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AMD Radeon HD 8870 OEM

AMD Radeon HD 8870 OEM in 2025: Is It Worth Buying? Analyzing an Outdated GPU

Introduction

The AMD Radeon HD 8870 OEM graphics card is a relic from 2013 that can still be found on the secondary market and in budget builds. Despite its age, it can be purchased new (from leftovers) for $60–80. But is it still relevant in 2025? Let's find out who this model is suitable for and what pitfalls await users.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: The HD 8870 OEM is built on the GCN 1.0 (Graphics Core Next) microarchitecture, which debuted in 2011. This is the first generation of GCN, focused on improving parallel computing but significantly lagging behind AMD's modern RDNA 3.

Manufacturing process: 28 nm — by 2025 standards, this is a "dinosaur." In comparison, modern GPUs are manufactured using 5–6 nm processes, which provide lower heat generation and greater energy efficiency.

Features:

- Support for DirectX 11.2 and OpenGL 4.6. No compatibility with DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.3, or ray tracing.

- Lacks FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) and FidelityFX technologies — these were introduced in AMD GPUs starting from the RX 5000 series.

- Basic AMD Eyefinity functions for connecting multiple monitors.

Conclusion: The card is stuck in the past — no modern "features," just basic rendering.

2. Memory: The Weak Link

- Type and Amount: 2 GB GDDR5 with a 128-bit bus.

- Bandwidth: 88 GB/s (memory frequency — 5.5 GHz).

- Impact on Performance: 2 GB of video memory is critically low even for 2025 games on low settings. For instance, in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty or Starfield, textures will continuously load from disk, causing lag.

For office tasks (browsing, watching videos), this is sufficient, but for 4K editing or 3D modeling — it's not.

3. Gaming Performance: Only Old Titles

FPS Examples (1080p, low settings):

- CS2: 45–55 FPS (but may drop in dynamic scenes).

- GTA V: 35–40 FPS.

- Fortnite: 25–30 FPS (without FSR support).

- Hogwarts Legacy: Less than 15 FPS — the game is virtually unplayable.

Resolutions:

- 1080p: Minimum for modern games, but only in indie projects or games released before 2018.

- 1440p and 4K: Not recommended — the GPU cannot even handle rendering the interface.

Ray tracing: No hardware or software support.

4. Professional Tasks: Extremely Limited Capabilities

- Video Editing: In Adobe Premiere Pro, rendering will take 3-4 times longer than on a modern RTX 3050.

- 3D Modeling: Blender and Maya work with OpenCL, but 2 GB of memory won't be enough for complex scenes.

- Scientific Computations: Lack of CUDA support (NVIDIA's ecosystem) makes the card useless for machine learning or simulations.

Conclusion: The HD 8870 OEM is not suitable for professionals — it's a choice for the most basic tasks.

5. Power Consumption and Heat Generation

- TDP: 150 W — quite high for such a weak card. For comparison, a modern RTX 4050 (100 W) offers performance five times greater.

- Cooling: OEM versions are often equipped with a simple cooler with an aluminum heatsink. Under load, the temperature reaches 75–80°C, and noise levels are 38–42 dB.

- Recommendations:

- A case with 2-3 fans for airflow.

- Regular thermal paste replacement (every 1-2 years).

6. Comparison with Competitors

Analogues from 2013-2014:

- NVIDIA GTX 760 (2 GB): Roughly equivalent performance, but better optimization for older games.

- AMD Radeon R9 270X: 15-20% faster than the HD 8870 OEM, but more expensive.

In 2025: Even budget-friendly Intel Arc A380 ($120) surpasses the HD 8870 OEM in performance by 3-4 times and supports modern APIs.

7. Practical Advice

- Power Supply: At least 450 W with 80+ Bronze certification. For example: EVGA 450 B5.

- Compatibility:

- PCIe 3.0 x16 (backward compatible with 2.0).

- Not suitable for motherboards without UEFI (boot issues may occur).

- Drivers: The latest version from AMD — 2023. New games and programs may not be optimized.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low price ($60-80).

- Suitable for office PCs and HTPCs (1080p video playback).

- Easy installation — no additional cables required (powered via PCIe).

Cons:

- No support for modern technologies (DLSS, FSR, RTX).

- High power consumption.

- Noisy cooling system.

- Only 2 GB of memory.

9. Final Conclusion: Who is the HD 8870 OEM Suitable For?

This graphics card is an option for a very limited budget. It is relevant if:

- You need an upgrade for an old PC for document work or movie watching.

- You are building a media center based on cheap hardware.

- You only play old titles (e.g., Skyrim, Half-Life 2).

Do not buy the HD 8870 OEM if:

- You plan to play new releases from 2023-2025.

- You are involved in video editing or 3D design.

- You want a quiet and energy-efficient system.

In 2025, even budget integrated graphics processors (such as those in Ryzen 5 8600G) outperform the HD 8870 OEM. However, as a temporary solution to "revitalize" an old computer, this card may still serve a purpose.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

January 2013

Model Name

Radeon HD 8870 OEM

Generation

Sea 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 5870

2.666 +6.3%

Radeon RX 560

2.559 +2%

Radeon HD 8870 OEM

2.509

T600 Max-Q

2.45 -2.4%

Radeon RX 460 1024SP

2.409 -4%