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AMD Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition

AMD Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition in 2025: Nostalgia or Rational Choice?

Review of an Outdated Legend for Modern Tasks

Architecture and Key Features

GCN 1.0 Architecture: The Beginning of an Era

The AMD Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition, released in 2012, is based on the first generation of the Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture. This was a breakthrough for AMD: enhanced parallel data processing, support for DirectX 11.1, and OpenGL 4.2. The manufacturing process is 28 nm, which was considered progressive for its time.

Unique Features of the Era

The card supported AMD Eyefinity technology for connecting multiple monitors, as well as AMD App Acceleration for multimedia task acceleration. However, modern features such as ray tracing (RTX), DLSS (NVIDIA), or FidelityFX Super Resolution (AMD) are absent. This makes the HD 7870 unsuitable for ray tracing gaming or AI upscaling.

Memory: Modest Specifications Compared to Modern Standards

GDDR5 and 2 GB: Minimalism of the 2010s

The memory volume is 2 GB of GDDR5 with a 256-bit bus. The effective memory frequency is 4800 MHz, which provides a bandwidth of 153.6 GB/s (calculation: 256 bits × 4800 MHz / 8). This was sufficient for games from 2012 to 2015, but by 2025, even indie projects like Hades II or Palworld on high settings may hit the VRAM limit.

Texture Package Issues

Modern AAA games, such as Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty or Starfield, require at least 4–6 GB of VRAM for 1080p. The HD 7870 will be forced to use low-detail textures, negatively impacting visual quality.

Gaming Performance: Modest Results

1080p: Only for Undemanding Projects

In 2025, the HD 7870 GHz Edition is only suitable for:

- Classic games: CS:GO 2 (averaging 80–100 FPS on low settings), Dota 2 (60–70 FPS).

- Retro emulators: RPCS3 (PS3) or Yuzu (Nintendo Switch) with limited compatibility.

- Indie games: Stardew Valley, Terraria — consistently over 100 FPS.

1440p and 4K: Unrealistic Expectations

Even in Fortnite on medium settings (1080p), the card barely reaches 40–50 FPS. It's unfit for 1440p or 4K due to a lack of VRAM and low computational power (1280 stream processors, 1 GHz) becoming critical.

Ray Tracing: No Support

Technologies such as Ray Tracing require hardware compatibility with RT cores (for example, NVIDIA's RTX 20/30 series). The HD 7870 does not support ray tracing even through software emulation.

Professional Tasks: Limited Applicability

OpenCL and Basic Tasks

The card supports OpenCL 1.2, allowing it to be used for:

- Simple editing in DaVinci Resolve (with basic effects).

- Rendering in Blender via Cycles (but the speed will be 5–7 times slower than modern Radeon RX 7600).

- Scientific calculations: only elementary simulations in MATLAB or Python (considering optimization for older drivers).

No Alternatives for CUDA

For tasks requiring CUDA (e.g., neural networks in TensorFlow), the HD 7870 is useless. Even budget NVIDIA GTX 1650 cards outperform it here.

Power Consumption and Heat Generation

TDP 175 W: Gluttony by 2025 Standards

Even modern mid-range GPUs (like Radeon RX 7600 with TDP 165 W) offer 3–4 times more performance at similar power consumption.

Cooling Recommendations

- Case with good ventilation: at least 2 intake fans and 1 exhaust fan.

- Thermal paste replacement: mandatory for used units (core temperature should not exceed 85°C under load).

- Ideal case options: Fractal Design Meshify 2 Compact or Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L.

Comparison with Competitors

Direct Competitors from 2012

- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti: similar performance but better optimization for DirectX 11.

- AMD Radeon HD 7950: 20–30% more powerful but more expensive.

Modern Analogues (2025)

- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 (4 GB): consumes 75 W, supports DLSS, and has up-to-date drivers.

- AMD Radeon RX 6400: PCIe 4.0, 4 GB GDDR6, priced from $150.

Conclusion: The HD 7870 lags behind even budget newcomers of 2025 in energy efficiency and technology support.

Practical Tips

Power Supply: Don’t Skimp

Minimum recommended PSU — 500 W with an 80+ Bronze certification (e.g., Corsair CX550M). A 8-pin PCIe connector is essential.

Platform Compatibility

- Motherboards: PCIe 3.0 x16 (compatible with PCIe 4.0/5.0 but with no speed increase).

- Processors: avoid bottlenecks — even a Ryzen 3 7300X would be excessive for this GPU.

Drivers: Point of No Return

The last official drivers from AMD for the HD 7870 were released in 2020. In Windows 11, crashes may occur — use compatibility mode or community modifications.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low price on the second-hand market ($30–50).

- Sufficient for office tasks and retro games.

- Easy thermal paste replacement and repairs.

Cons:

- No support for modern APIs (DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.3).

- High power consumption.

- Limited compatibility with new software.

Final Conclusion: Who Is the HD 7870 Suitable for in 2025?

This graphics card is a choice for:

1. Retro hardware enthusiasts building PCs in the style of the 2010s.

2. Owners of old systems where an upgrade to a modern GPU is impossible due to lack of PCIe 4.0 or weak PSU.

3. Office PCs with occasional gaming load (like Among Us or Minecraft).

However, if your budget allows for $150–200, it's better to opt for a new Radeon RX 6400 or NVIDIA GTX 1650 — they will provide current support and 2–3 times more performance. The HD 7870 in 2025 is more of an artifact of IT history than a practical solution.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

March 2012

Model Name

Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition

Generation

Southern Islands

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

Transistors

2,800 million

Compute Units

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

28 nm

Architecture

GCN 1.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

2GB

Memory Type

GDDR5

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

256bit

Memory Clock

1200MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

153.6 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

32.00 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

80.00 GTexel/s

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

160.0 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

2.509 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

1280

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

512KB

TDP

175W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.2

OpenCL Version

1.2

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 (11_1)

Power Connectors

2x 6-pin

Shader Model

5.1

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Suggested PSU

450W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

2.509 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon HD 6970

2.649 +5.6%

Quadro T1000 Mobile

2.555 +1.8%

Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition

2.509

Radeon R9 370

2.446 -2.5%

GeForce GTX 965M

2.402 -4.3%