the numbers we need, though.

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.

While we see a slight boost across the board it comes as no surprise that we're not able to get the playable numbers we need at any resolution on this model in this intensive test.

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.

Looking at the performance under Sniper Elite V2 you can see playable FPS at 1920 x 1200 and 1680 x 1050. At the highest resolution, while we do see a slight bump in performance, we haven't got the numbers we want for a solid gaming experience.

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 looks good and at the highest resolution you can see we've got a little bit more breathing room which is always appreciated as we still sit in the 60 FPS area.

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/

Buy It Here

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.

As you'd expect we've got strong performance across the board with a decent bump in performance.

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.

We get a slight boost here under Far Cry 2, but nothing too major. More importantly, though, we've got playable FPS at both resolutions here.

Looking at Metro 2033 we can see a slight boost, but we're not able to get the FPS we need at either resolution for smooth gameplay. We're close with 56 FPS at 1920 x 1200, but we're still short.

Just Cause 2 also sees a boost in performance and while it's not enough to make a difference at 2560 x 1600, it helps push our numbers into the 70 FPS area at 1920 x 1200.

Like the other games here we see a slight boost in performance. Unfortunately we don't see a big enough boost to give us playable numbers.

Temperature Test

The temperature of the core is pulled from MSI Afterburner with the max reading used after a completed run off 3DMark Vantage and the Performance preset.

Having a look at the temperature side of things you can see performance is really good sitting in the bottom half of the graph.

Sound Test

Pulling out the TES 1350A Sound Level Meter we find ourselves quickly yelling into the top of it to see how loud we can be.

After five minutes of that we get a bit more serious and place the device two CM away from the fan on the card to find the maximum noise level of the card when idle (2D mode) and in load (3D mode).

The good thing is those aggressive temperature numbers don't come at the cost of a lot of noise as this video card really sits towards the bottom of the pack.

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.

Power consumption comes in at a little below 400 watts, which is pretty standard. What's really impressive is the idle power draw which sits at 134 watts.

Final Thoughts

AMD's new Tahiti LE based Radeon HD 7870 is a really nice GPU core that comes in at a really strong price point. While the Sapphire variant hasn't shown up just yet on store shelves, we should see it hit at a similar price point to the PowerColor model, which is around the mid $200 mark.

While this is an "official" model in one way, it's not in the sense that every AMD partner is picking up on it. Instead this LE model is limited to only a few companies with Sapphire and PowerColor being two of them. What this ultimately means is that it won't be promoted as heavily as others. The issue is it's really a fantastic model, but without the right education, most people are going to assume it's worse than the normal HD 7870 due to the lower out of the box clock speed.

We don't want this to take away from the model, though, because its performance is strong at both the normal out of the box speeds and even better when overclocked. While we couldn't do anything with the memory, we're not too worried about that as overclocking the memory usually brings with it little gains. Most of the performance increase when overclocking video cards comes from the core clock increase.

There quite possible could've been even more headroom when it came to overclocking if the ability to adjust core voltage was available to us during testing. The extremely strong overclock of 1208MHz on the core was done without a voltage bump, which is excellent. It means that if the option becomes available at a later option we could see even higher clock speeds, especially if the ability to adjust the memory voltage is given, too.

As for the cooler, it's as always, very strong. Sapphire has always done a good job with cooling solutions and here is really no different. We've got a cooler that when overclocked helps keep the core temperature down while doing it at a low noise level. When it comes to the bundle it's one of the stronger ones thanks to the big line up of cables and convertors that are not normally included. What it all comes down to in the end is that Sapphire does a really good job of ticking all the boxes with its HD 7870 XT.

This new option that AMD has given partners is really nice and it would be great to see more and more partners pick it up. We don't know what the chip availability is like from AMD and that's one of the main reasons we're probably not seeing everyone offer it. If you're in the market for a HD 7870 and a video card in general around the mid $200 mark, you should be looking at the new Tahiti LE based HD 7870, and this option from Sapphire would be a good choice.