[Official] The AMD Radeon 7800 Owners Club - Page 105

Ok, so, I just ordered the xfx 7870 Ghost off of newegg for 319$. I just read some reviews on it and it gets like 20C hotter than the other 7870 cards? Is this true? Does this card get hotter than my old gtx 480? Whats going on..Does anyone here have one or had experiences with the card. I might deny shipment at my door step and get a different 7870 unless you guys think ill be ok to still overclock it to 1200 mhz. Thanks

I have the Black Edition. It will definitely overclock to 1200/1400. Many reviews pegged it at the 1250/1450 mark; which is the general area to shoot for. I was able to hit 1300/1500. However, temps are higher than most other cooler designs; in fact I am not even able to run the card through furmark because it will hit +90 C within 2 minutes.

I use a custom fan profile, or just run the fans at 60%, and the card never goes above 62 C in any real case scenario, BF3, Max Payne 3, etc. I have great airflow in my case: 200 mm intake front, 120 mm intake front, 200 mm exhaust top, 120 mm H80 push/pull exhaust.

So, if you like the design go for it. It is a great card and has a lifetime warranty. Tech support is very helpful as well. If for some reason you don't hit 1200/1400 on that card just tell them it is crashing on you and get another one through RMA lol.

One thing I might also add: Many of the 7870 users in this thread have reported crashing during BF3; I personally believe it to be lack of sufficient voltage at certain clocks (this would even occur at stock clocks). Increasing the voltage remedies this for lower clocks not typically requiring an over volting in other applications.
Edited by di inferi - 6/19/12 at 11:05am

20C might be a bit of a stretch... Maybe 4-5c hotter than the Gigabyte Windforce or MSi TFIII. And I will guarantee that card will not run as hot as a 480. I'm also about to swap out a reference 480 for the Gigabyte 7870 and I'm looking forward to cool, silent gaming. And from what I hear, most people can do 1200 easily.

Thanks a bunch for the info! How loud would you say the card is at 60% fan speed? pretty quiet?

Okay gents, good news and bad news.... Good news first... We now have a waterblock for the 7870
http://www.ekwb.com/news/222/19/EK-FC7870-for-AMD-Radeon-HD-7870-now-shipping/
Bad news... It uses that god awful looking new design EK is trying to pass off as "sleek/elegant" *sticks finger down throat to inducing vomiting*

It isn't bad. At 60% it is equal to an H80 on the performance settings at idle. At about 65%-70% it starts to become louder than the H80 at idle. Really it just depends on the room; in my previous house it seemed a lot louder; could be placebo who knows. Web browsing / office work at 40%, temp somewhere in the 26-28 C ball park, I can not hear the card over the H80. Keep in mind I have 2x200 mm and 3x120 mm.

I guess what I am trying to say is no, it doesn't sound like a "jet engine" until around 75% (IMO).

I use headphones so the noise is really never an issue for me.

My custom profile is set at 40% speed up until 40 C, 50% @ 50 C, 60% @ 60 C, 65% @ 70 C, once it hits 80 C (it never will real case) it will increase to 100% just for a precaution.

I used to just run it at 60% 24/7 but after tinkering with the fan profiles (Sapphire Trixx - allows over volting as well) I was able to achieve the same temps with less noise at idle. So, I would suggest going that route.

Just general info I probably average around 50 fps @ 1200/1400 and to my knowledge I have never dropped below 40 (BF3 64 player). 1920 x 1080

The only games I haven't been able to max out are The Witcher 2 (who can on a single gpu though) and Max Payne 3 ( certain levels in the single player campaign made performance drop to below 30 fps: mainly levels with a lot of water; other wise it was maxed the whole time).

It is a good card. I plan on upgrading in about 2 years once I finish my degree in computer science / engineering. Then it is on to triple monitors and beasty, beasty desk-computer builds lol. This card will do me well until then!

Ya, that isn't the prettiest thing. I would have to see it installed first lol.
Edited by di inferi - 6/19/12 at 11:57am

Alright di you convinced me to keep the card. Hope i get as good of overclocking as you got.

Just received my new 7870 (Gigabyte Windforce) and everything installed great, drivers seem well but I am getting a buzzing noise coming from the speakers when the GPU is under any kind of load. On board sound card being used and crappy low wattage speakers but this never happened with my 480. Any insight?

Update: The buzz seemed to go away on its own without changing anything but I was just browsing the web a few minutes ago and the screen went white with black vertical stripes (like a yankees jersey) and had to hard reset it. Starting to wonder why I left the green side. Please help me solve this. I really like AMD and want to support them but if this is the crap I have to go through to save on the electric bill then I will toss the 480 right back in and call it a day.

btw.. I'm using 12.6 beta drivers which I thought/heard were quite stable.
Edited by Jayjr1105 - 6/20/12 at 6:10pm

why not install the official non-beta drivers (12.4?) and see if that helps?

That's on my to-do list. Not sure if a driver will make a difference when you have a buzzing noise coming from the speakers though. The odd thing is so far all gaming and benching have been stable... OCCT, Furmark, Heaven 3.0, Diablo. Played Diablo for a good hour without an issue, ran multiple Heaven bench runs, Furmark for a good 20 min, etc. Both crashes (one hard lock one recovered) I've seen in the 24 hours owning it have been idle (close to 0% gpu usage).